I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be welcoming CharterWave’s newest sponsor, Northrop and Johnson Worldwide Yacht Charters. The two brokers who run this Newport, Rhode Island, agency are not just among the most knowledgeable and experienced in the world, but also are some of the nicest people I have met during my decade of covering the yacht charter industry. Truly.

Broker Missy Johnston has long been an active leader in the charter community, with credits that include being a past president of the American Yacht Charter Association and having served as a charter industry liaison to the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Congress during the creation of the Passenger Vessel Safety Act. Countless brokers over the years have told me that if I ever have questions about charter laws and contracts, that I should ask Missy–which is what they, themselves, often do because she is so knowledgeable. And she’s great at arranging charters in general, which I know firsthand because she and I have worked together on a good number of charter feature articles for national and international magazines. Everything has always gone just as she’s told me it would, from the moment I step onboard the yacht, be it in New England or Eastern Europe.

Also part of the Northrop and Johnson Worldwide Yacht Charters team is broker Carolyn Titus, whose experience in the charter industry dates back 30 years, including having been a founding member of the American Yacht Charter Association and having helped to create what is now the biggest annual charter yacht show in Europe. Carolyn has strong experience booking charter vacations as well as managing charter yachts, so she knows the industry from multiple angles. And she has special expertise in booking luxury racing charters thanks to her years of experience running the well-respected Nautor Swan fleet. That’s a specialty that can be hard to find in the charter industry, and it stems from Carolyn’s personal love of sailing.

Missy and Carolyn have already started blogging on the new Northrop and Johnson Worldwide Yacht Charters sponsored page, which I encourage you to check out to learn more about the company. You also can learn more about Missy and Carolyn by reading the editorial interviews I’ve done with them in the past, or by going directly to their own website, which was recently updated and has a place where you can request the company’s informative newsletter.

If it sounds like I’m gushing, well, I am. Like I said, I couldn’t be more thrilled to have such reputable brokers signing on to sponsor our editorial efforts here at CharterWave.

I just found this cute little blog post from an American who appears to be vacationing in Croatia, and who chartered a yacht by walking down a dock and picking one from the pack. That’s obviously not the smartest way in the world to ensure that you’ll get the charter vacation you pay for, and boy do I wish he’d known enough to book through a reputable charter broker. He might have avoided the following scenario that he recounts:

“From there, things went slightly downhill, primarily due to [Captain] Damir’s abject laziness and to some rather uncooperative weather. Seemingly deaf to our repeated requests to please use the sails (first of all, because we were on a sailboat and wanted to experience it in its full glory and, second, because gas is even more expensive in Europe than it is at home) and to drop anchor at some of the delightful-looking coves that we were whizzing past, he motored from one port to another without so much as a moment’s pause.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been onboard sailing yachts at industry-only charter shows and had brokers tell me, “This is a good crew. They actually like to sail.” Apparently, there are a whole lot of Capt. Damirs out there in the world who are happy to take your money and then motor around, lest they have to crank a winch or unfurl a roller to actually take you sailing on your chartered sailing yacht.

Good brokers watch out for these kinds of folks and never book their yachts. That way, you don’t end up like the nice man who wrote the blog post, sitting on a sailing yacht with a captain who is unwilling to take you sailing.

The blogger also mentions the captain “whizzing past” a bunch of scenic coves where he wanted to drop anchor. Again, this is the kind of skipper that good charter brokers know to avoid. Barring safety concerns–say, if a cove is too shallow for the boat to get in without crashing into a reef–the best charter yacht captains will do anything you want. It is, after all, your vacation and your yacht for the week. If you want to go swimming in a pretty little cove, so be it.

I’m sure glad this blogger tried charter for the first time, but I hope that the next time he goes, he will book through a reputable charter broker. He says his overall experience was good, but he, just like you, deserves to experience the true ultimate vacation that private yacht charter with a professional captain and crew can be.

It’s not too often that I see a yacht being advertised for charter round-trip from Palma de Mallorca, Spain, and it’s even rarer to see such a yacht offering a 10-percent discount on its normal charter rates.

Yet that’s exactly what’s happening with the 82-foot sailing yacht Fortuna. According to management company Nicholson Yachts, Fortuna has an opening in her calendar from August 11-18 and is trying to fill it with a reduced weekly base rate of 18,000 euro for 10 guests with three crew.

The yacht was built in 1995 and refit in 2005, with five air-conditioned cabins (a must for chartering in August in the Mediterranean). Capt. Antonio Escribano Gomez has been onboard since the 2005 refit, when Fortuna went from being a stripped-down racing yacht to a proper charter vessel. He’s also a certified sailing instructor in Spain, so if you want to fly across the wave tops and then spend the night relaxing in comfort during your vacation, this yacht and its skipper appear to be an excellent combination.

Palma is a beautiful city in Spain’s Balearic Isles. I’ve been there twice onboard charter yachts, though I must admit that I encountered stiff winds both times and thus never made it away from the island of Mallorca, where Palma is located. I’m told that the neighboring islands of Ibiza and Menorca are terrific for charter, offering a nice combination of rustic scenery and thumping nightlife.

Any reputable charter broker can talk to you about the discount offer on Fortuna for August, or about chartering her any other time of the year.