First Impression: Texas Star

Date toured: November 2008

The 102-foot Azimut Texas Star is the only motoryacht of its class that is permanently based in the British Virgin Islands. She was built in 1987 and underwent a $3.5 million refit in 2004 that extended her hull by 14 feet to add a guest cabin and expand the aft deck well beyond the size that most other motoryachts this length offer. The yacht’s current owner, who bought Texas Star in 2007, did additional work during the summer of 2008 including upgrading systems and installing new carpeting.
    Unfortunately, at the time I got onboard, the yacht was still trying to overcome a reputation as having bad crew. “We came aboard in June 2008,” Capt. Marco Heitz told me as we chatted in the main saloon with his partner, chef Robyn Pitts. Together, they used to run the 52-foot sailing catamaran Can-Can. “The previous crew made a lot of the international charter brokers unhappy. The owner started fixing the crew problem in spring 2008, and now we feel that it is solved for good.”
    Indeed, Heitz and Pitts earned a good reputation aboard Can-Can, and I liked the stewardess-and-deckhand team they had added aboard Texas Star in Paula McKee and Paul Gardner. McKee studied child care in England and previously worked as a Camp America counselor alongside Gardner. She was the head of basketball, he of soccer. Their enthusiasm for chartering with children was palpable during our chat.
    “We get a lot of couples and families,” Heitz says, “but also a lot of corporate charters because our cabins are so equal in size.”
    That’s true, though the size of the beds in the cabins differs. The master, on the main deck, has a queen-size bed, as do two belowdecks cabins. The VIP cabin on the bottom deck has the only king-size bed aboard. There’s also one guest cabin with twin-size beds. All five of the guest cabins have high-quality surround sound systems, which Heitz cranked up for me to show just how loudly a scene from Lord of the Rings can make a bed rumble.
    Overall, I thought Texas Star looked a bit dated in terms of interior décor, but she presented well, was clean, and appeared to be a good value for a motoryacht of her size. I’d check with any reputable charter broker before booking just to see how the new crew are getting along, though I am optimistic, given my time aboard, that the yacht will continue to overcome its previous reputation for having crew problems.
Texas Star also should be good for charter guests of multiple nationalities, as the current crew speak English, Spanish, Finnish, German, French, and a little bit of Swedish.—Kim Kavin

Texas Star is part of the CharterPortBVI fleet. She takes eight to 10 guests with four crew at an all-inclusive weekly base rate of $50,000, which includes two hours of cruising per day.  Any reputable charter broker can tell you more.