New build versus brokerage

The two paths, honestly described

Brokerage is the purchase of an existing yacht. Time from offer to delivery is typically 6 to 12 weeks; capital is concentrated at closing; the yacht is a known quantity to the extent the survey reveals it. The buyer takes the seller's specification, build quality, wear and tear, and accumulated maintenance debt. The risk profile is read once, at survey, and accepted.

New build is commissioning a yacht to specification from a shipyard. Time from contract to delivery is 24 to 36 months for semi-custom and 36 to 60 for fully custom. Capital is committed in stage payments: typically 20 to 30 percent at signature, 50 to 70 across the build, balance at delivery. The yacht is bespoke; everything from hull form to door handles is specified by the owner and the design team.

The cost premium of new build over a comparable brokerage hull is typically 30 to 50 percent at entry, narrowing to 15 to 25 percent at delivery as the brokerage hull depreciates and the new build hits the market. Over a five-year hold the gap closes further; quality builders (Feadship, Lürssen, Royal Huisman, Vitters) hold value much better than brokerage acquisitions of comparable size.

Where new build risk concentrates

The published case record concentrates new build risk in three patterns: governance on the buyer side, yard financial condition during the build, and yard pricing too low to be credible. All three are addressable with the right representation team and contract structure.

Project Somnio, the 222 metre residential vessel associated with Carl Le Souef and Captain Erik Bredhe, generated a UK High Court ruling in January 2025 (Winch Design Limited v Le Souef [2025] EWHC 120 (Comm)) that Le Souef was personally liable for GBP 733,750 in unpaid invoices, the court finding that the special purpose vehicle (SPV) he had argued was the contracting party would not have been read as such by any objective bystander. The lesson for first-time buyers: contracting personally, or with SPV structuring that does not survive litigation, leaves the principal directly exposed. The fix is set at heads-of-terms by counsel, not after the dispute.

A second governance case on the published record comes from Jack Inglis at ULTIMAR. Writing in Superyacht Investor in October 2025: a semi-custom new build where the owner deputised a family-office CFO with no maritime expertise as owner's representative. The delivery snag list exceeded 1,200 items against the family office's reported figure of around 100, and the yacht was sold after a single season. Inglis's broader framing of the pattern: "quantity does not mean quality, speed just equals more problems."

A snag list is not a list of broken things, that is the mistake people make. You can have 300 cosmetic snags and sleep perfectly well, or you can have 15 critical commissioning issues and lose the first season. The real issue is never the number, it is understanding the difference between quantity and consequence.

Inglis's warning to first-time buyers in the present order-book expansion is that vessels poorly overseen during construction return to the yards for warranty works faster than they were delivered.

The real measure is not whether a yacht has a two year warranty; it is how much of that period is spent enjoying the yacht versus fixing it.

The yard-side pattern, less covered in trade press, has emerged over the past five years: a yard runs into financial difficulty mid-build, and the owner is presented with a choice that is not really a choice. Inject additional capital, sometimes as equity in the restructured business, or face the yacht stalling, the supplier chain freezing, and the work-in-progress becoming an asset of the insolvency.

Nobiskrug, the German builder of Sailing Yacht A, is the cleanest recent example. Then under Tennor Group (Lars Windhorst), the yard filed for insolvency in December 2024 alongside FSG. Lürssen acquired the assets in early 2025; the yard was integrated into the neighbouring Lürssen-Kröger facility, over 95 percent of the combined workforce transferred under a transfer-company mechanism, and suspended in-build projects (including a 62 metre yacht) moved to Lürssen for completion. Owners with hulls in the yard at insolvency faced direct exposure: contracts novated to the acquiring entity, terms renegotiated, in some cases additional payments requested to cover trustee costs.

Italian Sea Group's April 2026 restructuring (Admiral, Tecnomar, Perini Navi, Picchiotti, NCA refit) extended the logic into procedural protection. On 20 April 2026 the Court of Florence confirmed protective measures retroactive to the 16 March filing for a maximum four months. The order prevented shipowners from terminating in-build contracts during the restructuring window: from the buyer's perspective a court-mandated commitment to a counterparty whose financial condition had changed since signature.

The buyer pays stage payments forward; when the yard's financial condition deteriorates, those stage payments become creditor positions in someone else's insolvency. Refund guarantees protect a portion of the exposure in principle; in practice, particularly under non-tier-one bank wrappers, they are less reliable than the contract suggests. Norton Rose Fulbright's commentary on Chinese-bank refund guarantees expiring within one month of cancellation is widely cited; the timing of insolvency proceedings rarely lines up with the guarantee window.

Three workstreams the buyer's team handles in advance. Yard financial due diligence at heads of terms: recent published accounts, parent structure, order-book composition, and litigation history form part of standard pre-contract assessment. Refund guarantee credit quality carries the same weight as any other contract term. And a position is taken in advance, with counsel, on what to do if mid-build distress produces an equity-injection or accelerated-payment proposal, so the decision is reached before pressure rather than under it.

The third pattern is distinct from yard financial distress: yard pricing below what the build can credibly be done for. Some yards make offers that are simply too low. A yacht's build cost is a combination of direct cost and overhead, and the overhead is not money the yard wastes on itself; it is what produces a quality boat. Profit margins on top-tier construction are not large to begin with. A buyer who has done diligence on one yard will already have a sense of what those margins are. When another yard quotes fifteen percent below for a comparable build at similar margins, the arithmetic does not work, and the broker explaining why it does is rarely the buyer's friend on that point. The alarm bell should ring.

The historical case is documented in the public association history of the Superyacht Builders Association (SYBAss). New yards arrived in the market with very deep capital in the early 2000s, sold large hulls at prices the founding yards (Feadship, Lürssen, Benetti) could see were below cost, and discovered as much on delivery. In at least one cited case, seven hulls had already been sold by the time the first was completed. The SYBAss eligibility rule of three delivered hulls over forty metres came directly out of that period. Once a yard has delivered, it knows what the boats actually cost.

The new build contract is where inexperience gets priced. The cost overrun appears later, but it was paid for at signature.

The contract is where it happens

A new build contract is the most consequential document a yacht buyer signs. It governs USD 30 to 200 million of capital across two to five years, and structures every variation, every dispute, every interpretation question in the period during which the yard holds the cards.

Page count means very little on its own. What matters is whether the contract actually controls risk.

Standard shipbuilding forms exist (SAJ, AWES, NEWBUILDCON, SHIP 2000); the SAJ form, published by the Shipbuilders' Association of Japan, is most used globally and "thought to favour the shipyard" in unamended form. But the European yards that matter — Lürssen, Feadship, Oceanco, Royal Huisman, Heesen, Sanlorenzo, Benetti — do not contract on any of those. They contract on heavily customised in-house templates drafted by their counsel, with English law and London arbitration grafted on.

The buyer who does not retain specialist shipbuilding counsel before signing is being asked to negotiate a bespoke document drafted entirely by the yard's lawyers, against standard forms the buyer's representative has likely never seen.

Ten specific points an inexperienced representative gives away at signature:

1. Stage payment loading. Shipbuilding industry typical: 50 to 70 percent of contract value paid before delivery (Watson Farley & Williams). Aggressive front-loading suggests the yard is short of cash to start the build.

2. Refund guarantee credit quality. Tier-one bank pay-on-demand guarantees are materially better than surety wrappers. Chinese-bank refund guarantees commonly expire one month or less after cancellation, forcing immediate arbitration (Norton Rose Fulbright).

3. Liquidated damages cap. Industry typical: 1 percent of contract value per week of delay, capped at 5 to 10 percent of contract sum. After the cap, the yard owes nothing further (Hill Dickinson, citing Triple Point Technology v PTT [2021] UKSC 29).

4. Force majeure burden. English law requires the yard to prove "but for" causation under Classic Maritime v Limbungan [2019] EWCA Civ 1102. Yards routinely write looser clauses; weak reps accept them.

5. Change order procedure. Without a defined procedure with pre-agreed unit rates and third-party quote rights, "the owner is open to being forced to pay for change orders or emergent work at a unit rate much higher than in the original contract" (Stephenson Harwood, Sean Gibbons).

6. Defect notification deadlines. Typically 14 days from discovery, with failure to notify potentially extinguishing the claim entirely (HFW).

7. Warranty length. Standard 12 months. Negotiable to 24. Most inexperienced reps do not negotiate it.

8. Cancellation thresholds. SAJ standard: 150 days post-delivery date or 180 days total delay (Jiangsu Guoxin v Precious Shipping [2020] EWHC 1030). Bespoke yacht contracts replicate but with negotiable thresholds.

9. Title position during construction. Some yards (Feadship cited) retain title until delivery; others transfer progressively. This determines who carries insolvency risk and who has repossession rights.

10. Dispute forum. English law plus London Maritime Arbitrators Association (LMAA) arbitration is the practitioner default. Inexperienced reps sometimes accept non-English law or non-LMAA seats that materially weaken the buyer's position.

A single afternoon's competent legal review at heads-of-terms saves more than the owner's representative fee for the entire project. It is consistently not done.

Kevin Laverty of Hill Robinson, writing in BOAT International, has identified the relative thinness of yacht-construction contracts as drafted. One widely cited example is a 33-page contract for a 77 metre yacht, against the multi-volume documentation typical of oil and gas projects of comparable cost.

What an owner's representative does

The owner's representative is the strategic role on the buyer's side of a yacht acquisition, build, or refit. Paid by and accountable to the owner, the representative carries the project at principal level: scope, contract, budget, programme, and the relationship with the yard above the day-to-day. The role is not the same as a project manager, a broker, a yacht manager, or a captain. Each of those is part of the team the representative builds.

The work runs across four phases, each with its own discipline.

Pre-contract. The representative scopes the acquisition or build with the owner, sets the budget envelope, identifies the candidate yards or hulls, and runs the comparison against the owner's actual use case. The strongest cost saving in any project is made here, before the contract is signed.

Contract. The representative leads the buyer's position in heads-of-terms drafting, working alongside specialist shipbuilding counsel. Stage payments, refund guarantee credit quality, change-order procedure with pre-agreed unit rates, warranty length, dispute forum, and title position during construction are the points where inexperienced representation is most exposed.

Build, refit, or post-acquisition. The representative supervises against the contract: weekly reporting, milestone payments tied to defined deliverables, snag-list discipline, and the technical workstreams that determine quality at delivery. On a major project the representative appoints a project manager for the day-to-day; on a smaller one, carries both roles.

Acceptance and warranty. The representative runs the snag list to closure, manages sea trials against the contractually named noise and vibration limits, prosecutes warranty claims, and produces a delivery record that holds up in any subsequent insurance, sale, or refit conversation.

The representative brings deep industry experience to the role. The path typically runs from a senior operational career, often as a yacht captain or chief engineer, where the representative has already managed budgets, contracts, crew, refits, and the technical workstreams from the operating side of the yacht. That breadth is the qualification.

SYBAss founded YORP because the gap was structural

SYBAss launched the Yacht Owner Representative Programme (YORP) in July 2023 with founding member Benetti: four courses totalling 200 hours, of which Unit 40 is the only mandatory course for the most experienced practitioners. The Yacht Owner's Representative Register (YORR) followed at The Superyacht Forum in Amsterdam in November 2024, administered by the Malta-based Superyacht Alliance for Professional Standards, with a CV audit “to eliminate inflated CVs” and a code of conduct.

The four courses move from the shipyard outwards. They begin with the yard: how it actually builds boats, where its money comes from, what its commitments to other owners on the order book mean for a representative trying to negotiate inside it. You cannot usefully negotiate with what you do not understand. The representative's own job follows: team structure, change-order discipline, the dozen or so specific tasks the role contains, and the preparation-for-operations work at the back end of the build so often mistaken for the whole role. Then the legal layer, aimed not at producing lawyers but at producing representatives who know what their lawyer needs from them, and when. Last is what the rest cannot teach: communication, negotiation, the judgement that takes a difficult project through its rough middle and out the other side.

The register's filter exists because of a recognisable CV problem: applicants claim involvement they did not have, on projects too large for anyone to have built alone.

On anything bigger than an Optimist, nobody builds a boat on their own. Hundreds of people are involved on a serious new build, sometimes thousands. The honest question is not whether you were on the project but what your part in it was.

The register's application form is built to demand that level of detail. In which parts of the owner's representation were you involved, what were you responsible for at each stage, who else was on the owner-side team. Some applicants ask for the documentation, read what is being asked of them, and decide not to apply. Of those who do, the reference is called. There have been cases where the reference described a different role than the form did, and projects have been reclassified accordingly: still good experience, but not representation work on that build.

The institutional movement is the story: SYBAss member yards (Lürssen, Feadship, Oceanco, Heesen, Royal Huisman, Vitters, Baltic, Abeking & Rasmussen, Codecasa, CRN, Benetti, Sanlorenzo) collectively build roughly two thirds of yachts over 40 metres. They do not stand up an industry register without a problem they want fixed.

The yard side has begun hosting the programme directly. Lürssen welcomed the Superyacht Leadership Academy to its Hamburg shipyard in April 2026 to deliver Unit 40, framing the visit on its own corporate channel as evidence that owner's representatives "play an equally critical role" alongside the shipyard. A top-tier SYBAss member publicly hosting the unit is the clearest available evidence that the institutional movement is endorsed on both sides of the table.

Practitioners working independently in the role have backed the movement publicly. Jack Inglis at ULTIMAR has used Superyacht Investor in 2025 and 2026 to argue for the structural separation of brokerage and representation roles, with the institutional movement and the practitioner side pointed at the same problem from different angles.

Between a broker and an owner's representative, they are different disciplines. The best projects usually happen when everyone brings their expertise to the table, with clear roles and alignment around the owner.

The Superyacht Alliance's view of professionalisation extends past its courses and its register.

The whole purpose of the Alliance is to promote professionalism. The Owner's Representative is not the only role in the industry that needs to be made clearer. We are very happy to support work outside the Alliance that is contributing to the education and clarity of the people in the industry.

The owner's representative market

The independent owner's representative market is undersized, and conflicted by the way the surrounding industry is paid. Genuinely independent firms, paid only by the owner, with no broker commission and no yard affiliation, are a small group. They include A2B Marine Projects, ULTIMAR, Divergent Yachting, Mariner Technical Services, Praxis Marine, Occam, and Foreland Marine, the publishers of this reference.

The code of conduct that runs alongside the register is about behaviour rather than knowledge. An example commonly cited as falling foul of it is the ten-percent commission on the tender. It is not an absolute prohibition: a representative who takes that commission can still register, provided the arrangement and the amount have been disclosed to the owner in writing in advance. In practice, almost no one does.

Brokerage houses with new build arms include Edmiston, Burgess, Y.CO, Ocean Independence, Camper & Nicholsons, Fraser, Cecil Wright, and Moran. Burgess Technical Services markets itself as offering "independent, objective oversight" while Burgess is one of the largest brokerages globally. Cecil Wright topped the Spear's 2025 Yacht Advisers ranking and acted as owner's representative on the 83m Feadship Project Solent; Cecil Wright is a broker. The dual-role conflict looks the same at every scale.

Technical departments at the major brokerage houses are described as project management; in practice they are the on-call relationship that keeps the brokerage close enough to be the first call on the next transaction. The technical department is the mechanism for staying in the room.

For the largest houses the transaction volume supports the standing cost of the team. For most it does not.

Yacht management companies extending into new build include Hill Robinson, Döhle Yachts Technical Services, and Wright Maritime Group. Naval architects acting as owner's representatives include Vitruvius (Briand), Reymond Langton, Espen Oeino, Bannenberg & Rowell, Andrew Winch, and Malcolm McKeon (MMYD). The naval-architect conflict mirrors the broker conflict: the design firm has a continuing commercial relationship with the yard.

Family-office-focused entrants are post-2023: Ikonic Yachts, Superyacht Partners, Praxis Group, Oak Group, Morpho Luxury Asset Management.

Fees at the major firms (Edmiston, Burgess, Cecil Wright, Y.CO, Moran, Hill Robinson) are not published. Independents rarely publish percentages either. Anecdotal practitioner range for genuine independents is 1 to 3 percent of build cost, or fixed fees of EUR 1 to 3 million over a 36-month build on a EUR 100 million project. Brokers acting as owner's representatives are typically paid via yard commission of around 5 percent, so the dual-role firms make more from the buyer's side without disclosing it. The lack of published fee structures across the entire market is itself a finding.

The wider build team

An owner's representative on a serious new build leads a team. The specialist disciplines around the lead role determine how much of the yard's first-draft position the owner is able to test. Yards do not refuse to be asked for these; they quietly hope they will not be asked.

Maritime counsel from a specialist shipbuilding firm leads the legal workstream. Hill Dickinson, Watson Farley & Williams, Clyde & Co, Stephenson Harwood, HFW, Reed Smith, Norton Rose Fulbright, and Ince are the regularly named firms. They cover the construction contract, change-order procedure, warranty terms, title during construction, finance and security, and flag and ownership structure.

Mechanical and propulsion advisors review engine selection, gearbox, shaft line, propeller geometry, and any hybrid or diesel-electric integration. On larger hulls the propulsion package is a multi-million-euro line item the yard's first quote rarely optimises for the owner's operating profile.

Vibration and acoustic engineers run finite-element models early in the build, then sea trial measurements at acceptance, against published comfort-class targets (Lloyd's Register PCN, RINA Comfort, ABS Habitability) and noise envelopes (sleeping-space and saloon typically 45 to 55 dB(A) under cruising load). Comfort-class failure at delivery is one of the most expensive defects in the warranty period; the cause is almost always not running the analysis early enough to influence shaft line, mounts, and structural detailing. The two scopes are normally bid as a paired engagement.

Paint surveyors are their own discipline. Yacht paint is a six- to nine-figure line item on a 50 to 80m hull. Wrede Consulting, IMS Paint Surveying, and a small number of independents write the specification before the yard quotes, then run progress inspections and cure tests. Paint disputes are the most common single category of post-delivery warranty argument; independent paint oversight is the cheapest way to avoid them.

Interior consultants, engaged independently where the lead designer has yard affiliation, validate joinery, fabric and leather grades, climate behaviour through commissioning, and the long lead-time items that drive the back end of the schedule. Class society consulting validates the path to certification at Lloyd's Register, DNV, ABS, or RINA, including any yard-proposed innovations that may interact with the regulatory pathway.

The total cost of the assembled team on a EUR 100 million build runs EUR 2 to 4 million across a 36-month project, against a build cost the yard's first-draft contract typically allows to drift by 5 to 15 percent. The discipline is in commissioning the team early enough to be heard.

The decision

For a buyer considering new build, the threshold tests are these.

First, do you have a 7 to 10 year hold horizon? If not, brokerage; the new build cost premium does not amortise over a shorter hold.

Second, is your intended use pattern genuinely specific to the yacht (size, layout, propulsion, range, operational profile)? If a brokerage hull within a reasonable search window can deliver 80 percent of your use case, brokerage. Custom is for the residual 20 percent that genuinely matters.

Third, can you commit to the team-building discipline that new build requires? Independent owner’s representative engaged before contract, specialist shipbuilding counsel from a top firm, technical due diligence on the yard’s current order book and financial condition, and a willingness to push back against the yard’s first-draft contract on every point that matters. If commitment to all four is not in place, brokerage tends to be the calmer path.

If those three threshold tests are positive, new build at a SYBAss member yard is one of the great purchases a UHNW principal can make. Without those conditions, it tends to be one of the more expensive ways to acquire a yacht. The case in this chapter is for the conditions, not against the path.