Nobody audits the person who chose the yard.
Each running-cost line is a few percent of the total, so nobody checks it. We check every line against a sourced band.
A yacht management audit reviews a yacht's budgets, ledgers, contracts and movement history against a sourced cost baseline. Specialist agents work on anonymised data. The report traces every finding to a booking row and classes it as recoverable, forward-acting or time-barred.
A 40 m motor yacht typically costs about EUR 1.2 to 1.8m a year to run. 1
The 10% rule is a myth. The credible band is 8 to 22%.
Six claims owners hear, tested against published sources and our own audit work.
Rebuild your yacht's year from six sourced lines.
Set length, value, region and use; add your figures to see which line sits outside its band.
| Line | Low | High | Your actual | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crew | - | - | No actual | |
| Fuel | - | - | No actual | |
| Berth | - | - | No actual | |
| Insurance | - | - | No actual | |
| Maintenance | - | - | No actual | |
| Management | - | - | No actual | |
| Modelled total | - | - |
-
-
On charter, APA is typically 25 to 40% of the charter fee, usually 30 to 40% for motor yachts. It is the charterer's money, spent at cost and outside this band. 7
Not modelled: communications, provisions, flag and class, owner extras, refit reserve, charter costs. Peer shares cover the six lines only. Your actual figures stay out of the address bar.
Show the formula
crew = 12 × (captain monthly band by length + (crew − 1) × crew monthly band by length)
+ crew × medical insurance per head
fuel = engine hours × litres per hour band by length × price per litre (duty-free or duty-paid)
berth = reference band ÷ reference length × your length × (1 + utilities 20 to 30%)
(scaled linearly by length; real rates are stepped by berth category)
insur. = insured value × 0.5% to 1.5%
maint. = length × EUR 2'000 to 8'000 (excluding refit)
mgmt = 12 × monthly retainer (up to 50 m: EUR 3'000 to 8'000;
above 50 m: EUR 8'000 to 15'000, working assumption)
10% rule check = 10% × insured value, against the modelled total band
All amounts rounded to the nearest EUR 1'000.
| ID | Metric | Value | Source | Year | Confidence |
|---|
Values come from the Cost Hub starter data (Dacide internal work product), each with the published source it cites. Rows marked "working assumption" rest on a source not yet verified independently. Seats below the captain are priced at the experienced-deckhand rate, which undercounts engineers and chefs. Peer bands: crew 30 to 45%, maintenance 14 to 20%, insurance 5 to 14% of operating cost. 3
Thirteen specialists read the same books.
Each gets the same anonymised data, the cost baseline and its Cost Hub entries, and reads from one angle only.
A yacht audit runs 13 specialist agents plus a critic, an auditor, three fact checkers and an integrator (about 19 agent runs). 1
One finding, seven checkpoints.
Follow one synthetic finding from the first register to the Cost Hub. The phases around it are in the audit method.
The audit opens with four registers, before anyone looks for savings.
Data gaps, document ownership, budget versus actuals, file versions. A deviation from budget is a planning gap, not overspend. Here the berth contract is missing.
The year is rebuilt from primitives.
Crew times salary, hours times litres times price, nights times rate. A gap above 15% between the rebuilt and the booked year sends specialists in. Berthing sits far above its line.
A presence line, night by night.
AIS, logbook and shore power place the yacht in one marina for 212 nights, all at transient rates. With a published multiplier of 2.1, a season contract breaks even at 365 ÷ 2.1 = 174 nights.
The critic attacks, the auditor counts.
Was a season contract available that year? Nothing proves it, so the doubt is recorded and an evidence request goes out. The auditor checks period matching and double counting.
Three anchors, three checkers.
A script resolves every euro to its row ID, the marina terms are dated, and the multiplier is matched to a hub entry with its confidence. The fact checkers discard recycled web sources and asking prices posing as achieved rates.
Classed, ranged, graded.
The integrator removes duplicates, sets class and range, and records any dissent. This finding is forward-acting: it saves from next season on, and nothing comes back for past years.
Only the rate enters the hub; nothing that identifies the yacht does.
The observed rate by length band, harbour and period passes the airlock. A human confirms the batch, and the next owner's audit cites it.
- Data gap
- Berth contract missing; evidence request sent
- Baseline
- Berthing far above the rebuilt line, routed to SP01
- Statement
- 212 nights at transient rates; break-even for a season contract 174 nights
- Uncertainty
- Season contract availability in the period not evidenced
- Booking row
EXP2024:p14:BERTH:2024M05..M10- Norm
- Marina terms, published tariff 2024
- Experience
HUB:BERTH:…:TRANSIENT_MULT:2025· confidence high- Class
- Forward-acting
- Range
- EUR 38'000 conservative to EUR 55'000 realistic, per year
- Verdict
- Proven
- Hub entry
- Observed berth rate, EUR per night by length band, marina X, 2024
Each audit adds verified rates to the Cost Hub.
The Cost Hub is our versioned base of yacht costs by country, harbour, yard and domain. Every seed entry carries a source, a date and a confidence. 1
Three anchors per claim.
Every claim in a report carries a booking row, its legal norm and an experience anchor: a Cost Hub entry or a dated published source with its confidence. A claim missing one is marked uncertain or dropped.
LEDGER:R023Dir. 2003/96 Art. 14(1)(c)HUB:FUEL:…:2026M08Synthetic data anchors of the sample fuel finding
It grows through an airlock.
After the fact checks, only verified, anonymous, aggregated data points enter, and a human confirms each batch. A published source makes a finding plausible; a rate verified in earlier audits makes it proven for the next owner.
Compliance gaps are exposures, never savings.
Every potential is classed before it reaches the summary. The class sets what an owner can collect.
Recoverable
Money that can come back, such as VAT paid where a relief applied. Priced after the limitation check.
Forward-acting
Cheaper from now on, such as a season contract replacing day rates.
Time-barred
Documented but not pursued; it still shows how the operation ran.
Exposure
Under-applied social security, a lapsed temporary admission. Reported in its own chapter and never netted against savings.
Fees tied to recovered savings are available. Exposures carry no fee.
| Finding | Amount | Class | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transient berth rates instead of a season contract | EUR 55'000 p.a. | Forward-acting | Proven |
| Duty-paid bunkering on a duty-free route | EUR 61'000 | Forward-acting | Proven |
| VAT on refit without inward processing | EUR 84'000 | Recoverable | Plausible |
| Social security under-applied for 3 crew | EUR 400'000+ exposure | Exposure, no fee | Proven |
First decide which rules apply.
Under SOLAS Chapter IX, the ISM Code is mandatory for passenger ships of any size and for cargo ships of 500 GT and above. 8
Flag, class and crew rules differ by flag and by use, private or commercial, and a yacht can change regime within a year. The audit first fixes which rules applied in the period, then tests the books against them.
Where this breaks.
- Benchmarks are bands drawn from public sources and earlier audits, not measurements of your yacht.
- An audit sees what was booked and documented, not what was agreed by phone.
- Savings exist only once the owner acts on them.
Questions.
What documents do you need?
Send whatever exists: budgets, expense reports, the management contract, refit ledgers, general-ledger exports, bank and card statements, charter contracts, APA statements, class and flag certificates and the AIS movement history. A missing document becomes a finding of its own, with an evidence request attached.
Does the manager have to cooperate?
No. The first pass runs on documents the owner already holds. Cooperation makes the audit deeper: original invoices, supplier terms and bank statements move findings from plausible to proven. The report lists which documents to request, and why.
What does the AI see about the yacht?
Not the yacht's identity. Yacht name, IMO and MMSI numbers, owner, crew, manager and vendors are replaced before any agent reads a line. Harbours, yards, flag, size class and every amount stay, because they are what the audit measures. The method is on the audits page.
Is this an accusation against our manager?
No. A finding is a question with evidence attached, and many have ordinary answers: a season-end bonus, a yard markup the contract allows. Each finding carries a grade for the strength of its evidence, explained on the audits page.
Can the same method audit a jet or an art collection?
Yes. Phases, gates and the evidence schema stay the same; only the chart of accounts, the specialists and the hub domains change, as the audits page sets out.
Sources.
- Dacide internal work product, anonymised. INT
- YachtBuyer. How much does a new yacht cost to run? PO
- First Owner's Reference. The reality of ownership. PO
- NextGuard Insurance. Superyacht and mega yacht insurance. PO
- Foreland Marine. How much does a superyacht refit cost? PO
- SuperyachtNews. Positive initial reviews for Starlink Maritime. PO
- Helm. What is an APA? WE
- Transport Canada. International Safety Management (ISM) Code. WE