How to Prepare Your Yacht for Delivery

Make departure day a breeze with our handy guide to preparing your yacht for delivery.

Today’s guide on how to prepare your yacht for delivery is all about helping our existing and future clients ensure that they have the most enjoyable possible experience with us.

When you appoint Halcyon Yachts to deliver your pride and joy to its new destination, we help make it an easy process for you. We supply professional crew, advice, planning and logistics to ensure that your yacht’s delivery journey is safe, efficient and smooth. But there are still some things that you as a client can do to help make the departure as predictable and easy as possible.

Here’s our list of the top three things that you can do to prepare your yacht for its delivery voyage with Halcyon Yachts. If you think that we missed anything or if you found this guide useful, let us know in the comments!

1. Check your yacht for seaworthiness

There’s nothing like a leak in a hull to bring a swift and maybe even dramatic end to a fun day at sea. Yacht delivery journeys are no different, and for that reason, the first thing we ask when you prepare your yacht for its delivery is that you check it for seaworthiness.

Thankfully, this is a pretty straightforward inspection that you can do yourself.

You can begin by checking all seals, doors and hatches to ensure that they are completely watertight and properly sealed against the sea and the elements.

Next, check the hull’s integrity. Here, we want to look for obvious, visible signs of problems, such as physical damage, cracks and delamination.

Has your yacht been surveyed recently and if so, are there any essential items that still need to be attended to? If so, the next step is to address those items urgently. The delivery can’t proceed until those outstanding issues are addressed.

Finally, confirm that all vital systems are operational. These include things like batteries, navigation systems, vhf radios, navigation lights, radar if applicable, and anything else required to start and run the boat.

2. Check the safety equipment

Our skippers are some of the best in the business and are trained in safe and professional navigation. We also ensure that departures take place during suitable weather and sea conditions. But in order to make sure that your yacht is prepared for anything, we require that all mandatory safety equipment has to be on board and up to date.

This includes equipment such as smoke and gas alarms, as well as liferafts and flares. Also first aid and fire extinguishers. Any consumables that are expired, should be discarded. If you want a comprehensive list of what safety equipment you should have on board, we have that for you, too! Scroll down to the end of this article for a link to our handy list.

The only thing we don’t specifically require in this regard is for you to have lifejackets on board. Our professional yacht crew will bring their own lifejackets and harness lines.

Our delivery skipper will do an inventory of your safety equipment prior to the start of the voyage. If there are any shortcomings such as expired or non-functioning items, these will need to be remedied before we can depart.

You can assist us to ensure that your departure is quick and painless, by keeping all of your safety kit up to date.

3. Ensure facilities are working

As far as we’re concerned, our crews are superhero skippers and sailors. But behind closed cabin doors, they’re still human and that means, their needs are the same as yours when onboard a yacht.

In order to help you prepare your yacht for delivery, please ensure that the facilities that the crew will need during their trip, are all in working order.

This includes checking that all the heads are able to flush correctly, that taps are in working condition, and that basic cooking facilities are operational.

Our crews like functioning loos and taps as much as you do, but another thing that they can’t live without is the electrical systems onboard. So, when you check and prepare your yacht for delivery, please make sure that these are all functioning as intended. Also, ensure that at least a minimum amount of lighting is in working order, paying particular attention to the lighting in key areas of the yacht.

Bonus tip: Use our inventory lists

Whether you’re a brand new yacht owner or an old salt preparing your yacht for delivery, sometimes we don’t want to do the hard yards of research. We just want the right information handed to us on a nifty list.

Well, you’re in luck, because we’ve got comprehensive lists of all the things that should be on board every yacht. Whether you’re preparing your yacht for delivery, or even if you’ve just bought your first yacht and aren’t sure what should be on your shopping list, our inventory lists will ensure that you’ve got everything you need onboard for the best possible experience at sea.

Check out our blog post here to view that list.

Conclusion

Your Halcyon Yachts delivery crew are there to make the process of delivering your yacht to its new destination hassle-free, safe, and fun. We’re the UK’s premier yacht delivery service for a reason.

To help all of our clients make sure that their yacht delivery proceeds as planned, we’ve compiled three of our top tips for preparing your yacht for delivery.

First, we suggest that you check your yacht for seaworthiness, by reviewing its structural integrity and the condition of its doors, windows and seals, as well as attending to any outstanding survey items. Then, we suggest that you review the safety kit on board and check that everything is still good to go. Anything that’s expired should be binned. If you’re not sure what all you need, we’ve given you our convenient inventory list.

And finally, we ask that you check all of the onboard facilities, including heads, cooking, electrical and navigation.

If you’ve got a yacht that needs to be moved, please contact us here and we will show you why we’re the best in the business. Simply click here to send us an enquiry. It’ll only take a few moments.