Delivery and crew: the first weeks of ownership

Getting her where you want her

A yacht bought in one cruising ground and wanted in another can travel in three ways. She can make the passage under her own power with her own crew, which is the norm for larger yachts and gives a new crew time to learn her. She can be moved by a delivery crew hired for the passage. Or she can be carried as cargo on a yacht transport ship, which avoids the wear and the risk of a long ocean passage and is often chosen for ocean crossings and for smaller yachts.

Each option has its own insurance requirements, and the passage plan must suit her design, her range and the season. Moving her also has customs consequences: arriving in the EU, the UK or elsewhere is an event for customs purposes, and her VAT status and any temporary admission position need to be settled before she sails, not on arrival.

If she is to be shipped, the transport company sets the loading port and date, and the yacht must be prepared for the voyage: tanks at the levels the carrier asks for, loose gear secured, and her cradle drawings supplied in advance. A delivery under her own power needs a passage plan, a crew qualified for the distance, and a check that her certificates and safety equipment are valid for the waters she will cross.

What happens to the crew

When you buy a crewed yacht, the seller's crew do not automatically come with her. They are employed by the seller or by the seller's management or crew employment company, and the contract should state whether they will be released at closing or offered new terms. Keeping a good captain and engineer who know the yacht is often valuable, and the decision should be made before closing so that nobody is left uncertain.

Crew on yachts in commercial use are seafarers under the Maritime Labour Convention 2006, which requires written seafarer employment agreements and sets rules on hours of rest, repatriation, medical care and accommodation. Larger commercial yachts are inspected and certified against it. Private yachts fall outside its strict scope, but good employers follow it anyway, and experienced crew will expect them to.

Employment and manning

Crew are usually employed through a crew employment company or the yacht's management company rather than directly by the owner, which keeps employment contracts, payroll, social security and insurance in one place and in the right jurisdiction. The flag state's manning rules set the number and qualifications of crew a yacht must carry, and for commercial yachts these are stated in a safe manning document.

The captain is the most important appointment you will make. A good captain runs the yacht, the crew and the budget, and is the person you will speak to most often. We can introduce you to management companies and crew placement specialists if you are building a crew from the beginning.

Paperwork in the first weeks

After closing, the registration is completed in your name, and any provisional certificate is replaced by a permanent one once the original documents have been filed. Insurance must be in place from the moment of handover, and your insurer will want to see the survey report. The ship station radio licence is issued to the new owner, safety equipment servicing is checked against its due dates, and any commercial certification is transferred with the approval of the flag.

If the yacht is changing name or flag, her name and port of registry must be re-marked on the hull as the new registry requires before she sails far. We keep a checklist of these items with you and co-ordinate them with the management company.

Tell her marina, her suppliers and her service agents that ownership has changed, and move the accounts that follow her, such as satellite communications, into your name or the management company's.

Taking her out for the first time

However experienced you are, the first days aboard a new yacht are for learning her. Plan a short shakedown cruise before any long passage or guest programme, so that the crew and the systems are proven and anything the survey flagged can be checked in use. A yacht that has spent months at her berth while she was for sale often needs some running before everything settles.

Keep a list of small faults from those first days and work through it with the captain. Most are minor and quickly resolved; the ones that are not are better found on a short cruise near a good yard than halfway through the season.