BUYING
Everyone loves the idea of owning a superyacht but what does it actually cost to run one? The owners of a Sunseeker 105 charter yacht reveal all...
It is a business with lifestyle implications, not a lifestyle with business implications
Have you ever heard the saying, “If you need to ask the cost, you can’t afford it”? Trite as it may sound, there is a grain of truth in it, especially when it comes to buying and running a superyacht. But there are ways of offsetting the costs, which is exactly why the owners of Kefi, a 2004 Sunseeker 105 based in Florida, ended up buying a pre-owned superyacht rather than their original idea of buying a brand new 60ft sportscruiser. By chartering out Kefi during the weeks they weren’t using it themselves, they hoped to offset the costs of running such a big vessel while enjoying the benefits of a much more palatial crewed yacht when they were able to use it.
We covered their original buying journey in the October 2022 issue of Custom Yachting. Now they have owned Kefi for over a year, they have agreed to share what it actually cost them to run and how much revenue it earns in charter fees to see whether the sums add up. The rather scary-looking answer to the first question is just over $1.1 million per annum, but that includes all the costs of running a charter boat – a privately run boat would cost a fair bit less. The answer to the second question is rather more complicated because their goal was to end up with a profitable charter business with personal use costs the same as if they were running a brand new 60ft sportscruiser privately.
To go through the numbers and show me all the work they have done to make it a successful charter buisiness, Scott, one of the co-owners, invited me to experience a short cruise aboard Kefi from the Bahamas to the Exumas and back.
CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS
A 40-minute flight from Fort Lauderdale to Nassau provided an excellent opportunity to discuss the past year with Scott. Having owned several boats over the past three decades, including a 44ft flybridge that he still keeps for his own private use on Lake Erie, Scott is no stranger to the costs of running a boat but even he was surprised at the step up.
“It has been a learning curve,” admits Scott. “This is a whole different level financially. The costs are exponential compared to an owner-run smaller boat but we did go into it with our eyes wide open. It is a business with lifestyle implications, not a lifestyle with business implications. We didn’t want to be the alcoholic who buys a bar and drinks all the profits with his friends”.
Even so, ensuring the business model works is no easy task and a ke
