How to Stand Out on Charter
The photo above is of the quay in Genoa, Italy–and it’s a scene that is replayed all along the Mediterranean coastline every summer. From Antibes to Portofino, the world’s largest megayachts dock side-by-side. To stand out in the crowd, you need to have well more than “just another” 150-footer.
Any one of these same yachts, though, would be a jaw-dropper in ports that don’t typically welcome megayachts. A 150-foot yacht is, after all, darn impressive. Folks in the usual charter destinations are simply used to seeing them.
That’s not the case at Erie Basin Marina on the United States’ Lake Erie, where the arrival of the 147-foot Delta motoryacht Gran Finale caused a big enough stir this week to land this feature article in The Buffalo News. She’s not a charter yacht herself, but the lesson is one in the same: If one of your goals is to make a big impression during your charter, and you can’t afford a 200-footer, then one tack you can take is to book a yacht in an emerging destination where megayachts are as rare a sight as UFOs.
The Great Lakes are one such place, and there are a handful of charter yachts up there this summer, including the 112-foot Westport motoryacht New Moon II. If you want to turn heads in, say, Cincinnati or Chicago, contact a reputable charter broker before summer fades into fall.