One of the more interesting yachts that I toured during last month’s industry-only charter show in Antigua was the 114-foot sailboat Tenacious, which is part of the fleet at Fraser Yachts Worldwide. Not only was she quite pretty with a crew that seemed eager to please, but she also had something onboard that I’ve never before seen on another charter yacht.

The yacht’s owner, it seems, likes for the captain to “announce” the end of each day at sunset by blasting a small cannon. So there is one onboard. Yes, a real one, with gunpowder and everything.

Check out these photos (sorry the first one’s a bit digitized):

A real, working cannon! Now that’s the kind of detail that helps to set one charter yacht apart from the rest. If you want to have a cannon blasted to announce the beginning of cocktail hour, I’m pretty sure this is the only charter yacht that will suit you.

Tenacious has a weekly base rate of $55,000 in the Caribbean. Contact any reputable charter broker to learn more about her, and look for our CharterWave First Impression review coming soon.

I had an epiphany about yacht charter websites yesterday while standing, of all places, in the toilet aisle at The Home Depot.

It was after about 10 minutes of increasing frustration, as I wandered up and down the aisle trying to ascertain the difference between about 30 different toilet models. There was a “self-help” guide posted to help me make my choice, and when I asked a salesman for help determining which toilet would be best for me, he referred me back to this guide–which basically directed me  to compare the advertising copy that each toilet’s manufacturer had written. I was looking for unbiased, expert assistance, and I was being told that I didn’t need it.

I left the store frustrated and without a new toilet. But I did take home this epiphany: Virtually all of the yacht charter websites popping up on the Internet nowadays are nothing more than glorified versions of that toilet aisle.

I know as much about toilets as you probably know about charter yachts. You can see the pictures, and you can read the marketing copy, but unless an expert is available to help you understand the unadvertised differences between each one, you are likely to end up frustrated–sometimes after spending money on the wrong thing.

This is the point I have been trying (admittedly long-windedly) to make here on the Editor’s Blog in my previous two posts. Here it is in plain English:

CharterWave is different from all the other yacht charter websites (and many magazines) because we provide more than just information. We provide evaluation, as well as links to reputable charter brokers who can help you evaluate your vacation options further.

Let me give you an example.

There are countless websites and magazines that will tell you “Yacht XYZ sleeps 12 guests.” That’s all well and good, but CharterWave is more likely to publish this sentence: “Yacht XYZ sleeps 12 guests, but four of them are in twin-size Pullman berths that are best-suited for children.”

That’s evaluation vs. plain old information. And the former is obviously more helpful to you as someone trying to choose a charter yacht. If you can’t find that sort of evaluation about a boat you see here on CharterWave, then you absolutely can get it from the reputable brokers we support.

Our independent editorial reviews, and our links to reputable brokers, are the missing part of most yacht charter websites’ equations. They’re the “helpful salespeople” who are supposed to be standing by your side as you sift through an endless stream of information. That’s a big part of the reason why we interview them: to help you get to know them better. As you might guess, each broker is different, too, and will bring a different perspective to charter vacation questions.

Funny that it took me a frustrated 10 minutes in the toilet aisle of The Home Depot to clarify my thoughts on this subject. Now, I’m clicking over to Google to see if I can find the CharterWave of toilet websites. I need more expert help than I’m being offered by the mass-marketing types.

And I know that I can’t find that kind of help just anywhere. It’s worth seeking out.

Okay, folks, welcome to the first bit of nastiness I’ve had hurled at me via the Internet for trying to make sure you understand the ins and outs of the yacht charter industry.

On January 9, I posted this item about a new website called eYachtCharter.com. I explained that this new site is trying to become a multiple listing system for yachts that the public can use to search for charter boats, just as Realtor.com is a multiple listing system for houses that the public can use to find homes for sale. I got this information from the company’s marketing person, whom I called after the company e-mailed me and invited me to increase my charter booking revenue, even though I am not a charter broker.

My post wished the new website good luck in its business model, and then reiterated a key message I regularly invoke here on CharterWave: Shopping for a charter is about more than the boat. You need a reputable charter broker to help you separate the good boats from the bad. Pictures and search engines alone are not the best way to go.

This “buyer beware” warning obviously didn’t sit well with the folks at eYachtCharter.com, becuase they now have a link on their home page to a vitriolic rebuttal that, among other things, calls me “Clintonian.” (Wow. And in an election year… Wonder which way they’re voting…)

Here’s the link to their rebuttal in case you want to read it in full. (February 2008 note: It looks like they’ve removed their rebuttal from their website altogether.) Suffice to say it begins by calling my words “inaccurate” and “defamatory,” but then goes on to say that the details I wrote are “absolutely correct” and that we merely differ in philosophy when it comes to booking charters. I promote the idea of booking through a reputable broker, while they–and they state this as if it is better–think you, the customer, are the most important part of the equation.

Again, I’m happy to disagree with these newbies. Yes, you are important. Yes, you matter. But no, I don’t think the best way to choose a charter yacht is by looking through paid-for listings on your own at a computer screen. I am of the opinion that you need to know about crews, destinations, and many other things that an online or printed brochure can’t tell you. I have arrived at this opinion after nearly a decade of reporting on the charter industry and writing the book about it that is often called “The Bible.”

You need a reputable charter broker if you want to get your money’s worth, and there are ways to tell reputable brokers from ones who simply pay money to advertise on search engine-driven websites. Things like in-depth interviews come to mind. That’s why we do them here on CharterWave.

It’s also the reason we run reviews of charter yachts that we get onboard firsthand–reviews that aren’t always good, and that sometimes get me in hot water for telling you, the charter clients, what the marketing people don’t want you to know. If you believe those are bought and paid for content here on CharterWave, then you have a strange idea about how companies try to market their boats.

And yes, we encourage you to work with brokers who are members of key professional organizations. They are the only groups applying any standards at all to the business of booking yacht charters. We frequently post links to their websites–MYBA, CYBA, FYBA and AYCA–so that you can verify any claim a broker might make, here on CharterWave or anywhere else.

I’m not going to get into a name-calling battle over this rebuttal from eYachtCharter.com, especially the part about my writing less-than-ideal things about them because they are a new competitor to CharterWave. What I said to the marketing person on the phone was that if they should decide to start posting independent editorial content similar to CharterWave’s, that they could become my competitor. I said that after she offered me a job writing for their website. Clearly, they’re upset that I turned them down.

And believe me, the folks at this website are not the first newcomers to try to smear my personal reputation when I express my opinion about their business models. In recent years, an upstart magazine did the same thing. It took about five minutes for the reputable people in the charter industry to see through them, and as best as anybody can tell, they are now out of business.

Frankly, if the folks at eYachtCharter.com had a problem with what I wrote, they should’ve called me, just as I called them, to try to learn more about their position. That’s what normal businesspeople do when they have a question or concern. It’s certainly what responsible writers do before they post information on the Internet. To tell you the truth, I found out about their online item through a Google News Alert. They obviously don’t want to debate this. They simply want to try to smear me.

Again, all I can say is “buyer beware” and hope that I’ve earned enough of your trust already to ignore this kind of nonsense from an upstart website.