What Information Should a Yacht Listing Include?

Identification and history

A listing should begin by identifying the yacht clearly: the builder, the model or series name, and the hull number where this is relevant, together with the year of build and every year in which a significant refit took place. The naval architect and interior designer are worth naming as well, since these credentials carry weight with buyers who follow particular design houses.

Beyond identification, a buyer needs to know the flag, the class or survey status, and the current registration, along with the ownership history in general terms and whether the yacht has previously been chartered. None of this needs to be exhaustive, but each point removes a question the buyer would otherwise have to raise directly.

Technical specification

The technical specification should state LOA, beam, draft and gross tonnage alongside the main engines, their model, power and current hours, and the generators with their model and current hours. Fuel, fresh water and black water capacity are also expected as standard, since these figures shape a buyer's assumptions about range and self-sufficiency.

Cruising and maximum speed, and range at cruising speed, complete the performance picture, and the listing should also cover stabilisation, bow and stern thrusters, and the tender and toy inventory. Buyers use these details to filter a shortlist before they ever contact a broker, so gaps here tend to remove the yacht from consideration silently.

Accommodation and crew

Accommodation should be described in terms of the guest cabin count and configuration, including any convertible arrangements, together with the crew cabins, berths and the degree of access separation between guest and crew areas. Deck layout matters just as much, and a listing should describe the shaded areas, the beach club and the garage where these are fitted, since they influence how a yacht is actually used.

Commercial information

Commercial information should state the asking price and currency, or make clear that the price is available on application, along with the VAT status and the jurisdiction it applies to. The current lying position should be given, together with whether the yacht is available for viewing there, since travel practicality often decides whether a buyer converts an enquiry into a viewing.

Finally, the listing should say whether the yacht is available for immediate delivery or is subject to an existing charter calendar. Buyers with a defined timeline will otherwise waste time enquiring about a yacht that cannot be delivered when they need it.

Presentation material

Photographs should cover the exterior from at least three angles, the main deck, every guest cabin, the crew mess, the bridge and the engine room. Where photographs predate a refit, the listing should say so. A short walkthrough video and a downloadable specification in PDF form reduce the number of preliminary questions a buyer has to ask.

Documentation buyers expect to be mentioned

A serious listing states its flag state and port of registry, noting any planned change, and is equally clear on VAT status, including whether the yacht is EU VAT paid, exempt or unpaid, since this single field determines whether large categories of buyers can consider the yacht at all. Class or survey status matters in the same way, and where it applies the listing should give the date and the society involved rather than leaving buyers to assume it is current.

Commercial or private registration should be stated, together with any current charter programme, because the two carry different implications for use, tax and resale that a buyer needs to weigh early rather than discover later. The ownership structure is worth describing at a high level, for example whether the yacht sits in private ownership or within a corporate holding, and the date of the most recent condition survey should be given along with whether it can be shared under NDA, since a survey that exists but is withheld reads very differently from one that has simply never been mentioned.

Maintenance and refit evidence

A refit year is a headline, not evidence. Buyers assess refits by scope, and a listing that states a year without a scope invites the least generous interpretation available: cosmetic work only. An itemised summary — hull and paint, main engine service level, generator overhauls, electronics generation, interior soft furnishings, tender and toy replacement — converts an unverifiable claim into an assessable one.

The same applies to routine maintenance. A yacht with a documented service history maintained by an established yard or management company should say so, because the alternative reading is that no such record exists.

How to present unknown values

Not every field can be answered precisely, and a listing does not need to be exhaustive to be credible. What it needs is honesty about which values are measured, which are taken from the builder's original specification, and which are estimates. A field labelled 'approximately, per builder specification' costs nothing and protects the credibility of every other figure in the table.

The failure mode to avoid is a specification where estimated and measured values sit together, unlabelled. When a buyer discovers at a viewing that one figure was approximate, every other figure becomes suspect.

Fields that vary by yacht size

The fields a buyer expects to see shift as the yacht gets larger. Under twenty-four metres, the priorities are engine hours, trailer or berth arrangements, warranty status and any options fitted at delivery, since buyers at this size are often weighing the yacht against a straightforward ownership and maintenance budget. Between twenty-four and forty metres the emphasis moves towards crew accommodation, generator hours, stabilisation type, and tender and garage arrangements, reflecting a buyer who is assessing the yacht as an operation with permanent crew rather than as a private toy alone.

Above forty metres, buyers and their advisors expect class notation, MCA or equivalent compliance, ISM management, crew complement, range at economical speed, and a full refit history broken down by yard, because at this size the yacht is being evaluated as much on its operational and regulatory standing as on its layout and finish. A listing that omits the fields relevant to its own size band signals either inexperience or something being deliberately left unsaid, and buyers at every size tend to assume the less generous explanation.