ILLUSTRATIONS: Fausto Montanari WWW.BOATINTERNATIONAL.COM APRIL 20170123456789 0123456789Going for brokers
Charter virgins need to know one thing – find a great
broker and you’ll go a long way to securing a great yacht
and a magical vacationIf you are chartering a yacht for a summer
vacation it might not occur to you to pack
your skiing kit. But, having ascertained
that a client liked winter sports, Cristabel
Nye, retail charter broker at Camper &
Nicholsons in London, arranged for him
to go heli-skiing from the yacht he was
chartering in northern Europe.
“St-Tropez can be really good fun,” Nye
says, but an increasing number of her
clients, especially those who have made
their money in tech, want “to be doing
things” during their down time. Take
Legend, a recently refitted 252 foot fully
classified Class 1 ice explorer that can
accommodate 26 guests and a crew of
up to 19 (including a doctor, ice pilot,
helicopter pilot, and team of naturalists).
There is not just the potential to explore
the Arctic or Antarctica (the yacht has a
range of 7,640 nautical miles and has
snow scooters as well as jet skis), but to go
heli-skiing in Greenland or Patagonia,
after which guests can unwind in the
yacht’s onboard Balinese spa.
“Most people still opt for the
Mediterranean in summer and theCaribbean in winter,” says Tim Clark,
director of My Sea’s London office. But
even in a familiar location an imaginative
broker and crew can make an impact on
the vacation. “A few years ago we arranged
a charter in the Bahamas,” Clark recalls.
“The family loved to watch movies. So I
suggested to the owner that he buy a little
generator, a projector and a screen, and
one evening the crew stole onto an island
and set up an outdoor cinema on a perfect
beach we’d lit with fire lanterns, and as
dusk fell they watched Finding Nemo with
buckets of popcorn. It was magical.”
Talk to any experienced charter broker
about how they identify the perfect boat
for each client and it becomes evident
that, as Clark puts it, “it’s often the
smallest things that can have the biggest
impact”. That’s why the best charter
brokers are like psychotherapists in
probing the personalities of potential
clients. “It is best to establish exactly what
the charterer wants to do with the yacht,”
says Debra Blackburn Boggio, a charter
broker with Fraser in Fort Lauderdale. “If
it’s going to be a bachelor party – lots offun and late nights – then let’s discuss that
from the beginning. It’s difficult to go
back to an owner after the charter is
booked for a family trip and advise [him]
that this is not the case after all.”
If gentle questioning reveals that
“someone is prone to seasickness, I’ll
recommend a boat that has zero-speed
stabilizers”, Nye says. Equally, if the
client’s wife is self-conscious about going
barefoot, there are yachts such as Okto
and Big Fish with composite decks, rather
than teak, that will tolerate heels.
Charter a yacht and the process begins
with a detailed preferences form. “When
we send you the forms, which look like a
bother to fill in, asking what you want to
eat and drink, please take the time to fill
them in,” says Ann Landry, charter and
sales broker at Northrop & Johnson. “The
chef uses them to prepare your menu. Do
you like to go to beautiful beaches, or do
you want to go to all the hotspots in the
South of France? Talk to us.”
There is, says Seonaid Thomas, of
Burgess Yachts’ Monaco office, only so
much you can find out about a yachtWORDS: Claire WrathallCHARTER
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