Meet Capt. Doug Stein and chef Peggy Langenbeck, the new crew onboard the 75-foot sailing yacht Bahamian Rhapsody. I haven’t had the chance to meet them yet myself, but the folks at management company Northrop & Johnson tell me that Doug has more than 100,000 nautical miles under his belt. That sounds like a good start in terms of knowing how to get around the islands.

As on all charter yachts, it is the crew as much as the boat itself that can make or break your charter vacation–and crew changes like this one happen more frequently than you might imagine. It’s fairly common for someone to book a charter a few months in advance after diligently reading a boat’s crew profiles, only to find out a few weeks before the charter starts that an entirely new team is in place.

Any reputable charter broker can help you keep track of which crew are operating onboard which yachts at any given time. Often, if the yacht’s owner takes crew issues seriously, a replacement team will be just as good as the crew you heard about when booking your charter.

After all, good yacht owners want to receive good service just as much as you do.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 10th, 2008 at 8:04 am and is filed under Yacht crew, Charter Yachts, charter tips, Photos. 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.