Once a sale completes, the new owner often wants the boat moved to their home port. This delivery is made by a crew who do not know the boat, with papers not yet settled in the new owner's name; the plan is built around that.
Before departure
- Ownership papers. Transfer complete; registration or provisional papers in the new owner's name.
- Insurance. The new owner's policy valid from departure and for this route.
- Survey findings. Grade A findings put right before departure.
- Short trial. Skipper and crew get to know the boat alongside and on a short run.
- Foreign flag. Transit log and skipper entry up to date.
- Handover record. The boat's condition recorded in photos.
Why extra care?
The delivery right after a sale may also be the boat's first passage after a long pause. The seller's boat may have sat in a marina for years; fuel tank, filters and cooling circuit are worked hard for the first time on this passage. Spares and the fault plan are prepared accordingly.
A first voyage for the new owner
A newly bought boat's first voyage to its new port is also the new owner's first chance to see how the boat behaves. If the owner can join, they learn its systems and handling alongside the skipper. If not, the passage log and arrival report take the place of that introduction.
Link to survey findings
Grade A findings from the pre-purchase survey must be dealt with before the boat sets out. For grade B findings, the effect on the delivery is assessed: some pose no risk for the voyage, others may limit the conditions in which it can be made. The skipper sees the relevant parts of the report before departure.
An unfamiliar boat
However detailed the survey, a newly bought boat's history is never fully known. So on the first long passage, systems are checked more often: bilge, engine temperatures, fuel filters and connections. The first leg is planned, where possible, short and near a refuge; legs lengthen as the boat proves itself.
Papers
Transfer documents, insurance and skipper's authority are aboard. On a foreign-flagged boat, transit log formalities must have been done in the new owner's name. The owner keeps copies too.
On arrival
The arrival report starts the new owner's first maintenance and improvement list; read with the survey report, it lays out the boat's first-year plan.
If the owner comes along
An owner aboard learns more in a few days than in months of reading manuals; the skipper uses the passage to show how each system works.
Timing
Between purchase and delivery, the boat's insurance and berth at the new port are arranged, so it has a home to arrive at.
Keep the survey report aboard for the voyage; it is the best guide to what to watch.
Systems with grade B findings are checked more often under way, and observations go into the arrival report, so the new owner also learns how those findings behaved at sea.
A short talk between new owner and skipper in the first week after arrival, covering what was seen on passage, the boat's strengths and weaknesses and first maintenance ideas, is the quickest way for the owner to get to know the boat.
Notes go into the file.