The Complete Guide to Buying a Second-Hand Yacht in Hong Kong

One important difference between buying a second-hand yacht and buying property in Hong Kong is that there is no statutory equivalent of a building surveyor. In practice, though, a pre-purchase survey is treated by the industry as an essential part of the transaction, for an obvious reason: the hull, engines and electrical systems sit below the waterline and under the deck, and wear you cannot see with the naked eye only shows up when a qualified marine surveyor puts the boat through a sea trial and a haul-out. If you intend to finance the purchase, banks and finance companies will almost always require a Condition & Valuation report before approving a loan amount. Insurers have no formal rule, but most will ask to see a survey report before binding cover.

Indicative fees (Hong Kong market range):

Source: One Blue Anchor. Fees vary with the size, age and complexity of the vessel. For a boat of around 36 feet, the survey — including haul-out and sea trial — takes roughly eight hours (MSES); for a 40–55 footer you should allow a full day. The report is normally issued within a few days to a week after the survey.

Bear in mind that surveyors generally carry out a non-invasive inspection only — they will not strip machinery down to check internal wear — and reports routinely note that "given the size and complexity of the vessel, not every detail can be covered". That is not an oversight; it is standard international practice. Buyers who want more can ask the surveyor to pay particular attention to two conditions common in Hong Kong waters: first, osmosis and blistering in GRP hulls, which the warm, humid water accelerates; and second, electrolytic corrosion of underwater metals — prop shafts, rudders, thrusters — which runs faster here than in open ocean because Hong Kong's typhoon shelter waters are relatively enclosed and lower in salinity (marineinspection.app).

A practical point: the sale and purchase agreement should state clearly that completion is subject to survey and sea trial. In other words, if the survey turns up a significant defect, the buyer has the right to renegotiate the price, require the seller to repair, or walk away. This clause is very easily overlooked in private sales; broker transactions normally have it built into the standard agreement.

Pleasure vessels in Hong Kong (Class IV — ordinary yachts and cruisers) come under the Marine Department, which operates a two-document system: a Certificate of Ownership (COO) together with an Operating Licence (OL). This is entirely separate from the Hong Kong Shipping Register (HKSR) used for merchant vessels, and buyers should be careful not to confuse the two.

Ownership and mortgage records are all recorded on the COO. Before paying a deposit, the buyer should apply at any Marine Department district office for a COO record search, at a fee of HK$175, which confirms: - whether the registered owner matches the seller - whether the COO carries any undischarged mortgage or hire-purchase entry

Source: Marine Department fees and charges. If the search shows a mortgage entry, the mortgagee must issue a discharge before the transfer can proceed. Sellers routinely treat this step lightly in private sales; insist on seeing the original discharge document before you part with a deposit.

The transfer is made on form MD 513 (with guidance notes MD 513 GN), and the official documentation sets the process out clearly:

1. Buyer and seller sign the MD 513 jointly (for a company, by an authorised signatory with the company chop).
2. Within 7 working days of the date of transfer, lodge it at any Marine Department district office (Central, Shau Kei Wan, Aberdeen, Cheung Chau, Yau Ma Tei, Tuen Mun, Sai Kung or Tai Po).
3. If the COO carries a mortgage entry, the mortgage must be discharged first.
4. If the Operating Licence (OL) has expired, the seller must first renew it using form MD 509 and settle all outstanding charges before the transfer can go through.
5. The buyer must submit a valid third-party liability insurance policy or certificate in the new owner's name.

Government fee: HK$355 (by crossed cheque made payable to "The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region").

The seller needs: original identity document (or certified copy), certificate of incorporation and business registration certificate (if the owner is a company), the completed MD 513, mortgage discharge documents (if applicable), the original COO, the original valid OL, and survey certificates and safety equipment records (if applicable). The buyer needs: original identity document, company documents (if applicable), proof of address issued within the past six months, and a copy of the third-party insurance certificate in the new owner's name.

Source: MD 513 Guidance Notes PDF. Note that the official documents state only the 7-working-day deadline for lodging the form; they do not publish how long it actually takes for a new COO to be issued afterwards — ask the Marine Department district office directly, or have a broker who knows the process follow it up to shorten the wait.

Other fees you may run into (Marine Department fees and charges): replacement COO HK$355, amendment of COO particulars HK$355, addition of a company name to a COO HK$355, appointment or revocation of an agent HK$355 each, mortgage or hire-purchase entry HK$355, certified copy of a COO HK$210.

This is the part of a second-hand yacht purchase that is most often overlooked, and the part most likely to cost you money or time. Keep one principle in mind: a vessel licence attaches to the owner, while berths and marina memberships run on a completely separate system — buying a boat does not give you anywhere to keep her.

Private Marinas and Club Berths — Membership Can Run to Seven Figures

Most private marinas in Hong Kong operate on a debenture or membership basis: you need the membership first before you are eligible to apply for a berth, and the membership itself is a tradeable asset with a market price. Below are the clubs for which first-hand published figures are available:

Sources: RHKYC official membership page, HHYC official membership / marina page, ABC official debenture page, Asia Yacht Services marinas guide. (Gold Coast berth numbers and yard facilities are taken from a third-party marina guide; no first-hand publication was found on the club's own site, so verify with the club before relying on them.)

One warning worth repeating: the figures quoted on membership brokers' websites can differ from official first-hand prices by a factor of several — Aberdeen Boat Club publishes HK$1.38M, for instance, while some broker sites list $200K–$367K. The likely explanation is confusion between membership categories (Individual / Corporate / Primary / Secondary), or simply out-of-date data. The commonly repeated line that "transferring a debenture costs around a hundred thousand dollars" does not match what the clubs actually publish. Take RHKYC: its own pages list two separate charges — a Re-nomination Fee of HK$38,000, and a Transfer Fee of "35% of the difference between the sale price and the original price, or HK$694,000, whichever is higher". In other words, the cost of a transfer can be far higher than the hundred-thousand figure the intermediaries quote, and it varies from club to club (other clubs do not appear to publish their transfer charges first-hand). If you are seriously considering a membership at a particular club, ask the club directly for current pricing and the full schedule of transfer charges rather than relying on a broker's web page.

Marina Cove (匡湖居), Sai Kung — the One Local Buyers Ask About Most

Club Marina Cove sits within the Marina Cove estate in Sai Kung, and the waiting list and monthly berthing fees there are questions local buyers genuinely ask. Publicly available information is not currently reliable, however — some second-hand citations of the monthly berthing fee appear to have been confused with figures from other clubs — so there is no dependable public source for these numbers at present; check with the club for the latest position.

Government Private Moorings — the Cheapest in Hong Kong, but Applications Have Been Frozen for Five Years

If you would rather not join a private club, the alternative is to apply to the Marine Department for a private mooring buoy. The official charges are remarkably low:

Source: Marine Department fees and charges. Set against the several thousand to several tens of thousands a month charged by private clubs, these rates are out of all proportion — but there is a catch: the Marine Department has frozen all new private mooring applications since 1 January 2021, and has not reopened them (Marine Department private mooring page). In practical terms, a new buyer has no way of applying for one of these bargain berths directly. The private moorings that do change hands are transferred from existing licence holders, usually together with the boat — the transfer form is MD547. How this grey area actually works — whether a mooring licence can be transferred independently of the vessel, and how long the waiting list runs — is not spelled out in published official material, so we strongly recommend enquiring through a broker familiar with Marine Department procedure; going it alone, you are quite likely to hit a closed door.

The practical lesson here is simple: sort out the berth before you buy the boat — do not complete the transfer and only then discover you have a yacht with nowhere to keep her. We have covered berthing realities in the Sai Kung area (Marina Cove and Hebe Haven), and how boats sold with a berth work, in a separate article: Berthing in Sai Kung: Marina Cove and Hong Kong's Berth Shortage.

Hong Kong law requires every pleasure vessel to carry third-party liability insurance of at least HK$5,000,000 (rising to HK$10,000,000 for vessels licensed to carry more than 12 fare-paying passengers). This is one of the documents the buyer must submit on transfer, and it is also a precondition for the annual licence renewal thereafter.

Worth noting: the transfer and the insurance are one-off costs of buying. The berthing, maintenance and insurance you pay every year afterwards are the real expense — we break the numbers down in a separate article, What does it actually cost to keep a boat for a year?.

On licensing, a pleasure vessel requires: 1. An application for a vessel licence (form MD 515) 2. An operator holding the appropriate grade of Operator Certificate of Competency — Grade 2 allows operation of vessels 15 m and under; Grade 1 (which requires an existing Grade 2 and at least 12 months' seagoing experience) allows operation of vessels of any length 3. Valid third-party insurance

Class IV pleasure vessels generally do not need a survey to be licensed, unless they carry more than 60 passengers, exceed 24 m in length with a gross tonnage over 150 GT, or are of novel construction — those cases require an approval-in-principle letter before survey. Annual licence fees are charged on a scale according to the vessel's class, length and deadweight; ask the Marine Department district office directly or refer to the official fees tables.

Sources: GovHK: Licensing a Pleasure Vessel, Marine Department licensing for local vessels FAQ, Marine Department: local pleasure vessel operators.