Well, the Christmas weekend is finally upon us. I’ll be taking next week off to spread holiday cheer with family and friends, which means my next blog posting will not occur until Jan. 2.

I’d like to thank all of our regular readers out there for your continued support of CharterWave, and for all the terrific suggestions you’ve made about how we can improve. We’ve been online for just about two months now, and all that time we’ve been compiling people’s ideas for how to make the site more user-friendly, more interesting and more chock-full of terrific content featuring charter yachts, crew and brokers worldwide.

Starting this coming January and February, you’re going to see Version 2.0 of CharterWave come online with enhanced features, additional content and more links to reputable boats and brokers than you can find anywhere else, in print or online. We’re working hard to live up to our tagline–the world’s most trusted yacht vacation resource–and we can’t thank you enough for helping us stay ahead of the other media with your continued readership.

Best wishes to you and your loved ones for a warm, safe and happy holiday season. We’ll see you in 2007!

I came across a boat at the St. Maarten charter show that was part of a fractional ownership fleet. That means that instead of having one owner, the boat had multiple owners, just like a timeshare on land.

The couple running the boat spent a great deal of time trying to convince me that fractional ownership is going to end the charter industry as we know it, because everybody will want to own a piece of a yacht instead of just renting them by the week through charter.

I’ve heard this sales pitch before, and I still ain’t buyin’. The money just doesn’t make sense. In this case, the fractional owners had each paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $350,000 for their ownership stake, which entitled them to four weeks a year on the yacht. Now, that same yacht was chartering for $32,000 a week. You could charter the same yacht–with 25-percent typical expenses included–for a total of $160,000 a year. And you’d never have to worry about paying a penny on maintenance.

“But you won’t own anything when the charters are over,” the couple asserted when I pointed out this basic equation. They also pointed out that after two years, the fractional owners would be at the break-even point (assuming they used all their weeks onboard and didn’t have any unforeseen engine breakdowns or hull cracks).

My reply was simple: “Why would I want to own a fraction of a maintenance problem at any price when I can enjoy this same exact boat–and many more all over the world–for less money through charter? Why would I want to limit myself to visiting just one yacht in a location determined by more people than just me?”

Like I said, I’m still not ready to believe fractional ownership is any real competition for charter yacht vacations. It’s out there, and you should know it’s an option, but think twice before you sign on the dotted line. Charter does a much better job of preserving your options and, in most cases, your savings account.

I recently had the pleasure of spending a night onboard the 80-foot sailing yacht Melinka in Antigua, in preparation for a CharterWave feature that you can look for links to beginning in January. Melinka is a lovely yacht, built to sail well in regattas and races while still offering a true gentleman’s club feel onboard. Her crew is terrific, all well-experienced and quite personable. The yacht’s amenities are delightful, the chef cooks well, and I was completely at home onboard. I believe many couples who enjoy traditional sailing vacations will feel the same way.

All of which makes it interesting that if you or your friends went looking for an 80-foot sailing yacht to charter, you’d have a hard time finding Melinka on any website or in any catalog of available yachts. She is one of those charter yachts whose owners reserve quite a bit of usage time for themselves, thus leaving only a few weeks a year for charter bookings by brokers who are, shall we say, “in the know.”

I’m lucky to know charter broker Sandy Carney of Sanderson Yachting LLC, who set me up with Melinka after filling me in on the yacht’s three to five weeks of availability for Caribbean charters each winter. The rate is $24,000 a week for six guests–all-inclusive, according to Capt. Forrest Shropshire–in destinations from the Virgin Islands all the way down south to the Grenadines.

That’s good stuff, and stuff that I’d never have known about had it not been for my work with Rhode Island-based Sandy Carney (whom you can reach at sandy@sanderson.cc). The experience is further evidence of just how important it is for you to work with a reputable charter broker when booking your next vacation. Even if she can’t get you the yacht you think might be best for you, she just may have a sweet surprise up her sleeve that you otherwise never would have known existed.