Euro Delivery

Euro Delivery - No Brainer!

Most of the big name yacht brands are built in Europe - think Bavaria, Beneteau, Jeanneau, Hanse, Nautitech, Lagoon, Outremer & Fountaine Pajot - all these guys build predominantly in Germany or France and if you are buying a new yacht from an Australian dealer, your final price includes shipping the new yacht back home.

Australian dealers are becoming pretty well versed these days assisting owners to take delivery of their new yacht directly from the factory which has a number of benefits.

1. You get to experience the delights of the Mediterranean - which in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful places to cruise. Whether it be the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera or the beautiful mix of anchorages and towns long the Croatian coast or the laid back pace of the Greek Islands - its all so diverse and so easily accessible to even the most novice of sailors.

2. Another major benefit of taking Euro delivery is it gives you the opportunity to spread out the costs of purchase by delaying the expense of shipping to Australia and also the GST (10%) & Import Duty (5%). Provided you register your boat in Australia with AMSA as an Australian Ship, you can take delivery of your new yacht without paying the local VAT tax - which in some countries can be as high as 25%!! You will then have 18 months to clear out of the Schengen zone. For more information regarding avoiding VAT click the link here: https://www.noonsite.com/report/schengen-visas-and-vat-reports-on-cruisers-understanding/

3. If you plan it well - you can enjoy back to back Summers!

Some things we have learnt.

As I write this - we are yet to take delivery of our new Baruch and so there may be some more info I can share in a month or two but based on the Euro delivery of our Bavaria 56 in 2014 - there are some tips we would have loved to known prior that hopefully can assist someone else planning to do the same.

The first thing I’d say is that not all agents are equal! The relationship you have with your dealer is a critical one - in my opinion its just as important a selection as the yacht you buy because the reality is there will be things go wrong with your boat that need to be attended to. It’s at this point you need to be dealing with someone technical and operationally focused - not the sales guy - who ( and yes I am generalising) is often very good at telling you what they can do but not so great at following through!!

Our current experience purchasing the Nautitech 542 has been vastly different to our last experience with our Bavaria 56. The Nautitech 542 is a semi custom build and hence there is a constant stream of comms between us and the dealer and to date I have nothing but praise to give to Jason Chipp, Tony Ross & Marianne Chatwin of Ensign Yacht Brokers. These guys are a great combination of sales & operations skills which ensures the client has a positive “can do” experience whilst also having the right people to capture the many details involved with speccing this type of build.

By far, the most important tip we would give is to fit your boat out before you go with all the essentials such as linen, cutlery, plates, safety equipment, tools, spares etc and ship it over. We sent a small crate over for our Bavaria 56 but this was mostly boat spares, life raft, tools and a folding bike as the sales guy who sold the boat told us we could buy everything we needed locally when we arrived. We took delivery of this boat in Koper, Slovenia and took comfort to hear that there was even a Harvey Norman in Koper - who knew?! The reality is that we were not able to buy half of what we wanted and it was all a big rush and stress that we didn’t need compared to taking some time and picking what you want and doing this over time where you can buy in the Australian sales and be more selective. What you spend in shipping you will save in stress, precious holiday time and the ability to buy well. The other aspect is that most builds will be around a year - so you have plenty of time to get organised and it gives you something to focus on while counting down the months to you being able to take delivery of your new purchase.

For our new boat we were able to arrange with Ensign to have our boat delivered from La Rochelle into the Med - this is a 1200 nautical mile passage - which is a long way on a boat - close to the same distance as Melbourne to Whitsundays. Due to our limited time available, this allows our family to maximise our cruising time in the Med rather than spending our first week on a non stop week long ocean passage. This will also be a great “shake down” cruise where we can attend to the inevitable list of tweaks and issues that seem to be part and parcel of new boat deliveries. We will take delivery of our new yacht at the end of July in Gibraltar which is just inside the Med.

Shipping back to Australia.

Once you have finished your time in the Med, its time to ship your boat back home to Australia. We used Seven Star Yacht Transport in 2014 and found them to be great to deal with.

The main thing I would recommend is to get your boat shrink wrapped before delivery - its relatively expensive at around $AUD3000 but in my opinion worthwhile based on our experience… which to be fair, I have been advised is not the normal experience - but once bitten twice shy!

The issue we had was there was some metal grinding work being done on the ship while in transit and as a result of this, the deck of our boat was covered with rust stains from the metal shavings. After exhausting options to scrub the stains off I eventually found a caustic acid gel that was safe to use on gelcoat and removed the stains with ease - but this was some weeks later and it was disappointing to be looking at our new boat covered in rust!!

At the very least I would recommend all of the polished stainless stanchions etc to be wrapped in foam to protect these from the harsh conditions experience while on route.

The process is fairly simple at both ends. Sails, lazy bags, halyards and anything else that can be damaged or catch the wind, needs to be anchored or removed. Once this is done you simply motor the boat over to the ship and it is craned on board with mast up and strapped down on the deck.

Due to a late change in plans, we opted to have a shipping agent prepare the boat for us - this proved to be a great decision and only cost around 800EUR. The agent removed the sails, biminis etc and stored inside the boat. They also fully cleaned the boat inside and out and removed any food etc not suitable to send back to Australia and then motored the boat to the ship for loading on its prescribed loading day and time.

Once the ship arrives in Australia you need to be on site to jump on board and bring you boat into the marina - which for our voyage was at the Newcastle YC - who are incredibly helpful and very experienced in this process. Once moored the Australian Customs guys and girls will inspect your boat, ask you a few questions and provided you haven’t decided to pay for your new boat with a fresh shipment of Cocaine from Europe - you are good to sail away as soon as you like.

It was remarkably easy and quite the enjoyable process and Lachlan at Seven Star was excellent to deal with.

See link for Lachlan’s contact details: https://www.sevenstar-yacht-transport.com/team