Living on a "megayacht"

HTM09 I think your project sounds sensible still... really I believe that any yacht is better off having a shadow vessel for all the stuff and very minimal tender, toys and storage as that makes the yacht bigger and harder to deal with in port. Particularly in the Med or Caribbean. The shadow vessel can park offshore and deliver what is needed but the shadow vessel can be big and safe enough to store all the stuff. This frees the yacht from a lot of busy complication and makes it more enjoyable. Also, the shadow vessel can house extra crew (for crew off time) and provide for crew comfort off shift on the main yacht. The services can be delivered as needed without disturbance of the yacht. Great idea.

This importantly allows the yacht to be smaller... with better access to the marine environment and less disruption in port. Easier to fit into the berths and many of the choice ports and bays etc. are not really accessible to a large yacht without making a big deal of it or won't take it or are better enjoyed on the smaller boat.

Also, the limiting the guests on board the yacht is nice in my opinion as I really don't like a crowd.

I really disagree the EU is a lot more complex than the USA legally... it may seem so but other than the actually differences in the cultures of the member states and enforcement.... in the US its pretty even and every place seems much as the other with minor differences. The US requirements are just a bad in my opinion but America is more lax in enforcement oversight but once in trouble is just or worst. However, the cultural differences are very great between lets say a northern european and a southern european. Most of the schemes are hatched in the south and paid for in the north... just saying. Yachting wise great to visit the south but live or have operate and keep a yacht there... well I am not up to that and not a member of that way of life.

The idea is quite similar to yours except I would turn the technology around and use the swath for the mothership and the yacht be a more traditional. I have not fully resolved this in my mind... and that has to happen before anything comes of it. And, importantly I have to have the organizational structure figured out before I start down the path. But in my case I cannot own personally and it has to be another means... I really like the charter concept except as you point out there are legal issues that must be fully worked out up front not to raise problems down the road... learned that the hard way.

Not paying taxes is stupid when they have to be paid as it is inviting trouble. The purpose of the yacht is realization and enjoying life... not fighting with authorities. In the yacht world I have come to the conclusion VAT or the excise tax must be paid on the boat no matter what as it just makes life simpler. And, paying for the VAT or sales taxes on the fuel and stuff expenses is also mandatory. Buying untaxed fuel or things in one local and bringing into the EU or USA is just asking for trouble too. The problem is many have eyes bigger than their stomach.

I was too tired last night to really post what I wanted to.

I think HTM09 has found the solution going foreward for yachting.

Perhaps others have used support vessels but I really don't know anyone that has designed the yacht to be paired with a support vessel as part and parcel of the operation. I think this is smart and really the future of yachting.

In the last year I have come to the same concept... Carl Jung defined this as Synchronicity... but have not been to the point of acting on it.

The rise of the support vessel is in its infancy. The idea of a simple yacht down without the garage of toys, fuel to circle the globe, a large crew quarters and in general large amount of space devoted to stuff and support facilities is good. It is going back to the roots of yachting. Its really about quiet enjoyment of life in the beautiful marine environment. Too many think you need it all and if you pack it on the yacht it squeezes out really the enjoyment... large crews running around taking care and operating all the stuff is hugely distracting. Most everywhere I prefer to go I can done better with a 30-45m boat than a 60+m boat.

BUT... the support for that and modern sensibilities of need for every toy in the world craps or enlarges the yacht to the point one wonders. Recently Hakvoort has made a couple boats that tried to do this all in 40m size... but in looking at Apostrophe after it went on the brokerage market one was struck by the amount of space taken up by the tender garage and how that impacted accommodation space and crew space. I thought perhaps for that size of boat the guest staterooms were just a little too small and tight... and the crew seemed cramped in. Now coming from the sailboat end of things 40-50 years ago those crew spaces would have been generous owner accommodations in a maxi-boat of say 22m a large boat. But modern needs and sensibility has made that look like backpacking camping out. And, admittedly in that seems like a day sail boat. That size of yacht is about as big as you can go and not start losing the connection with the marine environment and loss of flexibly to pretty much fit in where ever you go. Many places don't really fit huge cruise ship size yacht... and you have to anchor out. Or, berthing space for the large ship is limited or very expensive (not only in money but obtainability).

As time has gone on since a large tender was 4m... now twice that or much more... and the modern practice of hiding the tender inside a garage takes up a lot of space... then what was tender support of a couple cans of gasoline/petrol is now a certified filling station. Jet skis were just invented then but not know... so on and so forth. I personally I would consider suicide if one of those horrible waterslides were attached to any boat I had... but they are part of the necessities... for the younger set... etc to infinity. The complexity of the yacht has skyrocketed to support all this stuff.

The off loading of extra crew and all the stuff to the support boat therefore makes a lot of sense. Large tenders... necessity... certified helicopter operations, servicer and inside storage is now possible. Helicopters don't like salt spray.... and importantly they are hugely dependent of safe facilities for safe operation. When you go to refuel and basically a lightening bolt jumps a meter to the grounding rod you hold in your hand (static build up) makes you realize how dangerous it could be. I have been present for a crash of a helicopter on destroyer flight deck at sea... we nearly save for superhuman effort lost it over the side... scary. That was a fully certified flight deck something only 4 yachts in the world even come close too... most have tiny hugely scary 'touch and go pads'. All the toys and hubbub can be 'over there' and not disturbing the guests and you. The crew can have decent space and a time off place to be... crew rotation or having crew on a watch cycle for time of service on the yacht... mainly staying on the support as there 'home'. That means less disturbance of the guests and you by the crew needs. Having ability to refuel from the support ship eliminates the need for huge tanking and the commensurate balancing of fuel load... makes the yacht safer and more stabile in 'feel'. It seems some ladies have a sixth sense about this last.

Now technically a SWATH/SWASH yacht is a good idea but I really like the idea of a more conventional yacht and a SWATH for the support ship. Why is support boat by necessity is going to be a floating base and usually anchored out when the yacht is in use in many places. That makes for a comfortable and stable base for operations. Yes, it is more expensive than a converted cargo vessel.

The other idea that I have floating around has been to have the yacht as a daughter or like a tender to the support ship. Like using a semi-submersible heavy lift type ship or platform supply vessel and having it able to carry the yacht for long passages when the guests are not present and cruising. This idea makes the yacht possibly not needing as large or powerful engineering plant... as it basically (as most yachts are now used) for port hoping with short few hours or a day runs between. This would allow reduction in draft of the yacht to allow more easily access to many choice spots.

If the crew is primarily housed on the support ship as there home base the time on watch or for the short passages on the yacht would make for less crew on the yacht at any one time. This may have some adjusting to do with regulatory manning requirements but remember the yacht is not intended for unlimited passages across oceans. There would be needed space for crew and berthing on the yacht but not as their primary berthing... just rest area while on watch... or in emergency situations where weather precludes transfers... but I would try not to be yachting in those kinds of conditions. This means a a tender docking system would have to be worked out for crew transfers between support and yacht. However, this would be necessary anyway as the support vessel is where many of the toy and water/air recreational activities would be based.

Interestingly, the yacht would be more manageable to be owned and run as a private boat but the support ship would be more of a commercial operation. This brings up that perhaps the support ship would be a charter vessel.... in fact a business might sprout up of suppling support charter vessels for yachts... where the support vessels would be commercially run and rented... as a regular service to yachts. This would downsize and simplify the yacht in general but generate an interesting and likely good business of suppling yacht support services. HTM09 with your commercial and specialized ship experience this might be a business opportunity to consider. Furthermore, with your setup that you are presently building it could be the proof of concept. See a business of supplying all the expensive and (as you point out difficult to deal legally with tenders, toys, helicopter etc stuff) at the now necessities of yacht life would likely see development as to how yachting is done. You own a yacht and hire the support toys... life would be simpler and make more sense... and still have it all.

This solves the problem of meeting the regulatory requirements. The Support vessel and toys is a commercial and truly a charter operation that many would use or share. And, the yacht becomes easier to personally own and deal with regulatory and tax wise. The expense of the large vessel and support stuff is only on an as needed... so the yacht could be manned to a lesser extent... and the support vessel supply much of those services on an as needed basis. Most times yachts sit for most of their lives unused.... it is very rare for an owner to live on it mostly it is used as a vacation. This means charting the support expenses on as needed makes huge sense. And, the support (vessel) industry could be hugely professional... and supply many of the services that crews now do... on an as needed basis... do it better... and save money as it is on an as needed basis.

This is the idea in back of my mind of some time.

I have to admit, I am not the inventor of this idea and concept at all. I found this idea here on YF. The honour goes to our member YES with his company Yacht Escort Ships. One of my shipping colleagues here in northern Germany, the owner of the sailing yacht Mystere, used this idea with his shadow boat Mystere Shadow.


But I found this old and beaten former Standby vessel to small and the freeboard to low and its deadweight capacity rather limited. A well suited boat for supporting a 40 meter sailboat but for supporting a 200 ft powerboat and a larger sailboat on a world tour it was to small. I wanted far more fuel storage, containerized frozen storage and dry storage for provisions plus below deck storage for an Bell 407 helicopter and a Cessna Soloy 206 amphibious floatplane plus some SUVs, a small crew bus and other "toys" like larger tenders and boats up to 80 ft. Plus yacht like accomodation for the Shadow crew and additional crewmembers and up to 12 guests.

Designing such a boat from a white piece of paper and have it built, appeared far to expensive. I looked in our inventory and developed the idea of converting one of our fairly new general purpose dry cargo vessels (container feeder ship) into a yacht support ship.

This is the type of vessel I was looking at:



App. 400 ft by 67 ft, 8500 tdw. 7000 kw HFO engine, hydraulic cargo bay hatches, heavy lifting gear and its optimum long range speed compatible with the yachts. And most important the abundance of electrical power due to its reefer capability.

The biggest changes would be the the accomodation part and the conversion from an HFO ship into a single fuel MGO ship for compatibility with the yachts.
Removing of the complete aft superstructure would be a no brainer, as this "house" is only bolted on.



The complete deck space after removing the superstructure and the area of the container storage on the poop deck above the engine and in front of the aft superstructure would be availabe for a bigger accomodation superstructure.


This would leave the complete cargo space below and above deck availabe for storage and additional tankage. Removing all facilities below deck and in the engine room for the usage of heavy fuel oil and adapting the engine and generators for the exclusive use of marine gas oil, would free a lot more space for tankage and storage. Keeping in mind, that such a vessel is very cheap to start with, buying it out of the business and converting it legally into privat property would be even much cheaper.
The shadow could even be reconverted into a cargo vessel.

So not very much invention from my part, it was only the choosing of a different type of ship. The rest is propper definition of terms, because even privatly used, it remains a SOLAS ship and we are still limited to 12 passengers. If we would be unable to determine the additional tender crews and relief crews as orginally crew members or ACMs of the shadow, we would generate a passenger ship, which would make several support ship functions impossible and that would be a show stopper.

The SWATH prinziple may work well for a stand alone explorer yacht but within a "fleet" of yachts, the SWATH is not compatible enough, because of its width, draft and cruising speed. As a shadow boat, a SWATH is totally unusable because of its very limited deadweight capacity. It does not like varying and heavy load situations.

The biggest advantages of designing a yacht for use in combination with a shadow or support ship is your ability to leave design options out. No need for a petrol store, no helicopter landing pad, no helo or aircraft refueling facilities and Kerosin storage, much smaller tender garage(s) and by limiting the number of guests, more room available for more comfortable crew space. But it will still look like a normal yacht of its size.

Just my 2 (Euro) cents

Blue Ghost... no one would have a mega yacht to self serve frozen pizza. It like a PRIVATE luxury spa or hotel... where the guests enjoy pampered luxury... with the ability to go to exotic and interesting places particularly off the beaten path... OR often they are used to impress folks. Otherwise what is the point? Having frozen cheap microwave pizza on your mega yacht must be some kind of strange fetish... much like Olympian Bruce Jenner and his gynephilia fetish, 'getting sexual satisfaction by being a male and pretending to be female in public', that guy must be in some kind of constant orgasmic state. So if that floats your boat... go do it... and will will all will nod in fained support... to be polite.

FYI - [fained is an obsolete term past participle of fain meaning to "make pretty one's support"... it is not the same as feigned meaning to "pretend"]

HTM09 actually I think that is the idea to off load all the bother and trouble and dangerous activities to the support ship, and a good idea. Particularly, for a live aboard.

Actually from your description it sounds like you will be mostly live aboard once your construction project is complete. Although, with the change of plans it sounds like a smaller service vessel would be best... but of course steel is cheap and the more room the better.

Actually I think a smaller SWATH or SWASH would make for the perfect tender if operated from the support ship. Perhaps something smaller than the SWATH/CATAMARAN Danish yachts builds for the commercial market. But a tender/ limousine of that type would not really work stowed on a yacht. See if the tender operated like one of the platform/windmill support SWATHs of either Abeking or Danish it would work or Abeking's SWASH. The idea is the safety and convenience of embarkation from/to the tender one pushes the bow against the yacht area designed for this so passengers can easily walk or be wheeled (wheelchair) between tender and the yacht. And similarly the ability to stabilize the tender at the dock... or adjust the height (like the Danish type). This is the biggest pain in my opinion for those people not used to or physically limited and having trouble scrambling on and off a tender... .

Following the idea of dividing the big "can do anything and carry everything" megayacht into a "normal" sized yacht with megayacht standards and amenities and an optimum sized support vessel with commercial standards but upgraded accomodations is very, very much cheaper than including all the above mentioned capabilities in one big yacht. Even a yacht with the size and volume of lets say Topaz or Eclipse would not be large enough for this tasks.

If you compare the purchase price and the operating costs of a yacht like Eclipse or Topaz with the purchase prices of a 200 ft, maximum 210 ft yacht (even northern european built) pus the completely converted cargo vessel and some permanent tenders (without the flying machines, they do exist already) and also take the operating costs of this two vessels into the comparison, we are talking about a package price of this concept of app. one third or less of the purchase and operating costs of something like Eclipse.

And I am talking about the original purchase price of Eclipse and not the final bill, which was not fully paid and mostly the fault of Blohm & Voss, due to their suboptimal project management and lets say, less than optimum contractual paperwork .

But the big secret behind a yacht plus a larger support vessel concept is the operating and logistics concept. Remember, this concept was born for travelling the seven seas and for time frames of several years.

The yacht would do the same things any non charter yacht would do. Go places, travel (cruise) and provide its owner (and his guests) the platform for pleasure and enjoyment, he wants. We are talking about a maximum 200 to 210 ft, 1500 GT full displacement yacht with 3000 KW main propulsion power and a fully qualified crew of 15 for an owner couple and 8 family guests. Fuel for 4000 NM (ferry with crew only) at 14 Kts but realisticly with all 10 guests, as far as provisions and supplies are concerned, one week without entering a harbour or being resupplied enroute by the support vessel.

Here, the support vessel becomes the big game changer. Consumables, both dry and cold/frozen can be stored in great quantities, fresh food for maybe for 4 weeks and its increased fuel capacity (app. 4500 metric tonnes Diesel, Kerosin and Lub oil) would give a combined range (Yacht and support vessel at 14 Kts) of at least once around the globe. Means, the yacht and the SV must be capable of refuelling and resupplying during voyage (in open calm sea !!). Refuelling would not be done in the navy way at 15 Kts on parallel course. The SV would tow the yacht at 3 to 5 kts, in order to keep the lines stiff and refuel via stern and bow with the help of the provision crane of the SV. For this purpose, the yacht will have a refuelling station on the foredeck and the SV a defueling station at the stern. Solid goods could be transfered by a utility tender or as slung load by the helicopter.

When approaching a yacht harbour, the SV would peel off to the nearest commercial harbour or would go on the hook outside visibility or around the corner. When in a nearby merchant harbour, resupply of SV could be done through my commercial logistic network and resupply of the yacht could be done by onboard utility vehicles (road or water).

This is the type of utility tender, I was talking about. A 49 ft and a 78 ft (for example) Munson multi purpose fast landing craft with waterjets, made of alloy and being carried on the SV. Capable of carrying an SUV or a small crew bus to/ from shore ore a 20 ft container or any palletized cargo.




A very versatile tool for an support ship. But all tenders are carried on and inside the SV and are not travelling behind as one more shadow.

The support vessel would have a ships crew of 19 as per rules and 10 more for pampering the up to 12 guests (and the pilots of course ) plus 19 relief and tender crews / flying crews and mechanics. Those total of 63 crew (yacht and SV) are less than what is normally carried on a very large yacht with these capabilities.

Cars, the Helo, the fixed wing aircraft and the precious tenders would live in the climate controlled cargo holds below the watertight hatches, protected from the enviroments and the sturdy utility tenders and the larger boats will play the deck load on their special cradles. Remember, even when fully refuelled, the former cargo vessel has a cargo capacity of more than 4000 metric tonnes left.

Just my 2 (Euro) Cents

Interesting discussion. Thought about this one. Even though I like several types of large yacht and going based on past post about how some ports are too small or too expensive a good yacht to live on would be Le Grand Bleu. Good size to travel the ocean and if a port is too small or too much you have two tenders (one motor and one sail) that are much smaller. You can easily get into smaller ports with those.

Although If you didn't care about going to ports and just wanted to travel and anchor outside Eclipse, Dilbar and Topaz would be good.

I used to be a daily visitor, but was turned off by a hoooles and their snotty degrading responses. I finally rejoined this forum a week ago to learn, and in less than 1 week’s time remembered why I left a few years ago. This thread is a perfect example as to why younger up and coming members will seek information from and participate in forum dialog elsewhere. What a bunch of crotchety old f****!

So you left, some time ago. Come back. And are leaving again over a thread with posts all from 2015? The only post more recent than July 3, 2015 was Gage Rowden and it certainly had nothing negative in it. Now who is the crotchety one. Several of the posters that apparently bothered you are either totally or mostly inactive on the forum today. Nice first post back. Wow.

Since my name came up, the post in question was about an owner, saying not so nice things about him and with most facts wrong, we could of course deleted the post instead of making the remarks...

Maybe, but I think they would hard be pressed to find a group of more knowledgeable folks. That said, I agree with you... if information is not conveyed in a helpful and constructive way, it will turn readers away. I've had to make some tough decisions over the years, 'encouraging' wanna-be tyrants attempting to use YF as a podium to project their intellect, all-the-while demoralizing anyone who would question them. I think this forum strikes a healthy balance of keeping nonsense in check while offering an educational user experience.

Guilty as charged.

Just one more thing...

When you put hundreds of passionate people together, you will always have a difference of opinion. In the case of this thread, I don't know what you found so offensive? No doubt there's a couple dozen threads on this forum that give YF a black-eye, but what about the 20,000 threads that have opened eyes?

Karo1776 took exception with K1W1's forum etiquette. Let me tell you a little about K1W1... he's a chief build engineer on several major superyachts. Do you have any idea of the 1000's of details he juggles every day? Or the dozens of subcontractors and craftsmen at the yard? Or any number of details that readers who seek this kind of knowledge are overlooking? Yet, he sets aside time to answer questions on this forum. I think we're pretty **** lucky he calls YF home!

I wish we had more guys like K1W1 and less guys who complain they are not getting concierge service at YF.

This is a most informative thread for me, as I am contemplating our first boat, probably a Westport 112. We plan to spend approximately 180 days a year on board and will run our charitable foundation from the boat and our land home. The crewing question is an interesting one.

I suspect alcohol is involved in most of the more prickly posts. Cheers!