Working with cruising and yacht agents

Without question, a good yacht agent can save captains and owners headaches and a bad one will cause them.

The agent will line up all the local authorities on the dock to complete necessary clearances and onerous government paperwork, including visas and sponsor letters, and provide compliance guidance with ever-changing pilot age and discharge regulations.

Unlike a yacht management or technical support company, yacht agents are the go-to source for itinerary planning and berthing solutions, and often can offer substantial discounts on something they buy in bulk, like fuel. Whatever you need be it a helicopter rental, banking transactions or freight handling they can help.

With the allure of worldwide cruising and the speed at which superyacht owners desire to lap the oceans, globe-trotting superyachts really can't avoid using a cruising agent, although some find it a frustrating prospect, mainly due to a lack of transparency in the billing process.

How you pay

According to BWA Yachting a well-known, reputable agent with offices supporting 275 ports around the world fees, generally speaking, are normally applied as a lump sum, price per hour or price per task carried out.

In the past, agents would often calculate a fee based on a percentage of the total bill, but with figures being so high (cost of fuel, berthing, etc.), this method is not longer as practical, says Anne Spyropoulos, communications manager for BWA Yachting.

'In the US and the Caribbean, the tendency seems to be a fee per hour,' she says 'while in Europe it seems to go more towards a lump sum figure based on a size of boat and time spent in a location, or the fee-per-task formula' she says.

When in Rome

In Asia, Captain Cillian Budarlaigh of Indo Yacht Support in Bali, Indonesia, says, many local harbour agencies typically deal with fishing and commercial vessels, and their high fees and low service reflect that. Similar problems exist in South America, which is not known to be very yacht-friendly, even near ports of superyacht builders.

The lack of transparency in south-east Asia rubs Captain Tim Forderer the wrong way. Nevertheless, he went with it during his three-year circumnavigation of the sailing yacht Vivid. 'Fighting the system,' he says, 'is like swimming upstream.

'As a captain, you balance what is going on with local culture, but you should not be taken advantage of while looking after the owner and best needs of the boat,' says Forderer. 'You need to trust the agent when he says to pay some guy, whether he is a vendor or a government official, $100 in cash.'

Forderer became jaded after spending five months in India and Indonesia, where 'tips' are commonplace. He witnessed countless scams between taxi drivers and street vendors. On one dark night, Forderer handed a big stack of cash with a can of Coca-Cola to a small boat with no running lights to obtain fuel.

'The only way to get fuel in Flores [Indonesia] is after dark so that the navy doesn't see' says Forderer. 'Cash is exchanged to pay everyone off. It's all part of the experience. You accept it.'

On the level

‘We always use signed contracts and rate cards, which are essential to any professional business, and yachting should be no different,’ says Captain Budarlaigh. ‘But signed contracts alone do not assure transparency,’ he says. ‘In the past, primarily, it was common practice for some captains and crew to accept ten per cent cash back from suppliers. They were even nicknamed the “ten per centers”.

‘If some agents and suppliers continue offering and accepting kickbacks, we can only hope that captains will realize that they are the real losers, as the true cost is bad service, accepting substandard work/goods and higher prices to the end user,’ says Budarlaigh.

‘The subject [of crew and agent kickbacks and commissions], when it is seriously addressed at the industry level, will cause an unpredictable upheaval and no one entity seems to want to start the snowball rolling down the hill,’ says Jenny Shawcroft, executive director of the Association of Yacht Support Services (AYSS), a group dedicated to properly vetting yachting agents. The AYSS code of ethics forbids kickbacks.

‘Our discussions with other leading associations are moving forward on resolving this ethical impasse, but this is a steep mountain to climb,’ says Shawcroft.

AYSS has a directory of members that are considered reputable cruising agents. Requirements for prospective applicants include endorsements from current members with whom they have commercial activity, letters of recommendation from superyacht captains, banking references evidencing good financial standing, and positive words from that agent’s governing port.

The AYSS Ethics and Grievance Committee is active and hears a couple of cases each year, according to Captain Mark Drewelow, current vice-chairman of the AYSS who founded C2C, a cruising support agency in California.

‘I believe the most common theme is a lack of transparency between boat and agent, and no signed agreement before starting work that lays out how billing works and what the charges will be,’ says Drewelow.

‘The important thing for owners, captains and managers to keep in mind is to understand which type of charging is being applied and to compare apples to apples when selecting an agent.

‘In certain cases, one agent may appear to be more expensive than another, solely based on what is labelled an “agency fee”. In reality, this may not be the case if one is all inclusive and the other applies additional charges for various tasks or operations,’ says BWA’s Spyropoulos.

When You Need One

One often thinks of using an agent specifically when cruising to out-of-the-way destinations, and, indeed, in many Third World countries it would be tough for a yacht to attempt entry without one. But dealing with clearing into the US can be just as daunting, says Captain Winston Joyce-Clarke of the motor yacht Big Fish.

‘We were in uniform in the US and were driving to clear in and out,’ says Joyce-Clarke. ‘We were stopped and told, “You’re illegal, you can’t drive around this country until you check in.”

‘I explained that that was exactly what we were trying to do: check in. If we were being chauffeured by a cruising agent, we would have had no problem.’

BWA Yachting agrees that the US entry procedures can be complex and points out that mistakes will have a direct impact on the yacht’s operations.

‘Being a true yacht agent requires keeping up with the ever-changing regulations globally on immigration, customs clearance, visas etc. We are not yacht managers, brokers or charter agents – we are focused on compliance, services and planning,’ says Spyropoulos, citing an example of a crew member being stamped in by immigration on their C1/D instead of their B1/B2 visa, which would severely limit their allowed time in the country. An agent can prepare crew prior to arrival to avoid this.

While captains may be fully capable of completing onerous paperwork, they need to know who to contact. If a boat is a regular in the Med or Caribbean, the captain may know who’s who, but the yacht agent can absolutely speed up the process.

‘In some places you don’t specifically need an agent, but they are most helpful with bureaucracy and getting things done,’ says Captain Amy Nickerson-Close.

Nickerson-Close finds agents through word-of-mouth and cruising guides. Whether it’s to ease the language barrier or to find docking or parts, she find agents to be very helpful in Thailand, the Maldives, Croatia and the Baltic.

She says their involvement is a must in places like Sri Lanka and the Panama Canal, unless you want to wait days or weeks for a slot to transit, which is not an option for a yacht on a schedule.

‘When you average one day to clear in and out of places like the Panama Canal, that can add up on a voyage of a few months,’ says Joyce-Clarke. ‘You can easily spend two to three weeks in customs.’

Without an agent, that time could be quite a bit longer. In our world where time is money, an agent saving a yacht time will be well worth the money spent.