A 47.9-metre Trinity, taken back to bare substrate over eight and a half months, and handed back on the date agreed at contract signature.
M/Y Mirabella arrived in mid-September and left on 15 July. The interesting number in that sentence is not the eight and a half months. It is that 15 July was the date agreed when the contract was signed, before anyone knew what the survey would find.
What was done
The programme was a substrate rebuild rather than a refresh. Hull and superstructure were stripped and fully repainted in climate-controlled conditions — the change that resets how a 2004 aluminium hull reads on the water, and the one best appreciated in profile rather than in close-up.
- Exterior. Full repaint of hull and superstructure, faired so there is no seam in the finish where one trade handed over to another. Deck hardware removed and refitted rather than masked around.
- Transom and swim platform. Reconfigured around an integrated transformer, which required structural revision to the transom area and a dedicated watertight chamber to house the unit. The generator exhaust outlet scoop was replaced.
- Deck edges. New railings fabricated and fitted around the repainted bulwarks; exterior marble replaced and framed with a teak border.
- Identity. Name and logo redesigned, produced and installed in house, and the family crest engraved into new entrance glass — details drawn to suit the new finish rather than to survive it.
- Sundeck. A new Jacuzzi, with the structure and services that implies rather than the fitting alone.
Four trades in parallel, not in series. That is what the covered space is for.
How the date held
Holding a redelivery date across a programme of this size is not a matter of working faster at the end. It is decided in the first six weeks, by how much of the unknown is converted into priced scope before the yard commits its capacity.
She was alongside for survey and scope confirmation against the contract package, then hauled out for paint preparation, transom work and running gear. Through the winter, paint, electrical and electronics, joinery and structural work ran at once rather than one after another — which is only possible with the covered space and the trades to fill it.
The other half is administrative. Findings written the day they are found and sent to the owner's representative with a photograph. Scope changes priced before they are worked. An owner approving a number rather than a feeling. None of that is glamorous and all of it is what a date is made of.
The part that is not visible
Mirabella left with a file: the coating record coat by coat with conditions and batch numbers, the structural work documented, certificates for what was renewed, and photographs of what was found before it was covered up.
That file is the difference between a yacht that has been repainted and a yacht whose condition is known. It is what the next survey will be measured against, what a buyer's surveyor will ask for first, and the reason the next programme on this hull will be cheaper than this one.
Written at the yard in Tuzla. Figures quoted are the ones we record on the job and hand over with the vessel.