It could be you, lying on this cozy salon settee, reading a book or enjoying a leisurely cocktail while everyone in America prepares crazily for next week’s Thanksgiving holiday.

The photograph is from the 80-foot sailing yacht Eliza, which management company Newport Yacht Management tells me is seeking a last-minute charter for the big Turkey Day holiday next week. The crew are finishing their current charter this Saturday at the Caribbean island of St. Maarten, where they will be eagerly awaiting the arrival of whatever charter guest nabs the opening.

You might remember Eliza as a recent CharterWave sailing yacht of the month, a distinction she earned after I toured the yacht and met her crew at the Newport charter yacht show this past June. I was especially impressed with chef Carmen Foy, whom Newport Yacht Management says has just completed yet another course at the Culinary Institute of America in New York. Yum.

Eliza’s weekly rate ranges from $18,500 for four guests to $23,000 for eight guests. The rates are all-inclusive except for bar, dockage, and communications. Any reputable charter broker can help you step onboard in St. Maarten next week.

The 76-foot sailing yacht Akasha–one of the largest, nicest catamarans available for charter in the Virgin Islands–has had a last-minute cancellation and is seeking a client for a Christmas booking next month.

As the captain told me in an e-mail, “We are now available for December 13-26. We would love to fill this gap, so would be flexible on price.”

Akasha is one of three identical sisterships based in the Virgin Islands. The others are Zingara and the brand-new King’s Ransom. Each of the three yachts takes 10 guests with four crew at an all-inclusive weekly rate of $47,500.

Brokers who toured the yachts at last week’s industry-only Tortola charter show noted that their weekly rate is at least $20,000 lower than that of most motoryachts that take the same number of charter guests. These cats, while pricey by Virgin Islands standards, are considered a good deal by many brokers whose clients are used to chartering motoryachts in the northern Caribbean.

Any reputable charter broker can help you take advantage of the newly opened Christmas dates.

I think the most impressive thing I’ve seen here at the Tortola charter show this week is not any single boat, but the way that some boats and crew that have been considered “problems” in the past are showing quite well and winning over a good number of brokers.

As I reported here on the CharterWave Editor’s Blog back in May, a company called Oceanwide Yacht Charter Group went out of business this past spring. The company used to manage a decent number of sailing catamarans, but its owner (who has since disappeared, reportedly along with a good bit of cash) had a lackluster reputation for providing quality yachts for charter. Consequently, there were some nice boats and good crew that developed bad reputations because of their association with him, and that reputable charter brokers would no longer book. In at least some of the cases, from what I can tell, the yachts and crew had no idea what was happening at the management level.

What I’m seeing on the docks this week are a few of those same boats–cleaned up and looking great–along with some of the better crew, who are now on other yachts and eager to provide great service through reputable management companies. It’s terrific to see, and these folks deserve a good bit of credit. They’re successfully working to bring boats with bad reputations–earned or otherwise–back into the mainstream charter market.

One example is the 44-foot sailing catamaran Catatonic, whose new owner is a lifelong bareboater striving to make his yacht better than any boat he’s ever chartered himself here in the Virgin Islands. Another is the sailing catamaran Good Medicine, whose captain’s attention to detail in refurbishing the yacht caught my eye during my tour last night. And just a few minutes ago, I stepped off the 55-foot sailing catamaran Frangines, whose captain, Dusty Graham, has overcome an earlier association with that bad manager and is now being recommended to me by brokers worldwide as one of the best to work with in all of the Virgin Islands.

The beauty of annual, industry charter shows like this week’s here in Tortola is that brokers get on the boats, see the crew, and learn firsthand which yachts to recommend confidently to you as a potential client. I think it’s great that there are some boats and crew getting back onto that “good list,” and I look forward to sharing full reviews and interviews about them here on CharterWave during the upcoming months.