When Kevin Laverty first stepped into the superyacht industry two decades ago, he was shocked. Coming from oil and gas - an industry defined by rigorous processes and detailed documentation - he expected something similar for a €60 million yacht build. Instead, what he found was a 33-page contract covering everything from design to delivery.
“I was gobsmacked,” he recalls. “In oil and gas, a contract for a project would be several ring binders, sometimes up to 10. But here we were building a 77-metre superyacht with barely more than a pamphlet to govern the entire process.”
For Laverty, now director of projects at Hill Robinson, that moment lit a fire. “I’ve been on a crusade ever since to bring professionalism into our industry,” he says. And over the years, he’s done just that, building a project management division aligned with the Association of Project Management (APM), training his team of 12 in formal project management methods, and, crucially, helping owners navigate the lesser-known traps that can derail their superyacht projects.
Professionalism where it matters most
Superyacht owners are rarely novices in business. They’ve built empires in finance, engineering, tech or manufacturing. “In their respective fields, they surround themselves with professionals,” says Laverty. “So why would those same people run a significant purchase, like a superyacht, with amateurs?”
The answer, he suggests, lies in how the industry has evolved. Unlike oil and gas or aviation, superyacht building has historically been less regulated, less process-driven and more open to interpretation. That’s where companies like Hill Robinson come in.
By embedding professional project managers, many of whom come from marine engineering or deck officer backgrounds, Hill Robinson ensures owners aren’t left exposed. The goal is to give clients the same level of expertise and protection they would expect in any other major investment.
The independence question
For many superyacht owners, one of the most important considerations when choosing a project manager is independence. Yachting is a tightly knit industry, and it’s not unusual for management companies to also be linked to brokerage houses or shipyards. That overlap can leave owners wondering: whose interests are really being protected?
Laverty doesn't shy away from the issue. "Hill Robinson is a full-service yachting company with a yacht management specialty," he says. "While we have our sister company, Moravia, on the sales and charter side, each business is clear on its mandate to act in the client's best interest. That separation matters."
The grey areas of superyacht contracts
To the untrained eye, a superyacht contract can look watertight, but Laverty knows otherwise. “A lot of contracts are hybrids - halfway between a performance specification and a build specification,” he explains.
A performance specification outlines what the yacht must achieve: speed, range, noise levels, guest capacity. If the shipyard delivers a yacht that meets those criteria, the project is technically a success. A build specification, on the other hand, dictates exactly how the yacht is to be constructed. Most superyacht contracts land somewhere in the middle, leaving liability dangerously skewed toward the owner. “Owners and their representatives often don’t realise this,” Laverty says. “It’s because of a general lack of professionalism in the way contracts have historically been written.”
Why captains aren’t always project managers
One of the most common misconceptions in the industry is that a captain can double as a project manager during a build or refit, and it’s easy to see why. Captains know their yachts inside and out, they understand how a yacht is run day to day and they often enjoy long-standing trust with their owners. But as Laverty points out, running a yacht and managing a complex multi-million-euro build are two very different disciplines.
“There are some very good build captains out there, but they are few and far between, in my experience,” he says. “Most captains wouldn’t invite a project manager in to run their refit as they think they can do it themselves.”
And yet, Hill Robinson often finds itself "rescuing stuck projects", or even providing expert testimony in legal disputes when things go wrong. “It’s lucrative for us, yes,” he admits, “but it’s completely wrong for the industry. An owner who has a bad experience may never buy a yacht again. That’s a loss for everyone.”
Understanding waivers vs. dispensations
An example of the commercial understanding a professional project manager brings is the difference between waivers and dispensations in contracts. A waiver, Laverty explains, can strip the owner of rights without them realising it.
“For example, if I don’t attend a sea trial, the shipyard has the right to go ahead without me. They’ll test only what the classification society requires, which is a subset of what the yacht should actually deliver. If class signs off, the owner is duty-bound to accept the vessel. That’s a waiver.”
Dispensations, however, are different. “If a staircase is built three millimetres too narrow, you can reject it and cause a huge delay, or you can accept it but ask for compensation - something the owner wants that would otherwise be a variation to the contract. That’s a dispensation, and it needs to be recorded properly in a change order.” These details may seem minor, but in the context of a multi-million-euro project, they carry enormous weight.
Spotting contract traps others miss
Shipyards, Laverty points out, are of course highly commercial operations. "Having a project manager's early involvement in a project helps avoid clauses in contracts that can trip up an owner and cause frustration for a shipyard. Buffers, such as permissible delays, can cause real issues."
Take tenders, for example. A contract might stipulate that the shipyard requires the tenders 24 months before yacht completion. But in reality, building a custom limousine tender takes around 18 months after you’ve selected a builder and they’ve slotted you into their schedule. In other words, meeting that 24-month deadline is practically impossible. “If you don’t deliver the tender on time, the yard can shift liability for delays onto you,” Laverty explains.
What’s often overlooked is that the shipyard doesn’t actually need the tender itself at that stage. What they need are the technical details - the weight, the centre of gravity, the splash mould of the hull - so they can prepare the tender bay and install the cranes. The physical tender is only necessary once the yacht reaches sea trials, and even then, it’s the weight that matters more than the vessel itself. “We’ve done sea trials with water bags in the tender bay,” Laverty notes. “All the yard really needs is the equivalent load. The actual tender can be delivered later, even months after the yacht itself. That’s the kind of practical, commercial knowledge we bring to protect the client.”
The shipyards themselves echo that sentiment. “At ICON Yachts, we highly value having a solid and experienced yacht and project management company alongside us, and we might reflect on the difficulties of particular past projects where this was not in place," says Tony Gale, CEO of ICON Yachts.
"Having such a professional team on the owner’s side is a real asset that not only brings huge benefits to the owner but also protects the shipyard, as we know there is an expert partner on the other side who understands every detail of a complex project such as a new build, refit or a conversion, where so often it is the solutions found between us that pre-empt major disruption to the build."
Why early involvement is critical in refits
If new builds are complicated, refits can be even trickier. “Scope control is where you win or lose a refit project,” says Laverty. Too often, yachts arrive in shipyards with only a tariff agreement in place - hourly rates for labour, but no defined scope of work.
“That’s when we get the call: ‘Can you come tomorrow and help us?’ And we can, and we will. But it will take longer and cost more than if we were involved a year earlier.” Planning ahead, he says, is everything. “With early involvement, you know which yard you’re going to, when you’re arriving, what’s being done and what it’s going to cost, 12 months in advance.”
The in-house difference
Unlike some firms that outsource project management, Hill Robinson keeps everything in-house. “That means our people work as a team, sharing experience across projects,” Laverty explains. “We’re not just providing an individual - we’re providing the collective expertise of the group.”
For Laverty, it all comes back to the passion that first drew him into the industry. “Professionalism is about doing the hard stuff right. It’s about protecting owners from risks they don’t even know exist. And it’s about ensuring that when someone buys or refits a yacht, it’s an experience they’ll want to repeat, not regret.”
If you’re considering a new build or refit, speak to Hill Robinson’s project management team early. With 25 years of experience in the project management field and industry-leading methodology, they ensure your yacht project stays on time, on budget and on course.
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