What to agree before a yacht goes into the yard

The bill is written before she comes out

A yard period is the largest single number most vessels spend in a year, and the size of it is decided in the fortnight before the lift, not during the work. What turns a quoted figure into an invoice nobody expected is almost always the same thing: work that was assumed rather than agreed, and findings that were acted on before anyone priced them.

None of what follows is about being difficult with the yard. A good yard wants the scope clear as much as you do, because the arguments are expensive for them too.

Agree the scope in three parts, not one

Most scope disputes come from treating one list as if it were three. Write them separately and have the yard confirm each:

1. Agreed work. Priced, and it happens. Antifoul, anodes, a shaft seal, the service items you already know about.
2. Investigate and report. The yard opens it up, looks, and comes back with a price before doing anything. This is where the money usually is, and the whole value of the category is the word before.
3. Explicitly not in scope. Shorter than you think and worth writing anyway. It is the list that stops "while we were in there" becoming a line item.

The second category is the one to be generous with. Anything you suspect but cannot see should be in it, because the alternative is a call on a Friday afternoon asking for a decision you have no information to make.

Rates, lay days and the hours that are not work

Ask for these in writing before the lift, since they are what fills the gaps between the priced items:

• The labour rate, and whether it differs by trade or out of hours.
• Lay days: what the hardstand costs per day, when the clock starts, and whether it pauses while the yard is waiting on a part.
• Lift and relaunch, pressure wash, and whether the wash is included.
• Shore power, water and waste, which are small individually and are billed.
• Subcontractor handling, if the yard adds a margin to trades it brings in.

The lay day rate is the one that quietly decides the total. A vessel waiting three weeks on a part is paying for hardstand the whole time, and that is the argument for knowing the lead time on anything ordered before it is ordered.

Photograph her before she lifts

Take the photographs yourself, dated, before the yard touches anything: hull, topsides, keel, rudder and running gear, the deck, and any existing damage however minor. It takes twenty minutes.

It is not about expecting trouble. It is that six weeks later nobody can distinguish a chip that was there from a chip that was not, and the absence of a photograph turns a two minute conversation into a dispute where the loudest memory wins.

While she is out

Agree at the start who speaks to whom, and how often. A short written update twice a week beats a long phone call when something has already gone wrong, and it gives you a record.

Two habits worth keeping:

• Walk the boat when you visit, not just the office. The work face tells you more about progress than the schedule does.
• Log every variation as it is agreed, with the date, what it covers and the figure. Not at the end. The end is where a dozen verbal approvals become one disputed total.

Variations are the whole game

A variation is any work outside the agreed list, and the only thing that matters is that it is priced and accepted before it is done. Say so once, at the start, in writing, and it stops being awkward to enforce later.

Where a finding is urgent and genuinely cannot wait, the honest version of this is not a blanket refusal but a standing instruction: make safe, stop, and call. That protects the vessel and still leaves the decision where it belongs.

Signing off

Before she goes back in, walk the list with the yard: the agreed work, the variations, and what came out of the investigate-and-report items. Ask for anything deferred to be written down as deferred rather than dropped, because that list is next year's scope and it is worth more than the invoice.

Check the things that are easy to forget while a boat is out: seacocks and their handles, the anodes actually fitted, the antifoul specification used against the one quoted, and that the props and shafts went back with the same numbers on them.

What to file afterwards

The yard period is a service record, and it is worth more than the money it cost when the vessel is sold or handed to a new captain. One place should hold: the agreed scope, every variation with its date and figure, the invoices, the photographs before and after, the specifications and batch numbers of what was applied, and the deferred list.

Kept together, that file answers "when was she last antifouled, and with what" in a minute. Kept as an email thread and a folder of phone photographs, it does not answer it at all. That is the case for one operating record per asset: see how the operations view works, or read what to do with an aircraft that is not flying for the same discipline on an asset that is standing still.