Maritime Yacht Services Tells Mat Armstrong Not to Sail His Yacht Home Yet

Maritime Yacht Services has inspected Capri, the 22-metre yacht YouTuber Mat Armstrong bought in Spain, and its verdict was that she is not ready for the passage to Southampton. Co-founder James Tapp, a former UIM P750 Pro-Stock World Champion, was one of the two technicians the River Hamble refit company sent to Santander. The inspection is the subject of “Specialist’s Inspect My $1.7M Broken Yacht”, published on Armstrong’s channel on October 4, 2026. It had passed 10.6 million views by October 6.

Armstrong has 7.7 million subscribers and built his following rebuilding written-off supercars, most recently a Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport that Bugatti refused to supply parts for. Capri is his first boat. The video in which he bought her, “I Bought a Non Running £1.7M Luxury Yacht”, has around 33 million views.

The Boat

Capri is a 1991 Ghibli 22 built by Cantieri Navali Liguri, a wooden motor yacht 21.95 metres long that weighs around 48 tonnes. A previous sales listing gives her engines as twin 1,000hp MTU 12V 183 TE 92 diesels; Armstrong describes them on camera as Mercedes V12s. She is lying in Santander, northern Spain.

The seller had told Armstrong that one engine overheated. When his team checked the cooling system, they found a closed seawater valve. Opening it brought the temperatures down, though Armstrong said at the start of this video that the engines had not yet run long enough to prove it was the whole answer.

What the Inspection Found

Armstrong says in the video that he chose Maritime Yacht Services to guide the restoration. Tapp travelled out with a colleague introduced on camera only as Mike. The two started in the engine bay, looking for corrosion first. The list of faults grew from there.

The bilge held oil, sludge and corrosion. One generator did not work at all. The other ran, but someone had wired in homemade switches, held together with duct tape, to bypass its failed safety controls. The bilge pumps were not working. The cable to the anchor windlass had been cut and rejoined without sealing, and seawater had corroded it. Armstrong’s team made a temporary repair to get the anchor working. The navigation sidelights were also out.

On a short sea trial at sunset, the starboard engine stalled repeatedly, cutting out when it was put into reverse. Under full throttle, oil sprayed from a leaking boost hose. The technicians’ list the next morning added a leaking fuel tank, a water pump that needs inspecting, seized valves, exhaust leaks, and fuel and fuel filters that need replacing. The hull was in better shape, needing spot repairs, but the technicians warned that some of the wood could be rotten.

Asked whether he would sail her back, one of the technicians called Capri probably one of the worst boats he had ever seen. He said he would go no further than that evening’s trial.

Ship or Sail

Armstrong also asked a yacht transport contact for a quote, which came back at around $82,000 to ship Capri to Southampton, a figure he put at more than £60,000. Asked for an opinion, the technician said he would tell a client to ship it. For a friend in an adventurous mood, he said, he would go with a safety boat and wait for a weather window.

Armstrong ends the video undecided. He would rather make the passage himself, but the Bay of Biscay leaves a narrow window before winter, and he asks viewers what they would do.

Who Maritime Yacht Services Are

Tapp founded Maritime Yacht Services with his wife Sophie. The company works from Hangar 1, an 8,000 sq ft workshop at Universal Marina on the River Hamble, and won Medium Business of the Year at the Central South Business Awards in May. Before that, Tapp made his name racing, winning the 2016 UIM P750 Pro-Stock World Championship and the 2018 RYA ThunderCat National Championship. Read our story on the Business of the Year award.