The real cost of owning a yacht.
Buyers obsess about the purchase price. The shock is the running cost. Plug in a yacht below and see the honest annual number — crew, dockage, fuel, insurance, refit reserve, management. Plus the break-even charter weeks needed to carry it, and a frank verdict on whether ownership makes sense for your intended use.
No magic. No sales pitch.
These figures come from public broker publications — Camper & Nicholsons’ cost-of-ownership white papers, Fraser Yachts’ annual benchmarks, Northrop & Johnson’s superyacht running-cost guides. Every line is a conservative industry average, not a promotional number.
- Crew — a crewed catamaran runs a 2-person team budgeted ~$1,450/ft (a 50 ft → ~$72.5k, per the real Aquila 50 pro forma); larger yachts scale by head-count at ~$65k–$110k all-in per crew/year (salary + uniform + food + travel + insurance).
- Dockage — per-foot annual berth fees averaged across the region. Mediterranean ~$700/ft, Caribbean ~$350/ft, Southeast Asia ~$280/ft.
- Fuel — engine hours × gallons-per-hour at cruise. Motor yachts dominate; sailing yachts are a fraction.
- Insurance — 1.2% of hull value (industry blended rate).
- Refit reserve — 2.0% of hull value set aside annually for the 5-year cycle.
- Management — yacht management firm fees, ~$85k–$210k/yr depending on size. Self-managed under 80 ft.
- Misc / overhead — communications, charts, permits, owner travel, operating-expense management.
Charter weekly rates are calibrated to real market data — 80 verified USVI/BVI crewed-catamaran listings plus a live 2026 Aquila 50 charter pro forma. The owner nets ~52% of the gross weekly rate after 15% broker + 1.8% clearinghouse commission, per-charter operating cost, and the 18% management-of-profit fee. Charter weeks are capped to each region’s realistic season — income never assumes more charters than the season can actually deliver.
A 2026 Aquila 50 in the Virgin Islands.
These aren’t our numbers — they’re from a real charter-management pro forma for a new Aquila 50 ($1.35M) running a managed program out of the USVI/BVI:
A well-run, in-demand catamaran in a strong charter ground can pay its own way and then some. Want the full line-by-line pro forma for a specific boat? Ask our ownership desk — we’ll build you a real one.