A Q&A With Our Director Of Management

As we celebrate 30 years of Bluewater, Phillip Holden, Founder and Management Director for Bluewater, gives a brief overview of his department.

By Phillip Holden • 01 April 2021

Why do you need a yacht manager?

Do the words AUDIT or SURVEYS send a shiver down your spine?
Do you get lost in your yacht’s accounts, drowning in receipts?
Want to share the burden of an audit or survey and have a professional check over everything with you?


My qualified and experienced team will help ease your operational headaches, leaving you to focus on the job at hand.


Already have a management company looking after your finances, no problem!
With our intelligent tailor-made service offering, our team could focus on your audits or flag & class surveys.
Whatever your needs, we’re here to help and reassure, not to look over your shoulder, but as a shoulder to lean on.

How does my team differ from other management companies?

Along with my fellow co-founders Peter Bennett and John Wyborn, we built Bluewater to be the complete package for yacht owners;
we have a charter division, a brokerage team and our management department all working hand in hand with our crew training and recruitment experts.

We understand both sides of the yachting industry, from the crew perspective and from the owners.

We’re able to offer our management yachts additional services that others can’t, without having to outsource.
For instance, included in their bespoke packages we give them access to our crew database for hiring as many crew as they like, and we have brokers to call upon when needed for advice on charters and sales.

Having experts in all these divisions under one roof ensures a streamlined service, round the clock, 7-days a week.

Don’t take my word for it, drop us an email to management@bluewateryachting.com and see how we can help your yacht.

What are the main advantages of hiring us?

When managing a vessel there are two fundamentals that, if you get right, everything else will flow.

These areas are the finance of the vessel and the crew of the vessel.

As an example, if you manage the maintenance of the vessel correctly and pay what you need to pay, it will be successful, if you manage it incorrectly it will end up costing you more in the long run.

If you were to supply the wrong chief engineer to the vessel it would impact the maintenance of the vessel going forward and thus reduce the enjoyment that the owner could have.

- We take the stress of ownership away with problem solving regarding the general operations of the vessel.
- Ensure legality.
- Continuity.
- Co-ordinate Flag and Class requirements so as not to interfere with the yachts programme
- Keep control of the finance and ensure the owner gets the best deal.
- Supply, vet and manage the crew.
- Correct selection of captains and heads of departments.

Safety isn’t expensive, it’s priceless

With superyachts becoming larger and more technically complicated, here are the main benefits we can bring to the table:

- The bigger the yacht the more crew there is and with that comes more crew management, let us help you with this.
- Technical management – backup the engineers and ETO’s, co-ordinate contractors, shipyards and technical support companies. This allows the onboard team to get on with their jobs.
- Negotiate better rates when dealing with technical and AVIT.

The 3 most important areas for yachts to focus on

With more and more regulations coming in to our industry, what are the three most important areas yachts need to concentrate on?

- Rules and regulations for Flag and Class, Fiscal and the costal state. How and where to operate and idiosyncrasy of different states.
- Compliance with Flag and Class and the Port State.
- Compliance with fiscal rules, charter, charter licences of different countries, registration, reporting and VAT returns.

We don’t tread on your feet

When offering yacht management services, there is always the possibility of being seen as ’treading on the feet of the captain and senior crew’ - how do we over come this?

Simply by offering valuable support in many different areas.

This can prove to be invaluable when the vessel has guests on and there may not be enough hours in the day for the captain or senior crew.

We are there to help, and ensure the smooth running of your vessel, not there to pick at problems or point fingers!

We take the headache out of running a yacht.

We look forward to hearing from you!