New Construction
Building one, properly.
Neptunus in Ontario and Johnson Yachts in Taiwan. Specification through commissioning, managed end to end.
Why it matters
A new build is a construction project that floats.
It runs for a year or more, usually in a yard several thousand miles away, in a language and a business culture that are not yours. The yard is good at building boats and is also, quite reasonably, looking after its own interests. Unless somebody in the process is looking after yours, nobody is.
That is the case for having a broker on a new build who has actually run them before — and it is a genuinely uncommon thing to find. Most brokers sell boats that already exist. Jeff has delivered new builds on two continents and knows what the failure modes look like early enough to do something about them.
Builders
Who he builds with.
Neptunus Yachts
Canadian-built semi-custom motor yachts in a Dutch boatbuilding tradition — over 195 delivered from the same St. Catharines yard. Jeff has delivered Neptunus new builds for years.
5 models
Johnson Yachts
Taiwanese-built semi-custom motor yachts from 70 to 115 feet, known for exceptional volume for their length and a high degree of owner customisation.
5 modelsRecently delivered
M/Y Mitan — 130′ Numarine 40XP
The most recent build Jeff took from contract to delivery: a 2025 40-metre explorer, built at Numarine in Turkey and specified alongside her owner over the course of the construction.
The process
How a project runs.
01SpecificationWhat the boat has to do decides almost everything else — range, tankage, machinery, the layout of spaces you will only see as a drawing for another year. This is where a project is won or lost, and it happens before anyone has cut anything.
02Contract and payment schedulePayments staged against real build milestones rather than the calendar, so money follows progress. Jeff has been on both sides of enough of these to know which clauses matter.
03Build supervisionYard visits timed to the stages where a visit actually changes something, not to the ones that photograph well. Knowing what a hull should look like at 40% complete is the whole job.
04Commissioning and deliverySea trials, snagging, and the handover — then the part most brokers skip, which is staying involved through the first season while the boat settles.
The capability behind this — running the build itself — is covered under New Build Project Management.
Start a project
Tell Jeff what you have in mind.
Even a rough idea is enough to start from — a builder you like, a length, a cruising plan. The early conversations are the ones that save money later.