As I mentioned yesterday here on the Editor’s Blog, broker Kathleen Mullen of Regency Yacht Vacations (one of our sponsors) attended the Monaco Yacht Show last week. This is a show that focuses on yacht sales, primarily, but with a good number of charter yachts on display as well–many of them among the largest, most expensive yachts for charter in the world, and some of them available for tours for the first time.

Kathleen was kind enough to do this interview for CharterWave readers, explaining what she saw at the show, which yachts knocked her socks off, and what the chatter on the docks reveals about the charter industry in general and the upcoming Caribbean season in particular.

I hope you find Kathleen’s insights from Monaco as interesting as I did. Here are a few more visuals from the show, to get your mind into the spirit of what she saw. (All photos are courtesy of and copyrighted by photographers Eric Knoll and Pierre Pettavino.)

The team at Sunreef Yachts Charter tells me that their brand-new, 67-foot sailing catamaran Seazen II will be making its way over to the Bahamas to offer charters beginning March 14–making her the first Sunreef 70 model available for charter anywhere in the world.

She’ll take eight to 10 guests in four cabins, with three crew. The accommodations are described as including an “innovative folding bed system that’s excellent for children.” I won’t get a chance to see that in person until the yacht gets to the Miami International Boat Show this coming February, but from the accommodations plans I’ve seen, it looks like a setup that’s ideal for family charters.

The owner requested a Japanese-influenced interior, with browns, creams, and splashes of red all done in Minimalist style. There are no photos available yet, but the renderings below should give you an idea of what to expect:

I haven’t seen a weekly base rate posted for the new launch, but any reputable charter broker can get you more details as they become available. If you’re considering booking this yacht in the Bahamas, also be sure to talk about the weather with your broker. March can have ferocious winds in that cruising ground, so you might be better off waiting until May or June to get onboard.

In the past week, I’ve received notification from three separate companies that three different Trinity motoryachts are making news in the charter industry.

The largest of the yachts is the 191-foot Carpe Diem, shown in the rendering above. She has joined the fleet at Camper & Nicholsons International and is expected to launch in time for the summer 2009 Mediterranean season. The rendering highlights the swim platform and aft deck because, the marketers tell me, this yacht is expected to have one of the largest swim platforms on any yacht her size. Carpe Diem will take 12 guests; the weekly base rate is yet to be announced.

The second Trinity launch I’m hearing about is the forthcoming 161-foot Destination Fox Harb’r Too, which has just joined the Northrop and Johnson charter fleet. She’s shown in the photo below:

Destination Fox Harb’r Too has a Patrick Knowles interior inspired by a European spa resort, including hand-carved glass. The owner’s suite offers 180-degree views, and there is an environmentally friendly, ozone-based water-treatment system onboard. This Trinity will take up to 12 guests in the Caribbean this winter at a lowest weekly base rate of $230,000.

The third Trinity motoryacht making charter news is the 124-foot Wheels, shown in the photo below:

If you follow the charter market, then you might remember the name Wheels, which was a 115-footer whose chef Geoffrey Fisher won big honors for his cooking at the 2006 Antigua charter yacht show. This Wheels is a different boat, obviously, one with an interior designed to represent the art deco style of a 1940s steam ship. The 2002 build is new to the fleet at International Yacht Collection and will take as many as 11 guests this winter in the Bahamas at a lowest weekly base rate of $80,000.

If you want to take a look at other Trinity yachts under construction right now, head over to the Trinity website. Certainly, not every single one will enter the charter market, but if you’re a follower of the industry, then you’ll recognize a fair number of names as sisterships to successful charter yachts of years past–and thus good bets as top charter yachts of the years to come.