A skipper at the helm of a motor yacht at dawn

Service catalogue.

Six functions covering a delivery end to end under a single contract: passage, transport, crew, clearance, instruction and survey.

Delivery by sea Road & shipping Crew & skippers Customs & docs Tuition & handover Inspection

Service 01

Yacht delivery by sea

The core operation: moving a vessel on her own bottom between any two European ports, under professional crew and a written passage plan.

We deliver motor yachts and sailing yachts from around 30ft up to 130ft — sportsboats and day cruisers on short coastal legs, flybridge and displacement yachts on multi-day offshore passages, and everything in between. Every job is priced individually, because a 200-mile hop in June and a Biscay crossing in November are not the same piece of work and should not pretend to be.

Written passage plan before departure — legs, bolt-holes, fuel stops, tidal gates and go/no-go criteria.
Weather routing from multiple models, with the honesty to sit in port when the window is wrong.
Position reporting at agreed intervals: coordinates, revised ETA, sea state and any advisory.
Fuel, berthing and agents arranged along the route and reconciled against the quote afterwards.
Arrival report with engine hours, photographs and anything we noticed that you should know about.

Aerial view of a motor yacht under way with a long wake

A motor yacht berthed in a Mediterranean marina

Service 02

Road transport & shipping

Sometimes the sea is the wrong answer. A short winter move, a boat under warranty, an owner who simply does not want the hours on the clock.

When that is the case we arrange the alternative rather than talking you into a passage: low-loader haulage with the right cradle and abnormal-load permits, lift-in and lift-out slots at both ends, and — for longer or cross-continent moves — space on a yacht-transport vessel with the loading and stowage supervised properly.

Road haulage across Europe, including permits, escorts and route surveys for wide loads.
Cradles and shoring specified for the hull, not borrowed from whatever was in the yard.
Crane and travel-lift booking coordinated at both ends so nothing waits on a quay.
Honest comparison — we will tell you when moving her on her own bottom is cheaper, faster or better for the vessel.

Service 03

Delivery crew & skippers

Some owners want the whole delivery handled. Others already have a plan and just need the right people on board.

We place commercially endorsed skippers and experienced watchkeepers on deliveries, sea trials, boat-show moves and owner trips. Crew are matched to the vessel and the passage — engine type, tonnage, handling characteristics and the waters involved — not simply whoever is free that week. Qualifications, tickets and medicals are confirmed to you and to your insurer in writing before anyone steps aboard.

Single skipper for short coastal deliveries where a solo passage is appropriate and safe.
Two- and three-hand crews for offshore legs requiring a proper watch rotation.
Engineer support on larger or older vessels where an underway fault needs solving, not reporting.
Documented competence — certificates, endorsements and mileage supplied up front.

Professional yacht delivery crew on a marina pontoon

A chart table with paper charts, dividers and passage planning notes

Service 04

Customs & documentation

Since Brexit, the paperwork around a European yacht movement has caused more owners more trouble than the weather ever has.

We handle the administrative side of a delivery as part of the job: Temporary Admission for non-EU flagged vessels, TA renewals and the exit-and-return runs they sometimes require, transit logs, port clearance in and out, crew paperwork and Schengen day-counting, and the VAT and proof-of-status documents that decide whether a boat can stay where you want her to stay.

Temporary Admission set-up, tracking and renewal for non-EU registered yachts in EU waters.
Clearance in and out of non-Schengen and third-country ports, with local agents where required.
Export and import runs planned deliberately rather than improvised at a border.
Document pack assembled and handed over, so the next person to ask has an answer.

We arrange and administer customs procedures. We are not tax advisers — where a movement has VAT consequences it is flagged, with specialist advice recommended before departure.

Service 05

Owner tuition & handover

A delivery is the best training opportunity an owner will ever get: real passage, real conditions, real decisions, with someone experienced beside you.

Join your own boat for all or part of her delivery and use the miles. We cover passage planning, navigation and electronics, close-quarters handling, berthing in wind and tide, engine checks and troubleshooting, and the safety drills most owners never get around to. If you would rather not do the miles, we will do a full familiarisation handover at the arrival berth instead — systems, quirks, maintenance intervals and all.

Own-boat tuition aboard your vessel, tailored to what you actually want to be better at.
New-owner handover covering systems, start-up and shutdown routines and emergency procedures.
Confidence, not certificates — the aim is that you take her out next weekend without ringing anyone.

A skipper instructing a yacht owner at the helm during a passage

Detail of a stainless cleat and coiled mooring line on teak decking

Service 06

Pre-delivery inspection

The cheapest hour of any delivery is the one spent in the engine bay before it starts.

Before we take a boat anywhere she gets a documented check: engines and gearboxes, steering and hydraulics, fuel system and filters, bilges and pumps, seacocks and hoses, batteries and charging, navigation and comms, safety equipment, covers, tender and davits. Anything outside tolerance is reported to you with photographs before departure — not discovered mid-passage and mentioned afterwards.

The same checklist runs on arrival, so the condition she left in and the condition she arrived in are both on record. For new-build collections we can also attend the yard, witness the handover and report progress back to you.

Common questions SV-07

Before you ask us for a quote.

Per job, not per mile. The quote reflects vessel size and type, distance and expected passage time, crew numbers, the season, and how much shore-side work is involved. It sets out what is included — crew, travel, victualling, berthing, agents, customs work — and what is billed at cost, typically fuel and any berth fees along the route. Fuel is estimated up front and reconciled with receipts afterwards.

Your existing hull and machinery policy normally covers the vessel, but almost all insurers attach conditions to a delivery passage — crew qualifications and numbers, seasonal limits, cruising range and sometimes the route itself. We ask for those conditions early, plan to meet them, and confirm the crew and passage plan back to your broker in writing before departure. We carry our own liability cover as an operator; that is separate from the cover on the boat.

Two to three weeks is comfortable and lets us pick a genuine weather window. We do take shorter-notice work, and in the shoulder seasons we will sometimes have crew already moving in the right direction. What we will not do is commit to a departure date that only works if the forecast behaves — a delivery window is a range, not a promise.

We wait, or we divert to a bolt-hole already identified in the passage plan, and you hear about it from us straight away. Delay costs a few days; pressing on in the wrong conditions costs a boat. Go/no-go criteria are agreed before departure, so the decision is never a surprise.

No. We are based in the South of France, which is where a great deal of European yacht movement starts or ends, but we deliver anywhere in European waters — the Baltic, the North Sea, the Channel, the Atlantic coast, Iberia, the whole Mediterranean and the Adriatic. Canaries, Madeira and transatlantic passages are quoted on request.

Next step SV-08

Send us the two ports and the window.

A written quote back within a working day, covering crew, fuel estimate, berthing, paperwork and the conditions we would hold ourselves to.

Request a delivery quote See our coverage