Chase boats for superyachts

A chase boat is a separate hull that follows a superyacht under its own power, with its own fuel, its own crew, and its own programme of work. It is not a tender. A tender is launched from the mothership and lives in the garage. A chase boat ties up alongside, runs to its own marina at the end of the day, and meets the yacht at the next anchorage on its own keel. The distinction sounds pedantic until the wrong boat is ordered and the new owner discovers, six months in, that what they specified will not fit through the garage door but is not credentialed to operate as a separate vessel either.

This is the entry to our chase boat library. It explains the categories, the size brackets, the build standard, and where chase boats sit between large tenders and full support vessels.

The job description varies by programme but most chase boats earn their keep on three fronts.

• Toy and kit carriage. Wakeboards, foils, dive compressors, fishing tackle, an extra jet ski. Things the mothership has no garage volume for, or no appetite to host on the swim platform.
• Range extension. Day trips to coves the yacht cannot enter, scouting runs ahead of an anchorage move, fishing or diving runs that take the guests further than a tender comfortably manages.
• Logistics and crew capacity. Provisioning runs to a marina the yacht is not visiting, ferry runs for staff, charter handovers between bases, parallel hospitality when the yacht is closed for service.

A few programmes use chase boats for sport-fishing, where a 14m centre console with quad outboards delivers performance no garage tender can match. See sport-fishing chase boats and the diving use case.

Chase boats sit in three rough brackets, each with its own builder set and economics. The full breakdown is on chase boat sizes.

• 8 to 11 metres. Large RIB or centre console territory, often outboard-powered, treated as a glorified tender that happens to live on its own trailer or marina berth. Dayboat capability, no overnight, limited fuel range. Crew of one or two.
• 11 to 15 metres. The typical "real" chase boat. Inboard or sterndrive, occasionally outboard. Sleeps two crew at a push, day-runs to 200 nautical miles, sea-state ceiling around Beaufort 5. Most built to recreational standards, some to MCA Workboat or commercial small vessel codes.
• 15 to 20 metres. Genuine small yachts in their own right, classed and crewed accordingly. Two to four crew berths, fuel for 400 to 600nm, ocean-capable in transit windows. Often co-classed and registered in the same flag as the mothership.

Beyond 20m the asset is no longer a chase boat in any honest sense. It is a shadow yacht or expedition support vessel, with a different cost structure and a different operating model.

Cruise speed at half load is what gets planned against. Top speed lives in the brochure. The numbers most chase boats actually hit:

• 8 to 11m: 28 to 38 knot cruise, 100 to 200nm dayrange
• 11 to 15m: 30 to 40 knot cruise, 200 to 400nm dayrange
• 15 to 20m: 22 to 30 knot cruise, 400 to 700nm dayrange

Range collapses fast at top speed and faster in head sea. We cover the realistic envelope and the input assumptions on chase boat range and the speed and propulsion choices on chase boat specifications.

The chase boat builder map looks different from the tender map. Some of the names overlap, especially at the smaller end where a builder of large RIBs sells the same hull as either a tender or a chase boat with the badge changed. At the larger end the builders are either dedicated sportfish yards (Hatteras, Viking, Bertram, Mag Bay), Italian or Dutch semi-custom houses (Wajer, VanDutch, Sacs, Tecnomar), or workboat yards trading up (Damen Yachting, Tor, Eagle). The full list, with where each one actually competes, is on chase boat builders.

Headline budget bands, before transport, refit, and the typical 18 to 24 month commissioning tail.

• 8 to 11m chase: 400,000 to 1,500,000 EUR
• 11 to 15m chase: 1,500,000 to 5,000,000 EUR
• 15 to 20m chase: 5,000,000 to 15,000,000 EUR

The full cost breakdown, including running cost and the line items that move the headline, is on chase boat cost.

A chase boat that runs commercially under the same yacht code as the mothership is a different asset to one that runs privately as a separate flagged vessel. Most owners do not have the appetite to crew and class a chase boat to commercial standard, so the boat ends up on private flag with a single permanent operator and a deckhand seconded from the yacht. The arrangement works until charter income enters the picture, at which point the chase boat usually has to come into commercial certification or stop earning. See chase boat crew and chase boat charter.

Towing is a separate question and the answer is mostly no. Long ocean tows of chase boats fail more often than they succeed, and most owners eventually buy a shadow vessel instead.

The realistic use case is what should drive the spec, not a list of capability boxes ticked. The patterns we see most:

• Sport-fishing, where the chase boat is the primary fishing platform and the yacht is the hotel
• Diving, where compressor capacity and rear cockpit working space matter more than top speed
• Watersports, where toy storage and a wide swim platform are the point
• Island hopping, where shoal draft and a fast cruise let the chase boat reach where the yacht cannot
• Guest shuttling, the limo-tender role at chase boat scale
• Provisioning runs, the unglamorous use case that quietly justifies the asset

Two comparisons matter most.

The first is chase boat vs tender. Tenders live in the garage, chase boats live alongside. The second is chase boat vs shadow vessel. Shadow vessels carry tenders, helicopters, submarines, and crew across oceans. Chase boats day-run from coastal bases. The decision between them usually collapses to whether the programme needs trans-ocean repositioning, in which case it is a shadow vessel, or coastal flexibility, in which case it is a chase boat.

For the larger asset class, see the support vessels overview, helicopter support vessels, and expedition support yachts.

We have brokered, specified, or surveyed every chase boat category in this library, and we sit on the owner's side of the table. If you have a programme that has outgrown its tender and the question is whether the next asset is a bigger boat in the garage or a separate hull alongside, we will tell you straight. If a builder is steering you towards a hull they have a slot for rather than the one your programme actually needs, we will say so. Get in touch and we will start where it makes sense.