A Shadow Vessel is a smaller ship used for transporting different supplies or equipment for the yacht. Over the recent years, the use of this yacht support vessel has become widespread among captains, sailors, and shipowners.
Balearic Yacht Destination had the opportunity to interview Víctor Pérez from Astilleros de Mallorca, a fully equipped company specializing in boat refit and repair services. Víctor has explained to us what is a Shadow Vessel, while one of them was being refitted at their facilities.
What are the main functions of a Shadow Vessel?
The main purpose of this kind of boat is the transport of different equipment such as helicopters, auxiliary boats, submarines, jet skis, medical equipment, and all those supplies for which there I no space in the yacht. In addition, this vessel even includes a big helicopter garage, instead of a touch and go that is what you normally have with bigger boats.
In this way, if all the toys had to be carried in the main boat, the size of it would have to be increase greatly to carry all of them. Because of this, the role of the yacht support vessel is important because it avoids from having to build a much bigger yacht.
Shadow Vessel: a mean to get closer to the coast
According to Victor Pérez, sailors consider this vessel a sort of storage garage, it has the ability to approach the coast, since they usually do not need such a deep draft. In fact, this kind of boat can go in advance to the coast where the yacht is travelling to and have everything prepared for the arrival of it.
Don’t miss the full video interview!