The Winter Yard Period Checklist: How to Plan a Yacht Refit Without the Chaos

For most yachts, the season ends and the real work begins. Winter is when the big maintenance jobs, surveys and upgrades happen, when crew go on leave, and when the budget for the year gets spent in a few short months.

A well-run yard period sets up the next season. A badly run one means overruns, jobs that slip into April and a yacht that leaves the yard with half the defects still open.

This checklist is what experienced captains, chief engineers and management companies do, step by step.

12 weeks before: build the worklist

The worklist is the backbone of the yard period. Everything else, from quotes to crew planning, depends on it.

Gather every job in one place:

• Open defects from the season, with photos and notes from the crew who found them.
• Planned maintenance that is due or overdue during the winter, especially jobs that need the yacht out of the water or the engines down.
• Survey and class items: anything the surveyor or class will look at, and any findings still open from the last survey.
• Certificates that expire before the next season. It is far easier to renew them now than in June.
• The owner's wish list: upgrades, interior changes, new toys or tenders.

Then prioritise: must do (safety, class, flag), should do (reliability) and nice to have (upgrades). When the budget gets tight, and it usually does, you already know what moves to next year.

Order long-lead items now. Spare parts, specialist equipment and anything shipped from abroad can take weeks. Check your inventory against the worklist so nothing waits on a missing part.

A good planned maintenance system makes this step much faster: overdue and upcoming jobs are already listed, with their history, instead of being rebuilt from notebooks and spreadsheets.

12 weeks before: budget and quotes

• Get at least two quotes for the big jobs, based on the same written specification.
• Add a contingency. Yard periods almost always uncover extra work once panels come off.
• Agree how extra work is approved: who signs off change orders, up to what amount, and how fast.
• Set up cost tracking per job, not just one total. When the owner asks why the yard period cost more than planned, you can show exactly where the money went.

Tracking expenses against budgets per job, with invoices read and categorised automatically, is exactly what finance in Nauticare is for.

8 weeks before: crew and logistics

• Plan crew leave and rotations around the yard schedule. Decide who stays on board for which jobs, and who needs to be there for handovers with contractors.
• Sort crew accommodation if the yacht won't be habitable during the works.
• Use the quiet time for training and certificates. Courses and renewals are much easier to fit in during winter than mid-season.
• Brief the crew on the yard's own rules: access, working hours, hot work, waste and security.

4 weeks before: safety, paperwork and a baseline

• Risk assessments and permits to work. Yard periods mean hot work, enclosed spaces, working aloft and many contractors on board. Prepare the risk assessments in advance and agree how permits to work are issued and closed with the yard. See how risk assessments and permits to work work in Nauticare.
• Check insurance. Confirm with your insurer what cover applies while the yacht is in the yard and during sea trials.
• Record the yacht's condition with dated photos before work starts. It avoids arguments about damage later.
• Prepare the document pack the yard and surveyors will ask for: certificates, drawings, previous survey reports and equipment manuals.

During the yard period: stay on top of it every day

• Track progress per job, not just in a weekly meeting. Small delays on day 5 become big ones by week 6.
• Log every change order with its cost and who approved it.
• Check work before signing it off. Quality problems are cheaper to fix while the contractor is still on site.
• Keep the crew and office looking at the same information. One shared, up-to-date view beats WhatsApp threads and emailed spreadsheets.
• Update the maintenance history as jobs are completed, not after the yard period. Three months later, nobody remembers which seal kit went into which pump.

Before you leave: close everything properly

• Sea trials with a clear checklist of everything that was worked on.
• Close all permits to work and file the risk assessments.
• Update running hours, the maintenance history and the next due dates for everything that was serviced or replaced.
• Record warranties for new equipment and work done, with their expiry dates.
• Update the inventory with new spares and anything used.
• Send the owner a clear report: what was done, what it cost against budget, and what was moved to next year.
• Write down the lessons learned while they are fresh. Next winter's planning starts here.

Use the winter to fix your system too

The off-season is also the best time to change how the yacht is run. If your maintenance, certificates or costs still live in spreadsheets, winter gives you the time to move them into one system before the season starts, without disrupting a busy crew. It is why many teams switch in the winter months. See how Nauticare compares with spreadsheets.

With Nauticare, the AI builds your planned maintenance from the equipment manuals, you can import your existing sheets from Excel, and our team can do the setup for you.

The checklist at a glance

12 weeks before

• Gather defects, due maintenance, survey items, expiring certificates and the owner's wish list
• Prioritise: must do, should do, nice to have
• Order long-lead spares
• Get quotes, add a contingency, agree how extra work is approved

8 weeks before

• Plan crew leave, rotations and accommodation
• Book training and certificate renewals
• Brief the crew on the yard's rules

4 weeks before

• Prepare risk assessments and the permit to work process
• Check insurance cover
• Photograph the yacht's condition
• Prepare the document pack

During the yard period

• Track progress per job, daily
• Log every change order and its cost
• Check work before signing off
• Update the maintenance history as you go

Before you leave

• Sea trials, permits closed
• Running hours, history and next due dates updated
• Warranties and inventory recorded
• Owner report and lessons learned

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Nauticare is AI-powered yacht management software for captains, crew and management companies. Maintenance, crew, compliance, inventory and finance, in one place.