Independent Buyer's Representation · UK & Europe
The same protection you'd expect buying a house.
Now for buying a yacht.
Buyers across London and Europe already trust this model: an agent who works for them, and only them, coordinating everyone else so they don't have to. I bring that standard to a yacht purchase.
Start the right conversationOn the road
Next: Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, 28 October – 1 November 2026, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
See where to meet me →- Master
- Master Mariner Unlimited — the highest certificate of command the UK issues
- 86,700 GT
- Largest vessel served: MS Nieuw Amsterdam, 285 metres, 2,106 guests
- Zero
- Commission, referral or finder's fees accepted from any seller, broker or yard
- One
- Adviser, from the first conversation to delivery. No team, no handoffs
How it works
One person on your side of the table
A yacht purchase usually means a selling broker, a yard project manager and a surveyor, each reporting to someone else. I sit only on your side of it.
It's the same principle buyers already trust in London property: one representative, appointed by you alone, who asks the right questions, chases the answers down, and handles the day-to-day communication so you're not fielding it yourself. You get regular updates and a clear next step at every stage, backed by a Master Mariner Unlimited certificate and membership of British Marine and Superyacht UK.
- Fewer people you need to speak to directly
- Regular updates and next-step meetings, not a report at the end
- One relationship, from the first conversation to delivery
The work itself
Four moments where an independent view changes the outcome
Take one of them on its own, or all of them as one engagement.
01
Before you choose
Whether you are ready to buy at all, and what the vessel must be capable of — decided before a single listing is opened.
02
Before you commit
The survey read in context, and the sea trial attended as your own technical eyes, judging machinery under load rather than at the dock.
03
Before you operate
What she will cost to run. Crew certificates verified with the issuing authorities, not taken from a CV.
04
Once she is yours
Yard quotations and manager proposals read independently, by someone who has commissioned that work rather than sold it.
Who I advise
Three ways people arrive here
Each conversation starts somewhere different. Pick the one that sounds like yours.
Private buyers & families
Spending a great deal on a brochure
The specification sheet and the photographs are where the question starts, not where it is answered.
For families
Family offices
The same rigour you apply everywhere else
Families with real discipline around investment and succession often have no equivalent structure for a purchase of this size.
For family offices
Private banks & wealth managers
An introduction, not a referral arrangement
Your client engages me directly. No financial arrangement between us, and nothing for compliance to sign off.
For private bankers
Who you would be dealing with
Captain Anthony Austin
Close to twenty years at sea, including time in command, spent responsible for vessels, crew and the decisions that follow when something is wrong at three in the morning.
That is the judgement brought to a purchase: not how a yacht photographs or specifies, but how she will work once she is yours and the brochure is gone.
You deal with me throughout. No team to be handed along, no account manager, and nobody else's interest in the room.
How to engage me
Two ways to put someone on your side of the table
Both are a fixed fee agreed in writing before any work begins, and both start with a conversation that costs nothing.
One decision
Advisory Session
Fixed fee
Agreed in advance, figures on request
For one yacht, one document or one question, answered properly by someone with no interest in the outcome.
- A straight opinion on a specific vessel, before a viewing or after one
- A survey pack read in context rather than at face value
- A view on whether the asking price is in the right territory
- A written summary you can act on, or take to your own advisers
Credited in full against a retainer begun within three months.
Ongoing
Retainer
Set with the scope
Fixed before work begins, figures on request
For work that runs across weeks or months. The scope is agreed first, then the fee, and neither moves afterwards.
- Scoped to what you actually need, from a shortlist through to completion
- At its fullest, Full Buyer Representation: brief to delivery, and the first year if you want it
- Fixed from the budget in your brief, never the price you end up paying
- Not contingent on you completing. If a yacht fails scrutiny we move to the next one
Ownership-only retainers are available once she is yours.
Not sure which? A first conversation costs nothing and carries no obligation. Most of them end with me telling someone they are a year away from buying anything, which is worth knowing before a broker starts sending listings.
Start the right conversation
On every engagement
The terms that make the independence real
Independence is a claim until it is written into how the fee works.
Paid by you, and nobody else
No commission, referral fee or finder's fee from any seller, broker, yard or shipyard, and none paid to anyone for an introduction.
Fee and scope in writing first
Anything beyond the agreed scope is quoted and approved before it is done, never invoiced afterwards.
Expenses at cost, never marked up
Anything above £1,000 approved in advance. A mark-up would be a small commission by another name.