There is a style of yacht called a “mother ship,” which means that the yacht itself serves as the main vessel during a charter while carrying lots of “smaller” boats to get you from here to there. The expedition yacht Latitude, which I am onboard right now in Panama’s Las Perlas Islands, is a mother ship. Like most expedition yachts, she carries an unbelievable number of tenders.

And boy are they fun to have. Today, for instance, we went fishing in the 43-foot powercatamaran (I landed a 12-pound jack) while the 27-foot center console was available to take other guests snorkeling. Later in the day, we used the powercat to get to the local town, anchored in the harbor, and got picked up by Latitude’s 18-foot dinghy to take us right up onto the beach. A dinghy for our tender. Unbelievable!

This mother ship concept is something that more and more yacht owners are finding attractive, and I can certainly see why. For a charter, it is definitely hard to beat having so many toys at the ready.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Charter Yachts, Boating Terms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.