How to choose a yacht delivery crew (and why two captain-engineers beat one skipper)

Hiring a delivery crew is a trust decision. You hand over a boat worth more than most houses to people you may have met once, and for a week or a month the only news you get is whatever they choose to send. Most deliveries go well. The ones that do not usually fail for the same few reasons, and all of them can be checked before you sign anything. Here is what to look for.

1. Licences that match the boat

Ask for the certificates, not a description of them. A Master’s ticket has a tonnage limit; a 200 GT certificate is fine for most yachts under 24 metres, while a bigger boat needs a 500 GT or above. Commercial endorsement matters if the flag or the insurer requires it, and the safety, medical and radio certificates should be current. If an engineering licence is on the table as well, pay attention: a captain who is also an engineer is rare, and on a passage it is the difference between fixing a problem at sea and diverting to a port to find someone who can.

2. Enough crew for a real watch schedule

A single skipper has to sleep. On any leg with a night at sea you want at least two licensed watchkeepers, so there is a rested person at the helm all night and the boat is never left to one tired hand on the third night out. Ask how the watches will be run on the longest leg. If the answer is vague, so is the plan. Two captain-engineers working as a team cover this twice over: while one has the con, the other has the engine room, and the boat is still in licensed hands if one of them is dealing with a problem.

3. Experience on your kind of boat, and your kind of passage

Power and sail are different trades; so are a coastal hop and an ocean crossing. Ask where they have been and on what. Chief engineer time on 40-metre-plus vessels means the machinery will be understood, not just driven. Command and chief officer time on the same size of boat means the paperwork, the crew and the insurer will be handled properly. Offshore miles in remote places mean that when something breaks a thousand miles from a yard, it gets fixed with what is aboard.

4. A shore side

Who do you ring at two in the morning? A professional delivery has a Designated Person Ashore: one named contact who receives the position and status reports, keeps you, your manager and your insurer informed, and handles the shore duties, from port agents and berths to fuel, parts and crew flights. A phone number for the skipper is not a shore side.

5. Paperwork and insurance handled, not mentioned

Crew visas, immigration, customs and port clearance at each end, the manning requirements of your flag, and delivery insurance that actually covers the passage. Ask who is doing each of those. The right answer is “we are, and here is how”.

6. A quote you can read

• A daily rate for the crew, from the day they join to the day they leave
• Passage expenses at cost, invoiced separately with receipts: fuel, berthing, provisioning, flights and transfers
• A passage plan with the weather window and the planned stops
• What happens if weather delays departure, in writing
• What you get at the end: log, delivery report and condition list

For a line-by-line look at what goes into the price, see how much a yacht delivery costs.

7. What they do before and after

The best crews inspect and service the boat before she leaves, bring a spares kit rather than hoping, send a short report every day under way, and hand her back serviced, with a written record and a proper handover to whoever runs her next. Ask for a copy of a previous delivery report. If there is none, that tells you something too.

The short version

Certificates that match the boat, two licensed watchkeepers or more, experience on your kind of boat and passage, a named person ashore, paperwork and insurance handled, a quote you can read, and a record at the end. Drake Marine’s two-man captain-engineer delivery team was built to answer every one of those questions in the affirmative, and the page sets out exactly how. Written quote within one working day.