Nassau

Nassau is the gateway to the Bahamas for almost every yacht arriving from Florida, and the tender programmes that pass through reflect the cruising patterns onward to the Exumas, Eleuthera and the Berry Islands. Most of the work is shallow-water shuttling: guests from anchor in Highbourne to lunch ashore, jet-ski drop-offs at Norman's Cay, beach landings on uncharted bonefish flats. Beachlanders and shallow-draft open tenders carry their weight here in a way they do not in the Med, where deep-water marinas and stern-to berthing favour the limousine.

Demand peaks December through April, tracking the migration of US and European programmes south for the Caribbean winter. The off-season from September to early November is the hurricane window, and most major programmes leave the basin entirely for Florida yards or stay north — which is why insurance navigation limits, not berth availability, usually drive the autumn departure date.

Selection here is led by draft and beachability rather than guest finish. A wet-deck beach-lander that can nose onto a sandbar and a stable open tender with shallow running gear are worth more to a Bahamas programme than a heavy garage limousine, and the chase boat tends to double as the dive and fishing platform. Jet-drive and shallow-draft propulsion are preferred over exposed propellers for the same reason: groundings on sand and coral heads are routine here, not exceptional, so hull and running-gear robustness drives spec more than upholstery. Replacement activity is steady but quieter than the Med: boats are run hard on coral and sand, so condition-led brokerage of lightly used pre-owned hulls turns over each spring as programmes refresh before heading back north, and a Bahamas-season tender will typically show more wear than a Med-based equivalent of the same age.

The local crew and agent layer is thin compared with a Mediterranean base. Yacht agents in Nassau handle clearance, provisioning and permit paperwork rather than a deep technical or brokerage bench, so most tender servicing and trading decisions are coordinated through the Florida ecosystem a Gulf Stream crossing away. That makes pre-season preparation in a Lauderdale or West Palm yard the practical norm, with Nassau run as an operating base rather than a place to fix or buy a boat.

There is no full superyacht refit yard in Nassau. For paint, hull and structural work, programmes route to Florida: Safe Harbor Rybovich in West Palm Beach handles vessels to 100 metres and Bradford Marine in Fort Lauderdale takes large refit projects on its 3,000 ton dry dock. For tender-only work, Nassau-based marine technicians cover engine, electronics and hydraulics call-outs from Lyford Cay and Palmdale workshops. Larger jobs cross to Lauderdale on a 24-hour delivery, so the practical refit window is the spring northbound transit rather than anything attempted in-basin.

Because the closest heavy refit capacity is a Gulf Stream crossing away, captains tend to front-load tender servicing before the season and treat Nassau as a running base with technician support rather than a yard port.

The Bahamas charges a yacht cruising permit and fishing permit on entry, both calculated on length, with the cruising permit valid for 12 months and renewable. Crew immigration is handled at Nassau Customs in the basin where you berth. A tender carried as ship's equipment falls under the mothership's permit; a stand-alone tender shipped in for use as a day boat needs its own clearance, and the distinction is worth confirming before arrival rather than on the dock — getting it wrong means a separate import process rather than a single mothership clearance. Charter operations from a non-Bahamian flagged vessel are restricted; brokerage and operational structures should be set up in advance with the yacht's agent rather than negotiated after arrival. Because the Bahamas is a non-EU, non-US jurisdiction, a tender bought or sold here moves on the mothership's papers in practice, and any sale is normally closed and the unit re-imported through the Florida side rather than transacted in the basin.