New build advice needed

Hello,

How those brokers like Burgess/Edmiston/Fraser/etc. charge to assist for new (custom) builds, and what sort of traps a client should pay attention?

Also, is there any real advantage on contracting those services instead of going directly to a reputable builder, like Palmer Johnson?

Thank you.

I don't have anything yet, this is just an intention for now. However; I have been involved with port management and foreign trade corporations for more than a decade, and I indeed am close to a Corporation (Wilson, Sons) who own several shipyards (mostly for their own use) but they just do commercial ships, mostly PSV (platform supply vessels) projects they buy from Damen.

I've talked with a friend from there who have being involved in all steps of ship building during the last decades but he is a bit uncomfortable with yacht building, given the fact he has no experience with this particular market - and we are in South America too what may have some practical differences.

More likely to be a custom build; however I don't have anything specific in mind right now. Currently I am more concerned to acknowledge how the whole thing works, including at the Maritime Law side (I have a Master Degree in International Law of the Sea but had very little contact with Maritime Law).

Let's wait.

This is exactly what I was expecting.

Thank you.

Hello.

I am still can't say the size. I am intermediating in some very large foreign trade deals and industrial investments, and for the end of this year or the next I should be able to retire very well out of it; however IDK how much exactly I will make from those (can vary a lot depending on how the thing will evolve from this point), but I expect to be able to afford and maintain something with 50 meter or more.

Thank you.

Sound like a very good advise. I do appreciate.

I was asking questions to people from another market in order to get a general idea of what is involved in the process and what are the general practices - how flexible they are.

For instance, how/who the parts are sourced? I have some contacts I could probably get some parts, e.g. steel and/or aluminum, directly from the producer with reasonable reduced price as a personal favor. Also, I rather prefer to oversight/control the logistics of the delivery of the parts by myself one time there is a proper schedule.

My main issue is with the yacht construction/market specifics.

What could you tell about Lateral?

Thank you.

[EDIT]

When I said custom I was referring to the exterior design as I didn't find anything I liked. The closest were PJ SuperSport 72M and Oceanco's Esquel. I quite like the trimaran idea but that PJ was the only I ever found that not looks funny.

This a pretty funny situation for me. I have contact with everything imaginable in commercial maritime affairs and navy, from commercial lines to admirals, and none of them seems to know a thing about yachting.

It is not arrogance, far from it. I've been working with so many sort of different industries and in different countries, I usually can easily anticipate where the contractor may have some arrangement with its supplier to fool the client in spending more money where it is not necessary - some ports love to have arrangements with customs to make the cargo delay in order to get more money from storage, or invent costs doesn't exist when they know the client don't have experience. That may not be everyone, surely not, but can happen everywhere.

E.g. luxury industry: not a fooling thing but in general the retailer buy from the maker with 40% off of the street price. The street price usually is 20% off the list price. So, something that cost 100k (list price) from the retailer costed about 48 for them (40+20 off). Perfectly fine, but I am not paying more than 48 in any way. I always buy B2B FOB from the maker - shipping costs are negligible.

What really annoys me is not the 60% thing but the fact luxury retailers try to put themselves like they are some kind of superior entity who have exclusive access to some magical product. Countless times I saw audiophile products makers and retailers laughing of their clients who paid 80K to buy their product that costed 3K to build, and now they (clients) are paying 100K to buy the same product again but in a new package, with minor changes and new marketing, and how they were easily fooled with some volume trick they did during the presentation.

In short, I don't trust anyone selling me anything unless by those I already know very well. I don't have a problem to pay the proper price for anything but I really don't like to be fooled and I rarely overpay. IMO if someone feels they need to earn more put it on their price, if no one would be willing to pay is because they don't worth it.

I foresee very long negotiations, because they will come with some budget and I will need to re-do it (will probably take months) in order to have proper means negotiate, and that is not ever hard to discover for how much certain product is getting in some country, and so how much in average it is costing to their supplier too, all ports know how much are being paid for the cargo they handle. You just need to get somebody you know from some port and ask them to make a call to another port and ask for how much the importers in there are paying for steel or anything. Storage and other operational costs are often ease to guess.

I am not trying to change the industry and all industries are equal, they need to sell to survive, the luxury one sell in small quantities, and none of them will lose a deal if you arrange with them to advertise you paid more than you really paid. All luxury industries I had contact were the same, you pay 15 and tell everyone you paid 150 and so the do their marketing. If one decline there is another.

It is hard to believe the big sharks are being eaten by the Yacht industry as advertised, when they are not by the Art market, and that is the real extreme luxury market. Art galleries are ages ahead in fooling people compared to anything, they actually lock the clients with them, who in practice never completely own the piece, and control the whole industry price with no real justification, and the big sharks rarely overpaying in there. It's all the same pay X and tell you paid X*Y.

Try to make a fool of a Russian oligarch to see how much time you will be alive. And that doesn't ever need to be in millions, I already see people disappear for a lot of less than that.

So, in case you are wondering why I know a bit about luxury industry, years ago I knew a person who own one of those audiophile industries and indeed he actually is well know to be the inventor of the "high-end audio market", and he is also one of the very very few whom is serious in that business.

His "top of the line" products are extremely expensive, the retailers (in general) are crap as usual, but he is usually clear about how much his products cost to be made to everyone who ask. He don't care.

He negotiate over what he earn (but with limits) but if you find a way to get the parts cheaper he is all with you because he also want to make his cost go down.

So, he often sell custom electronics and some of his fully custom top end amplifiers can easy cost (advertised as) one million euros (each, mono). No one pay anything ever close of that price. The only people who buy those custom amplifiers are err... the exactly same people who are buying 100m+ superyachts (many Russian oligarchs and alike), and they usually pay close of the build costs.

What is the deal? Those custom things demands some R&D and they are extremely good for marketing, so the big sharks are indeed financing his business... they are somehow his partners, because the R&D he did now allow him to bring new versions to his products lines...

So, who are actually paying for his company profit? The aspirational people buying retail...

By boat you mean in the Yacht industry because that is quite common in the commercial ship industry, since no one is a fool on that industry.

But now that bring a interesting situation. Damen is in the commercial ship business but also in the Superyacht business.

People in here often buy projects from Damen and then source and do everything they want the way they want, now if the same people want one of the Damen superyachts they will decline to act like that?

I think you didn't understood me right, I never said I want them to reduce their profit (other than by regular negotiation), I indeed said exactly on the contrary - you can review.

What I mean is I am not willing to be fooled with arrangements made with suppliers e.g. to inflate the prices of the budget, and then they make more money out of it. I have means to re-do the whole budget and assure that is not happening.

This kind of thing can happen everywhere if you are not prepared to properly discuss the price of every part in detail. Let's get the example of a broker acting as a project manager I brought in my OP.

I saw even worse things happen inside of a quite reputable company I am quite close, some people working in there (executives I knew and had very good reputation too) were doing personal arrangements with the suppliers to get a kick back from every stuff the company buy regularly. They were cough after several years because someone met someone in a bar and the prices were not matching.

Also, I don't treat boat builders as electronic suppliers, I do business with all sort of business and professionals, from small to multinationals, and business for me is business, everyone want something and I look at any business like that.

Like you, I trust on people I know but I don't trust people I don't know for free and I have serious reasons for that. Get some time in foreign trade business and the amount of scams are so high and so sophisticated even the most experienced one can fall sometimes.

A quite well known and experienced trader in here almost fall in a pretty serious scam. The scammer had all expected documentation, fake but almost perfect, to buy commodities in behalf on UN, repeat the documentation was perfect. The only reason she didn't felt was because a diplomat friends of her come for vacation and pop up in her office as a surprise. The scammer was in there, she said he (her friend) also work in UN, the scammer acted completely natural and show him his UN identification and he saw that was fake.

The only single reason he saw that was fake was because the UN was changed their identification card a couple of weeks before and no one had that old model anymore, otherwise he would be fooled too. So, he silent called the police.

So, yes I am guilty to be 100% of the time prepared to be dealing with a scammer, but I have reasons for that.

Btw, one thing I didn't understood who is in fact the builder in this conversation?

That involve a designer for the concept, naval architects to create the (executive) project (I am looking at Lateral), project managers, people for ISM, ISPS, SAMS etc. a shipyard. What am I missing?

Also, it is not that I do insist on a complete custom build but I couldn't find anything that remotely interest me other than the PJ SuperSport 72M and Oceanco's Esquel (and just the general lines).

Thank you.