Fort Lauderdale
Yacht detailing scoped by someone who is not selling it
On a bigger boat, the crew recommending the correction is usually the crew billing for it. Vantage keeps those apart: the scheduled washing is done by the captain who manages the boat, and the correction, coatings, and brightwork are quoted by specialists and reviewed before you approve them.
On a larger boat, detailing is a project
A fifty foot boat is not a big center console. A full detail on her is a multi-day job with a crew, a wash-down bay or a dock with the right access, coatings that have to cure, and brightwork that has to be scheduled around everything else happening on the boat. It is a project, and it gets managed like one.
It also carries a specific risk that a smaller boat does not. On a yacht, the crew doing the detail is very often the same party recommending it, and there is no natural limit on how much correction, coating, and brightwork can be recommended.
Vantage separates those roles. Captain Trace does the scheduled washing himself as part of the weekly program. The correction work, the coatings, and the brightwork are quoted by specialists, scoped and reviewed by someone who takes no percentage of that quote, and inspected before sign-off.
What the program keeps on top of
The routine work Captain Trace does himself, tracked visit to visit rather than noticed once it is overdue.
Scheduled washing
A full bi-weekly wash, and after every trip at the Full Management tier. Topsides, house, hardtop, hull sides, non-skid, glass, isinglass, and stainless dried rather than left to spot.
Stainless and hardware
Rails, hardtop frames, and deck hardware watched for tea staining and rust bleed. Caught in the first weeks it is a wash problem. Left a season, it is an etched surface and a polishing bill.
Canvas, isinglass, and covers
Cleaned with the right products, checked for stitching and chafe, and re-treated on a schedule instead of replaced early. Isinglass is one of the most expensive things on a boat to ruin with the wrong cleaner.
Teak and brightwork
Condition tracked visit to visit, so varnish work is scheduled while it is still a maintenance coat rather than a strip and rebuild.
How a correction or coating job gets scoped
The work is done by detailing and coatings specialists. These are the questions asked before you approve one of their quotes.
- Does the finish actually need machine correction, or does it need a proper wash schedule and a wax?
- Is this a one-step or a genuine multi-step correction, and is the quote consistent with which one it is?
- How much of the hull is being done, and where does the scope stop at the waterline and the boot stripe?
- Is a ceramic coating justified by the surface underneath it, or is it going over gelcoat that should be corrected first?
- What is the realistic life of the coating on a boat that sits in this sun, and what does maintaining it require?
- Is brightwork quoted as a maintenance coat or a full strip, and is the boat genuinely at the second yet?
- How many days does the boat have to be out of use, and does that fit around how you actually use her?
Why the washing and the inspecting are the same visit
There is a practical reason Captain Trace washes the boats he manages rather than subcontracting it. Nobody covers every square foot of a boat as thoroughly as the person washing her, which makes it the single best opportunity in the week to find what is changing.
Lifted non-skid, a hairline in the gelcoat, a deck fitting starting to weep, a hatch gasket going hard, canvas stitching giving up in one corner. None of that announces itself. All of it is obvious to somebody with a wash mitt on the surface it is happening to.
That is why the wash is inside the program rather than sold as a separate service, and why the report after a wash reads like an inspection.
Common questions
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- Do you do the compounding and coating yourselves?
- No. Correction, coatings, and brightwork are trades, performed by specialists. Vantage does the scheduled washing, scopes what the boat genuinely needs, sources the shop, reviews the quote, and inspects the work.
- How often does a Fort Lauderdale yacht need correction work?
- Far less often than she is offered it, if she is being washed properly on a bi-weekly schedule. A boat washed on schedule and kept waxed or coated can go years between corrections. A boat washed monthly cannot.
- Can you handle a detail before a boat show or a sale?
- Yes, and both are worth planning early. Yard and crew capacity in Broward tightens sharply in the weeks before the fall show, and a detail booked late is a detail done in a rush.
- Do you take a commission from the detailing shop?
- No. The retainer is what pays for the management. A recommendation is only worth having if the person making it does not get paid more when the answer is yes.
More in Fort Lauderdale
Other Vantage pages covering the same stretch of coastline.
Get the finish onto a schedule
Send the make, model, and length, and where she sits. You will get a quote for the program that includes her wash cycle, and an honest read on what her finish actually needs.