Books and writing.
A buyer's guide that treats a yacht purchase as a method rather than a mood, an earlier practical guide, and the journal on this site.
What They Don't Tell You Before You Buy a Yacht
A Critical Yacht Buyer's Guide. English. Digital edition from the book site, hardcover of more than 300 pages on Amazon.
The brochure sells the dream. This book shows you what you are actually buying.
Who it is for. First-time buyers, existing owners and family offices, and people entering the yachting industry.
Five stages of a purchase
- 1Attraction
- 2Investigation
- 3Verification
- 4Negotiation
- 5Ownership
Named sections include Why This Book Exists, the prologue Seven Minutes to a Bad Decision, and the chapter Listing Forensics. 93 questions for brokers are part of the book and available as a free workbook on the book site.
Themes
- Broker incentives and listing language
- Ownership history, time on market and unexplained price reductions
- Technical records, refit scope, survey and sea trial preparation
- Class and flag obligations, VAT and commercial status
- Operating costs, insurance and crew
- Negotiation, closing, first-year planning and resale
Author's note: the book is critical of practices, not of the profession. A buyer who has read it arrives prepared, and prepared buyers make better clients for brokers.
How to Buy and Sell Yachts
Earlier, shorter guide for buyers, sellers and sailors (Kindle edition).
On AmazonMarket Notes
Read the journalWhat the five stages cover
The book follows a purchase in the order it actually happens, with the expensive mistakes placed where they are usually made.
Attraction
The brochure, the listing, the first viewing. Why a yacht that looks right on a sunny afternoon is the most dangerous moment of the purchase, and what to write down before the feeling takes over.
Investigation
Ownership history, time on market, unexplained price reductions, the listing language that says more than it means. Reading a listing the way the market reads it.
Verification
Technical records, refit scope, class and flag obligations, VAT and commercial status, survey and sea trial. Documents and survey as decision gates, not formalities.
Negotiation
What a comparable is and is not, where the walk away point sits, how to make an offer a central agent takes seriously, and what a price reduction tells you about the owner.
Ownership
Operating costs, insurance, crew, the first year, and resale. The yacht is an operating system, and the purchase is only the first invoice.
Why this book exists
I have sat on both sides of the table. As a broker I watched buyers fall in love on a sunny aft deck and sign for things they had never checked. As an adviser I was called in after the invoice, when the survey finally arrived or the VAT question came up. The same mistakes, on very different yachts, by very intelligent people.
The brochure sells the dream. This book is about what you are actually buying: a contract, a set of documents, an operating budget, a position in a market that will one day have to take her back. It is critical of how yachts are sold, and it says so. It is not against the people who sell them. A prepared buyer is the best client a broker can have, and most good brokers would rather work with one.
It is written for first time buyers, for owners buying again, for family offices who manage the asset for someone else, and for people entering the industry who want to understand what happens between the listing and the handover.
From the same desk, free to read
All Market NotesBoat asking price vs selling price: why the asking price is not market value
An asking price is what the owner hopes the market will pay. Market value is what comparable yachts actually sell for. Your broker helps you read the gap between the two.
What to Check Before Making an Offer on a Yacht
An offer commits time, fees and goodwill on both sides. The checks that belong before it rarely take long, and they make your offer far easier for the central agent to take seriously.
Yacht Survey Before Purchase
A pre-purchase survey is the technical examination of a yacht before you complete. Used well, it gives buyer, owner and both brokers one shared set of facts to settle the deal on.
Media and publication enquiries
Interviews, speaking and editorial requests on yacht market dynamics, pricing, digital presentation and the Gulf.