The File
Y.CO
Yacht management first, brokerage second · Four offices: Monaco, London, Fort Lauderdale, Auckland
Founded by two former crew, and the only house here whose centre of gravity is management rather than broking — more than a hundred large-yacht operations run day to day.
Commercial relationship
LivingTheta earns referral fees from brokers in this category where an introduction leads to a booking. That is a standing commercial interest in you chartering, and it is disclosed on every page of this site that touches the category. There is no agreement with Y.CO specifically, nothing has been received from it, and it has not paid for this page.
- Founded
- 2004, by Charlie Birkett and Gary Wright Both former crew. The firm states 2004 in two places on its own site; the 2002 date that circulates is unsupported.
- Headquarters
- 17 Avenue Albert II, Monaco
- Offices
- 4 only Monaco, London, Fort Lauderdale, Auckland. The smallest network of any full-service house here.
- Under management
- More than 100 large yacht operations One of only two real published figures in this set. Their separate "access to over 1,000 yachts" line is a market-access claim, not a fleet, and should not be read as one.
- Ownership
- Founder-owned and independent
- Unusual
- Regatta racing teams and exploration vessels The managed portfolio spans private fleets, special-purpose yachts, expedition vessels and race programmes. Antarctica and Svalbard are standing cruising regions rather than brochure lines.
- Published target
- At least a 20% fleet emissions reduction by 2030
- Further reading
- Yacht Charter Compass — yachtchartercompass.com Destination guides, itineraries and weekly rates for the megayacht market. It is published by the same group as LivingTheta, which is why it is labelled here rather than presented as an independent source. The link is in the sources below.
Y.CO was founded in 2004 by Charlie Birkett and Gary Wright, both of whom came off yachts rather than out of offices. Four offices, and a business built around managing large yacht operations, with charter, sales, new build and crew alongside.
Management first
More than a hundred large-yacht operations under management is the number they publish, and it is the right one to judge them on. Their other figure — access to over a thousand yachts — describes the market they can reach, not the fleet they run, and the two get conflated constantly.
That distinction is the single most useful question to put to any house on this list: what do you manage, as against what can you access.
