The owner of Lady Britt explains
why it makes sense to charter out your yacht – and how
he designed his to be a charter favouriteY
ou work hard to own a superyacht, and
you should have your superyacht work
just as hard for you. So says Sten
Warborn, the owner of 63 metre
Feadship Lady Britt, a successful
charter yacht that was specifically
designed for the task.
“A yacht is a very big capital outlay and
I do work still, so it doesn’t make sense to have
capital lying around not being used. You have
to make capital work for you,” says Warborn.
“We have covered all of our costs every year by
chartering – more than our costs.”
The advantages of putting a yacht on the
charter market go beyond money. Keeping the
yacht busy also keeps the crew fresh. “The crew
need to work or else they get bored,” he says. “It’s not a good practice
to own a yacht unless it’s used. If you don’t use it yourself, you have to
charter it out.”
Launched in 2011, Lady Britt is Warborn’s first superyacht and
he knew from the get-go that she’d be destined for the charter market.
He’d recommend any owner who is considering chartering out their
yacht to charter a yacht themselves first. He tried out three yachts
to find out what worked and what didn’t, considering everything from
layout and amenities to décor. “Some yachts didn’t feel relaxed, some
had too strong colours. The interior on Lady Britt is homely, nothing
too extreme, so people can feel relaxed on board,” he says of Redman
Whiteley Dixon’s work. “And the more flexibility, the better.”
Lady Britt is nothing if not flexible. In addition to the main deck
master, she has six large suites on the lower deck, two of which
convert to full-width VIPs, ideal when there’s more than one principal
charterer. Other attractive charter amenities include an outdoor
cinema, huge beach club, DJ decks and gym on the top deck. On
the lower deck, there is a sauna with a door opening out to the sea –
Warborn is Swedish and his wife is Finnish, so it was a must.
To Lady Britt’s owner, however, nothing is as important
as offering excellent service with the best crew. “You need
to have very good service and very good crew, so you need
to have great crew quarters,” he says. “Also to have a superb
chef, you have to have a good kitchen!” As such, a priority
was placed on designing Lady Britt with comfortable
crew quarters and an excellent galley.
And it all comes together with a captain
who can run the yacht like a well oiled,
service-oriented machine. Warborn met Patrick
Cowley during one of his test charters and
he’s been on board since the build. “[He] sets a
very high ambition level for the crew, and he
understands that service is very important,”
Warborn says. Cowley thinks a charter crew
need to be even more responsive than that of a
private yacht. “We have to adapt very quickly to our guests’ needs. We
may only have a few days to show our guests what we can do for them,
instead of a season or two.”
Each year Lady Britt goes in for upgrades and work – keeping the
marble and paint in tip-top condition, but also making sure the toy box
is stocked with the newest contraptions. This is not only for the guests’
benefit, but for when owner and family get the time to come on board.
That’s anywhere from two weeks to a month each year, depending on
work. The only negative of having his yacht in the charter market? Not
being able to use it at peak times. “We haven’t been on at New Year’s Eve
yet,” he says, “but the upsides far outweigh the downsides.”
For Captain Cowley, the biggest compliment Lady Britt can receive
is not how many weeks she’s booked, but how many guests return. “We
have an 82 per cent return rate with our valued guests, with many of
them booking within hours of their departure for the following year.”
It might be a while yet before Lady Britt’s owner will get to ring
in the New Year on board – another busy season is expected for 2016
with the yacht almost fully booked already for the summer. It’s another
year of his superyacht working hard for him.PHOTOGRAPH: ISTOCKWhy I charter
out my yacht