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 received a pleasant surprise this morning when I learned that both Reuters news service and Fox Business News have run a positive review of my book Dream Cruises: The Insider’s Guide to Private Yacht Charter Vacations.

Apparently, these media outlets use reviews written by a service called Reader Views, which posted this review of Dream Cruises yesterday. I’m pleased to say it calls Dream Cruises “an all-encompassing guide” and “an excellent book to familiarize you with the world of private yacht chartering.”

While the book has received a lot of positive attention in the boating press, I’ve found it challenging to break through the barrier into the mainstream press. This attention from Reuters and Fox Business News is thus quite welcome, and I hope it will bring even more vacationers into the world of private yacht charter vacations.

If you’re reading this on Friday, June 27, then I am somewhere in between the eastern tip of New York’s Long Island and my home office about an hour west of Manhattan. I’ll be back online again bright and early Monday morning with even more news and photos from this past week’s Newport charter yacht show.