Yacht management, guardianage, compliance, crew and berth administration.
Written by James Holloway, Marinas, Cruising & Destinations EditorLast updated
Vessel management is what you buy when you have a boat and not enough time. At its simplest it is guardianage: someone checks the boat weekly, runs the engine, tests the bilge pump and batteries, adjusts warps and fenders before a blow, and tells you when something is wrong. At the other end it is full management of a larger yacht — berth and contract administration, maintenance planning and supervision, crew recruitment and payroll, insurance and class or coding compliance, budgets and accounts, refit project management, and running a charter programme with the tax and VAT treatment that goes with it.
The reason owners use it is straightforward: unattended boats deteriorate and then fail expensively. Most UK winter insurance claims involve chafe, water ingress, flat batteries with a dead bilge pump, or storm damage nobody spotted for three weeks. A manager visiting weekly and holding an inspection log turns those into small jobs. It also matters for insurance and finance: many underwriters price better for a boat under managed care, and some require it for a boat lying unattended abroad.
The key questions are commercial rather than technical. What exactly is visited and checked, how often, who authorises spend, and how is the manager paid — because a manager taking a commission on the contractors they hire has an incentive you need to see clearly.
Insist on the actual checklist: frequency of visits, bilges, batteries and charging, mooring lines and fenders, engine runs, dehumidifier, hull and topside condition, and a dated report with photographs after each one.
Establish whether they charge a flat retainer, hourly, or a percentage of works, and whether they take commission or mark-up on contractors. A manager whose income rises with your maintenance bill needs watching.
Agree a figure below which they can act to protect the boat and above which they must get your approval, with a clear emergency exception. Both extremes cause disputes if left unwritten.
For larger yachts, ask about crew contracts, MLC compliance, payroll, certification tracking and flag-state and coding obligations. This is specialist administration and is where the value of full management sits.
Check their professional indemnity and public liability, and whether client funds are held separately. If they hold your money for berthing and works, how it is segregated matters.
If they will charter the boat, get the split, the utilisation assumptions, the wear-and-tear treatment and the VAT and income position in writing. Optimistic charter income projections are the most common source of disappointment.
Britain gives managed care an obvious job: an eight-month season of gales, high rainfall and a fleet that mostly sits idle from October to April. Storm damage to mooring lines and fenders, rainwater ingress through tired deck fittings and hatch seals, flat batteries leaving a bilge pump inert, and condensation and mildew below are all routine, and all cheap to catch early. Boats on tidal moorings and drying berths on the East Coast, in the Bristol Channel and in Wales need closer watching again, because grounding position and ground tackle matter every tide.
Geography also drives the market. The Solent and South Coast have the densest concentration of guardianage and full-management firms, alongside superyacht-standard operations; the West Coast of Scotland and the South West are served by fewer, more regional companies covering long distances — which makes visit frequency and travel charges a real negotiating point. If your boat lies abroad, check whether the manager has genuine local presence or is subcontracting to someone you will never meet.
Basic UK guardianage with regular visits and reports commonly runs £50 to £150 a month for a mid-size leisure boat. Full management of a larger yacht is usually a retainer or a percentage of the annual operating budget, frequently in the 5% to 10% range, and is quoted case by case.
Guardianage is the care-and-inspection element only. Full management adds maintenance planning and supervision, contracts, crew, compliance, budgets and, where relevant, chartering. Many owners start with guardianage and add services as needed.
It can, and it sometimes affects whether cover is offered at all. Underwriters look favourably on documented regular inspection, particularly for boats left afloat over the UK winter or lying unattended overseas — mention it at renewal and ask.
Yes, but it changes the boat's status: commercial use needs the appropriate MCA coding, commercial insurance and different tax treatment. Get the projected utilisation, cost split and VAT position in writing before committing.
Whatever you agreed. Best practice is a written spending limit for routine and protective work, approval required above it, and a defined emergency provision so a manager can act immediately to prevent loss or sinking.
Hampshire
Yacht management company providing technical, operational and refit support to private yachts and superyachts.
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