The list
The Raneris 50
Fifty things worth knowing before you charter, buy, crew or step aboard, ordered by when you need them rather than by what they cost. Tick them off, keep the list, come back to it.
Learn to ask for gross tonnage
Volume is what you live in. Two boats of the same length can differ by half, and only one of them has a beach club. Superyachts
Do the ten per cent arithmetic before anything else
Annual running cost is roughly a tenth of the new build value. Write the number down and look at it for a week. Superyachts
Read a general arrangement plan
Ninety seconds with the deck plans tells you more about a week aboard than an hour of photographs. Superyachts
Count the crew before you count the cabins
Crew is the largest line in the budget, and the crew list is decided by the boat rather than by preference. Crew Services
Learn the four numbers of a charter
Base rate, allowance, tax and gratuity. The listing quotes the first and it is about sixty per cent of the total. Charter Destinations
Decide honestly whether you will sail
A sailing yacht is cheaper to run and asks more of everybody aboard. Half the fleet was bought by people who never sail. Sailing Yachts
Understand what beam costs
A catamaran pays one and a half to two times the berth of a monohull, when a harbour has a wide berth at all. Catamarans
Accept that the berth decides the boat
On this coast the berth is scarcer than the yacht. Find out what is available before you fall in love with a length. Marinas
Open a refit reserve in year one
Two to three per cent of the value each year turns the five year yard period into a payment rather than a crisis. Yacht Management
Look up the runway before the aircraft
The airport closest to the anchorage decides the day. A large cabin jet cannot land twenty minutes from the boat. Private Jets
Mark the two best weeks of the season
The last week of May and the third of September: warm water, empty anchorages and half the berth rate. Charter Destinations
Understand who pays the broker
The seller pays the whole commission and it is split, so a buyer without their own broker saves nothing at all. Yacht Brokers
Ask what the boat does in the other ten months
A yacht is under way for about a tenth of the year. The rest is where ownership is actually decided. Superyachts
Fill in the preference sheet properly
The chef and the chief stewardess treat it as the specification for the entire week. Ten minutes, well spent. Charter Destinations
Plan three anchorages, not seven harbours
A week that changes port every night is a week spent looking at the boat in front of you and paying for berths. Charter Destinations
Give the boat name when you book a table
Clubs keep lists of yachts. A boat that is known gets a table, a boat that is not gets a time. Beach Clubs
Land at the dock, never in the swimming area
It is a rule the harbourmaster enforces as well as the club, and the fine is the least of the consequences. Beach Clubs
Arrive the night before
A party that lands and boards the same morning loses the first day. A hotel night costs a fraction of that day. Luxury Hotels
Book the ground transfer with the aircraft
The helicopter or the cars, arranged at the same time as the flight rather than after it, is the whole arrival. Private Jets
Book a summer berth a year ahead
For fifty metres on the Riviera in August, twelve months. For anything over seventy, the captain starts in January. Marinas
Skip New Year in Saint Barths at least once
Minimum stays, premium rates and a crowded anchorage. The Grenadines two weeks later cost forty per cent less. Charter Destinations
Ask the crew where they would eat
Every famous stretch of coast has a club one bay along that does the same food for two thirds of the price. Beach Clubs
Call three harbours about your beam
Ask in metres what the widest berth is and how many there are. Two calls decide whether the plan fits the boat. Catamarans
Build the hotel relationship in May
A lunch booking when the terrace is quiet is why the answer in August is yes. Concierges remember the early season. Luxury Hotels
Budget positioning, not just the flight
The aircraft has to reach you and get home. On a one way trip you frequently pay for both legs. Private Jets
Learn the tipping convention of the coast
Ten to fifteen per cent in the Mediterranean, fifteen to twenty in the Caribbean, given to the captain to distribute. Charter Destinations
Find out which wind hurts
Mistral, meltemi, bora, tramontana. A harbour is only sheltered if it is sheltered from the one that matters. Marinas
Never skip the survey
Forty to eighty thousand euros on a fifty metre boat, and it moves the price by several times that on a normal deal. Yacht Brokers
Take an oil sample from every engine
A few hundred euros of analysis, and the single best value item in the entire purchase process. Yacht Brokers
Ask to see the VAT document
Not the assertion, the import declaration. On a twenty million euro boat the difference is about four million. Yacht Brokers
Read the delivery condition clause twice
It defines the inventory, the tenders, the spares and the state of the boat at closing. Vague inventories cost money. Yacht Brokers
Add an operator survey to the technical one
A captain or manager walking the boat finds the galley, the crew mess and the tender problems an engineer will not. Yacht Brokers
Write the refit specification before you tender
A written scope produces comparable quotations. A conversation produces three numbers and a variation order culture. Yacht Management
Fix the variation order process in the contract
Who can sign one, what it needs in writing, and what an hour costs. Refits overrun through fifty small yes answers. Yacht Management
Call the last chief engineer, not the referee
Engineers have no incentive to protect a captain and they saw every technical decision and every yard invoice. Crew Services
Get the full total in writing before you sign
Base, allowance, tax and an allowance for the gratuity. Ask for one number and check where the charter starts. Charter Destinations
Model a charter programme on sixty per cent
Commission, extra crew, consumables and management take about forty per cent of the gross. Plan on the net. Yacht Management
Ask for the standing rigging certificate
Date, who did it and the paperwork. Insurers ask, class asks, and a seller who cannot answer has not looked after her. Sailing Yachts
Price rotation before you need it
It doubles the cost of the positions it covers and it is the market price of keeping a good officer above seventy metres. Crew Services
Ask a manager who is on your account
Not the firm, the person, how many boats they carry and what happens when they are on holiday. Yacht Management
Hire the captain before you buy the boat
The best owners choose the captain first and let them survey, commission and crew the yacht they will run. Crew Services
Choose the home berth for shelter and services
A yard, a chandler and a fuel dock within an hour are worth more than a famous quay, and the crew will tell you so. Marinas
Settle the flag and the structure with a lawyer
Registry, ownership vehicle and whether she is private or commercial. Changing any of them later is expensive. Yacht Brokers
Decide where she sits against 500 gross tonnes
Above it comes a safety management system, higher certification and a manager ashore. It is a cliff, not a slope. Superyachts
Size the boat for the people who will actually be aboard
Twelve guests need about forty five metres before anybody has to accept a cabin nobody wants. Superyachts
Charter the hull type before you buy it
A week on a sailing yacht with a captain who sails converts half the people who try it and saves the other half a fortune. Sailing Yachts
Match the hull to how many nights you tie up
Anchor most nights and the catamaran wins. Move between famous harbours and it is the wrong boat at any price. Catamarans
Put the boat in a proper structure with a manager
Above forty metres she is a company with employees and a compliance regime. Somebody has to run it, and it is not you. Yacht Management
Publish the season schedule and keep to it
Certainty about dates and leave keeps crew better than money does, and a crew of four seasons is uninsurable value. Crew Services
Keep one week a year that is not on the boat
The places worth a week that no programme reaches, and a breakfast where nobody knows your name. Luxury Hotels
The Log
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