If you recall yesterday’s post, a charter broker I don’t know asked me whether I could feature her company here on CharterWave. She told me she was a member of CYBA, the Charter Yacht Broker Association, one of the four main professional organizations in the world.

I told her that, sure, if she was a member of CYBA, I’d be happy to introduce her to CharterWave’s readers. But then, when I checked the CYBA website to confirm her name on the membership roster, I came up empty-handed.

The woman had seemed credible to me in person, so I took the extra step of contacting CYBA President Verna Ruan to ask whether I was missing anything. Verna explained that this particular broker was an Associate Member of CYBA, not an Active Member. The difference is that an Associate Member is new and working with a mentor, while an Active Member is someone who has proved herself reliable over several years’ time in the industry.

According to Verna, some people who aspire to become reputable brokers take on Associate Member status only to decide the business is too hard, or is not to their liking, and they never make it up to the Active Member level at all. They simply leave the industry altogether.

None of this is to say that this particular broker isn’t reputable. Indeed, she may be diligently working her way up to Active Member status in CYBA. But until that day comes, I’m happy that we all have a way to verify her legitimacy through the CYBA organization.

Like I said yesterday, it pays to double-check before signing those charter contracts.

A woman came up to me last week at my book signing in Fort Lauderdale. She offered a handshake and introduced herself as a charter broker. She asked if I’d be so kind as to feature her company here on CharterWave.

My reply, as always, was: “I’m happy to introduce CharterWave readers to reputable brokers. Which professional organizations do you belong to?”

She answered that the brokers in her company are members of CYBA, the Charter Yacht Broker Association, one of four reputable professional organizations we trust here at CharterWave. (The others are listed in our Terms to Know section.) But when I went to the CYBA website this morning to confirm that her company was listed on the membership roster, I found no mention at all.

I’ve since put in an e-mail to CYBA’s president to confirm that this particular charter broker, and her agency, are reputable before sharing their information with CharterWave readers like you.

The incident is yet another reminder that it pays to check up on brokers’ reputations before you do business with them. So many brokers out there in the world are reputable, why take a chance on working with anyone who’s not?

I’m just back from Fort Lauderdale, where (I’m thrilled to say) the book-signing event for Have the Whole Boat was a big success!

The folks at Bluewater Books told me that if a book signing draws about 25 people and sells eight or ten copies, then an author should be proud. We had more than twice that number in the crowd, and we sold 13 books in a single night–enough that Bluewater wants to organize another event in Newport this June, when I’ll be there for the annual industry-only charter show.

Plus, we had several guests who attended simply because they read CharterWave and wanted to meet me in person. Several of them are working at becoming first-time charterers, and they enjoyed not only the presentation, but also the chance to chat with reputable charter brokers who were there for the book signing as well.

If you’d like to do what those CharterWave readers did, then keep your eyes peeled for details on the June book-signing event in Newport. I’ll post details here just as soon as I have them.

And again, my special thanks to sponsor Northrop & Johnson and yacht chef Liz-Anne Stirling-Perkins for helping to make the Fort Lauderdale event such a terrific success!