A membership organisation for trust in yachting
Trust you can check.
Owners and charter guests hand their money to people they cannot watch. TransparentSea gives them something to rely on: members who commit publicly to no hidden commissions, a register anyone can check, and free tools for everyone who wants to do it properly.
Resources are free for everyone. Membership is a public commitment, not an audit. We do not name and shame.
Why a trust system
The money is theirs. They cannot see where it goes.
On a charter, the guest's Advance Provisioning Allowance is spent for them by people they have to trust. In the countries we cover, asking for or offering an undisclosed commission to someone who handles another person's money is, in general, a crime, whether or not anyone is overcharged. Yet owners and guests have no easy way to tell who does it properly. We have not found a published standard that they can check for themselves. So we are building one, in the open, with the people who want it to work.
1
A written standard
A clear, public standard for how people handle other people's money in yachting: no hidden commissions, kickbacks or personal benefits. Free to read, to copy and to use.
2
Members commit in public
Suppliers, and in time brokerages, management companies and crew, sign the standard. A director puts their name to it, adopts a written policy, trains their people, and renews every year.
3
Anyone can check
A public register shows who has committed. Owners, charter guests and management companies can use it like a preferred-supplier list, and ask anyone who is not on it why.
Relationships are not the problem. Good suppliers and good brokers should work together for years. The problem is the financial incentive that moves in secret between them, because it quietly changes whose interests are served.
Who it is for
Choose with confidence. Or join and show it.
Crew and captains
Spending an owner's money, and what to do when you are offered something.
Open →Charter and sales brokers
Your duty to the client, and what disclosure really means.
Open →Management companies
Turning a policy on paper into one that works.
Open →Owners and guests
The questions that show you where your money goes.
Open →Suppliers and vendors
Winning business without paying for it twice.
Open →The distinction that matters
Commission or kickback?
The same amount of money can be perfectly lawful or a crime. The difference is rarely the amount, and it is almost never whether the price went up. It is whether the person whose money was spent was told, and agreed.
Read the full explanation| Disclosed commission | Kickback | |
|---|---|---|
| Client told? | Yes, in advance, in writing | No, or told after the fact |
| Client agreed? | Yes | No |
| Paid to | The firm, on its books | A person, often privately |
| Affects advice? | No: the client knows to weigh it | Yes: the adviser is now paid by the other side |
| Price higher? | Irrelevant to the test | Irrelevant to the test |
Free for everyone
Policies for seven countries, templates, registers, checklists and training packs. Download any of them as a PDF or an editable Word file, and use or display them as you like.
Browse the free resources →Learn
A short learning pathway on APA, commission, gifts and reporting, written for the people who do the spending, with sessions you can run on board or in the office.
Start learning →Know the law
France, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US compared, including what happens when a broker in one country deals with a supplier in another. Each page is checked by counsel before it is published.
See the laws →Membership
Join the members who commit in public
Members sign the Trust Standard, adopt a policy, train their people and appear on the public register, with a badge their customers can verify. Honest suppliers should not lose business to those who pay for orders. Founding members join free. We plan a small annual contribution, about €100 a year for suppliers, to pay for legal support and the running of the standard. A fee never buys a place on the register: only keeping the commitment does.
If something is wrong
Report it privately, and stay in control
Many people have a real concern and no idea how to raise it, or who to trust. We exist to help with exactly that. We are not lawyers and we do not pretend to be.
Start a private reportHow your privacy is protected →- 1
You write it down, privately
Your report is encrypted in your own browser before it leaves your device. Our software records no IP address, sets no cookie and asks for no account. You are given a case key that only you hold.
- 2
We read it. Only we can.
Only TransparentSea can decrypt what you send. We reply into the same private case, which only your key can open.
- 3
With your permission, it is reviewed by a lawyer
Nothing goes beyond us without your say-so. If you agree, a legally qualified lawyer reviews it, in France or the country that matters, before anything else happens.
- 4
With your permission, it goes to the right people
Where you want it, we introduce you to the right legal team or authority, so you are not left to work out how to report on your own.
Why it matters to everyone
Hidden margins are paid for by the whole industry
Every undisclosed margin is money that is not available for wages, for better crew, or for the next charter. When owners and guests feel they are being charged more because it is “yachting”, they spend less, charter less, and the whole industry shrinks. Honest practice is not a cost to the industry. It is its future.
Read why →Independent
Open, and answerable to the evidence
The standard is published, versioned and written in the open. Every factual claim on this site is tied to a document or to the text of a law, and we correct what we get wrong. We do not name and shame, and we do not mediate disputes: we educate, we set the standard, and we make commitments visible.
Start here
4 min read
An open letter to everyone who spends other people's money in yachting
We work at the top of the service world. It is time the way we handle our clients' money matched the standing we claim.
4 min read
Commission or kickback? The line, and how to tell which side you are on
The same money can be perfectly lawful or a crime. The difference is almost never the amount, and almost never whether the price went up.
2 min read
Hidden margins cost everyone, including the people who earn them
If owners and guests feel they are paying 'yacht prices', they spend less. That is how the whole industry ends up biting itself in the foot.