Item 20 · How a yard period works

From work list to redelivery

8 steps, and at each one the decision that stays yours and the document it is written into. You manage a refit better when you can see what it is made of.

Get the rate card See the quotation format

Contents of this sheet

Item 20.1

The 8 steps

Eight stages · eight decisions

Each step ends in a document, and each one has a decision that is yours. Nothing moves to the next step until that decision is made.

Particulars and work list

Yacht seen from above on the yard apron — Whole-yacht view · yard apron

Her particulars and the work list, if one exists. If it does not, we start from the class calendar.

Your decisionYou decide what goes on the list — and what waits for the survey.Project recordWork list

Scope broken down

Open interior lining revealing cable routes — Access opened to expose cable routes

Line by line. Items that need opening up before they can be priced are marked as such from the start.

Your decisionYou decide which items to open up early.Project recordWork list

Quotation

Yard specialist measuring a panel for a line item — Dimensions taken for a line item

Every line item closed in full — removal, the unit itself, materials, labour with its hours, customs.

Your decisionYou decide: approve, trim or split every line item.Project recordQuotation

Schedule

Travel lift and a second yacht ashore in an active yard — Yard context for the work sequence

Built around long-lead equipment, contractor availability and your class calendar.

Your decisionYou decide the yard window that fits your season.Project recordSchedule

Contract and dates

Yacht being moved on a travel lift across the yard — Yacht positioned for the yard period

Contractual arrival and redelivery dates, the agreed scope, the payment schedule and the warranty terms.

Your decisionYou decide the dates and the terms before anything starts.Project recordContract

Work on site

Yard specialist grinding steel during refit work — Structural work in progress

One project manager on site every day, and every trade on board works to that schedule. Weekly reporting throughout.

Your decisionYou decide every addition — before the work starts.Project recordWeekly report

Testing and sign-off

Three analogue gauges mounted on a yacht interior panel — System instruments and pressure gauges

Each job is tested and signed off as it finishes, not all of it on the last day. The specialists run their own tests, and your surveyor stands alongside if you appoint one.

Your decisionYou decide what your surveyor witnesses.Project recordHandover file

Redelivery

Yacht afloat in the harbour channel — Yacht back on the water

She leaves under the agreed warranty terms, with the supplier documentation handed over.

Your decisionYou decide the final walk-through list.Project recordHandover file

Going through the day on the quay · Tuzla

Every step ends in a document you can send to the owner’s office

Tuzla, Istanbul

Item 20.2

Your class calendar

The published survey cycle — and when the yard period has to be signed

These are the published IACS rules your class society works to. Under each survey is the date by which the yard period has to be signed, so the parts arrive before she does.

Every yearAnnual survey

Due within a window of 3 months either side of her anniversary date.

Sign 3 months ahead

~2.5 yearsIntermediate survey

Due about halfway through the 5-year cycle — formally, between her second and third annual survey.

Sign 3 months ahead

Every 5 yearsSpecial survey — class renewal

The heaviest event of the cycle, and the one worth grouping other work around.

Sign 5–6 months ahead

2× per cycleDocking survey

Twice in every 5-year cycle, and never more than 36 months apart.

Sign 3 months ahead

Signing about 3 months before arrival is what buys the parts their place in the schedule: a generator can take 5 months to ship, most long-lead equipment 2.

Source: published IACS survey requirements.

Item 20.3

Four schedules, one manager

One yacht, four schedules running at once

One company is answerable for all four. Each of them also leaves its own paperwork behind, and all of it goes into the same handover file.

Marine machinery opened up for service — Machinery opened upTuzla, Istanbul

Hull & paint

Sets the critical path: faired and coated before anything goes back on deck.

Project recordThe coating system is handed over with its own paperwork.

Machinery

From the day she is chocked to sea trials. The long-lead units are ordered first.

Project recordThe maker’s engineer attends commissioning, and his report goes into the file.

Interior

Goes back in once the fairing is done, so the finishes are never in the dust.

Project recordThe finish is walked and accepted by the owner’s side.

Systems

Tested last, because everything else has to be back in place first.

Project recordThe makers’ engineers certify their own equipment.

Haul-out · Opened up · Back together · Trials Everything the four leave behind — certificates, commissioning reports, coating paperwork — goes into the same handover file and leaves with her.

Item 20.4

Straight answers

The questions asked on the first call

Q·1

Does the yard own a dry dock?

We choose the facility for the yacht and the job: the dry dock, the 860 t travel lift, and covered space of our own for the work that needs it. The dock and the heavy lifting gear are taken for the project and for as long as it runs.

Q·2

Can I bring my own surveyor and my own representative?

For the whole yard period, yes — with access to the work and to the weekly reporting.

Q·3

How is additional work priced once the panels come off?

Some items cannot be priced honestly until they are opened — a tank, a gearbox, the structure under a deck. A visit aboard settles most of a work list, but not those. We mark them in the quotation from the start, so before you sign you can see which numbers are firm and which are waiting on a look inside.

When one of them is opened, you get what was found, what it costs and what it does to the date — written onto the same line it was priced under. Nothing continues until you approve it.

Where the openable items are marked from the start like this, the stated contingency is 10–15% — against 30–40% that is ordinary across the market.

Q·4

What happens to the date if the scope grows?

More work usually means more time. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either not counting it or will hand you the difference at the end.

What we do is price the addition and its effect on the date in the same approval, so you decide with both numbers in front of you. Where the added work runs alongside something already on the schedule, the date holds. Where it does not, you see the new date before the work starts — not after.

The 8 steps start with a list. If one exists, step two is where we come in.

Have your work list priced line by line →

Quantity, unit and hours against every line, so it compares with any other yard’s offer.