Yacht Management Questions

[DreamInMotion]

Hello all,
Have a question for the members. Looking into buying a 2006 lagoon 440. The cat is currently in a yacht management agreement. Chartering it out throughout the year. Wondering if anybody has their Catamaran with a management company or is knowledgeable on the matter. Looking for any insight on things to look out for pros/cons, besides the obvious. Thanks

[ArtM]

Why are they selling it if it is still under charter? Is it personally owned (by a natural person), or under LLC/Corp ownership? Will you by taking over the charter management? Why are you interested in buying a boat that is still in charter?

I've researched these kinds of arrangements pretty throughly in recent months and have a lot of info.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by DreamInMotion

Hello all,
Have a question for the members. Looking into buying a 2006 lagoon 440. The cat is currently in a yacht management agreement. Chartering it out throughout the year. Wondering if anybody has their Catamaran with a management company or is knowledgeable on the matter. Looking for any insight on things to look out for pros/cons, besides the obvious. Thanks

Just to clarify, it sounds like you really mean it is with a "charter company" -- right?

Note that there are also yacht maintenance/management services which just maintain the boat -- not charter it out.

These are two different business models so the answers differ depending on which applies.

[Kettlewell]

The obvious one is what sort of maintenance and repair history does it have? I've seen some charter yachts being worked on by rather low-skilled workers who didn't really know what they were doing. However, I suspect if it has been chartered by one of the major companies the standards will have been much higher. As you may know, charter boats tend to lead hard lives being used by people with more money than skills.

[FLLCatsailor]

Where is the boat based, who is the charter company, and do you need charter revenue to be able to afford the yacht?

Depending on where the boat is based can really have a huge impact on the kind of charter revenue you could potentially earn. Did they offer to show you the books for the boat over the past couple of years, and their pro forma for next season?

Some of the charter companies do great jobs, some do TERRIBLE JOBS.

Do you need to have the yacht in charter service to be able to afford the yacht??? If the answer is no, then you might want to consider your options.

Shoot me a PM if you'd like some more insight into charter yacht management... I've been on all sides of the equation...