Pillar One · Yacht Intelligence
The Captain's Brief
Owner intelligence, market watch, destination notes, the Red Flag File, and crew standards. Written from the operational side of yachting, where the survey happens after the walkthrough and the brochure is not the boat.
Featured Brief
Owner Intelligence
What First-Time Yacht Buyers Miss Before the Survey
The survey is not the beginning of due diligence, it is the end of it. A captain's walkthrough before you book the haul-out catches the expensive problems brokers are not paid to mention.
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Aggregated from the trade press, refreshed through the day.
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All Briefs
Owner Intelligence
What First-Time Yacht Buyers Miss Before the Survey
The survey is not the beginning of due diligence, it is the end of it. A captain's walkthrough before you book the haul-out catches the expensive problems brokers are not paid to mention.
Red Flag File
The Difference Between a Broker's Listing and a Captain's Inspection
A listing tells you what the boat has. An inspection tells you what the boat is. The gap between the two is where deposits go to die.
Marina & Yard Updates
Fort Lauderdale Yard Capacity: What Captains Should Know This Season
Lift schedules are tightening from October through the show. If you need paint or a survey haul before Bahamas season, the window to book is now.
Destination Notes
Bahamas Arrival Planning: Fuel, Customs, Mooring, and Guest Logistics
Crossing day is the easy part. Here is the sequence experienced captains run a week out: clearance documents, fuel windows, mooring holds, and how to stage guest arrivals around weather.
Crew Standards
Crew Turnover Is Expensive - What Owners Get Wrong
Replacing a chief stew mid-season costs more than her annual salary once you count training, guest experience, and the rest of the crew watching how it was handled.
Boat Breakdown
What Makes a Yacht Easy or Miserable to Operate
Two boats with the same length and the same builder can cost wildly different amounts to run. The differences hide in engine room access, crew mess design, and tender garages.
Red Flag File
Pre-Purchase Red Flags Before Wiring a Deposit
Seven signals that should slow a deal down: maintenance logs that start last year, a crew that cannot answer basic questions, and a seller in a hurry during yard season.
Boat Breakdown
Stabilizer Systems: What Fails, What It Costs, and What to Ask at Survey
Zero-speed fins are the most guest-visible system on board and one of the most misunderstood at purchase. An engineer's field guide to the questions that matter.
Charter Season Reports
Charter Season Report: South Florida & Bahamas, Spring 2026
Booking pace, rate movement, and what charter guests asked for this spring. Plus the marinas that filled first and the ones that quietly held space.
Vendor Spotlight
How to Vet a Refit Yard or Marine Vendor Before You Sign
The quote is the least informative document a yard will ever hand you. Here is what to check before the work order gets signed: insurance certificates, change-order history, and who actually holds the wrenches.
Market Watch
Market Watch: 30 to 50 Meter Motor Yachts in the Americas, Spring 2026
Inventory is thinning at the top of the bracket and aging at the bottom. A working read on asking prices, days on market, and where the leverage actually sits this spring.
Captain Notes
Guest Safety Briefings That Owners Do Not Resent
The briefing is a legal requirement and a hospitality moment at the same time. Get the first part wrong and someone gets hurt. Get the second part wrong and the owner stops letting you do the first.
Captain Notes
The Owner-Captain Relationship: What the Good Ones Get Right
Thirty years of running other people's yachts has taught me that the boat is rarely the problem. The relationship between the owner and the captain is. Here is what the best owners I have worked for did differently, and what it cost the ones who got it wrong.
Destination Notes
Exumas Beyond the Brochure: Anchorages the Charter Fleet Skips
Every charter itinerary in the Exumas hits the same six stops: the swimming pigs, Thunderball Grotto, a beach club at Highbourne. The chain is 120 miles long and most of it is empty. Here is where I take owners who have already done the postcard version.
Crew Standards
Hiring Green Crew: How I Pick a Deckhand at the Dock
Every Antibes and Fort Lauderdale season produces a few thousand new STCW certificates attached to people who have never coiled a line. I have hired dozens of green deckhands over thirty years. The good ones share five tells, and none of them appear on a CV.
Owner Intelligence
What Yacht Management Companies Actually Do, and What They Bill For
Management fees on a 50 metre run 60,000 to 150,000 dollars a year before a single invoice is marked up. Some of that buys real safety-code compliance you cannot do without. Some of it buys a letterhead. Here is how to tell which is which.
Captain Notes
Hurricane Season: The Plan Your Insurer Expects You to Already Have
Your policy almost certainly contains a named-storm clause that assumes a written hurricane plan, filed and followed. Most owners have never read it. The time to discover what your insurer expects is February, not when the forecast cone touches your marina.
Boat Show Coverage
Working FLIBS Like a Professional: A Captain's Guide to the World's Biggest Boat Show
The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show spreads a thousand-plus boats across seven sites and five days. Tourists wander it. Professionals work it. The difference is a plan made two weeks out and the discipline to skip 95 percent of what is on display.
Market Watch
Pricing the 2026/27 Caribbean Charter Season
Caribbean charter rates have held the gains of the post-2021 boom, but the market underneath has split: festive weeks clear at premiums while shoulder weeks quietly discount. A look at where 2026/27 rates are settling, and what owners should actually expect to net.
Crew Standards
The Chief Stew Shortage Is Real: Retention Math for Owners
Every crew agent in Antibes and Fort Lauderdale tells the same story: experienced chief stewardesses are the hardest hire in yachting, and the gap is widening. The owners who keep theirs are not paying wildly more. They are doing arithmetic the others refuse to do.
Captain Notes
Tender Operations: Where Guest Days Go Wrong
The mothership almost never hurts anyone. The tender is where yachting's actual accidents live: beach landings, swim ladders, a deckhand showing off with eight guests aboard. Thirty years of incident reports point at the same handful of moments, and all of them are preventable.