First Impression: Vita

Date toured: December 2009

Vita is a 150-foot Trinity motoryacht that launched in 2003 with the name Cakewalk. The current owner kept her rich woodwork and fine furnishings, but toned down the chandeliers and other ornate touches in the interior so that, as of my tour, the newly rechristened Vita offered a comfortably elegant ambience. I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon luncheon aboard, followed by a few hours of sailing aboard the owner’s other yacht, the 136-foot J-Class sailing yacht Ranger. (See the video at the bottom of this article.) I was absolutely as impressed as I had hoped I would be for a yacht in Vita’s size and price range.
    In terms of layout and accommodations, Vita is similar to other 150-foot Trinity yachts on the charter market in that she offers a main-deck master suite plus four guest cabins on the bottom deck. In Vita’s case, four of those five cabins have king-size beds, while one has twin-size beds. One of the king cabins has a bunk-style Pullman berth, as does the cabin with the twin beds. That means you can have a total charter party of 12, but only if two of the guests are children. Ideally, Vita suits four couples and two or three kids.
    With that said, the owner’s representative told me during lunch that Vita’s owner does not use Vita for children’s accommodations at all. Every summer, he does a 10-day cruise with three families that incorporates both yachts. The children all sleep aboard the sailing yacht Ranger, while the adults overnight on Vita. There are 10 adults on the motoryacht, and six or seven kids on the sailboat.
    “It works out great,” the representative said. “The kids come to the motoryacht for water sports, and then they go ‘home’ at night so the adults can relax. And during the days, everybody can go sailing together.”
    Any charter yacht with a lowest weekly base rate of $170,000, which is what Vita charges, needs to have an exceptional chef. I have dined aboard more than a few yachts in this price range, and I found chef Kin Hong well suited to meet my expectations. He offered our group a menu of choices for lunch. As a first course, we could opt for chilled tomato gazpacho with lump crab salad or for a poached pear salad with goat cheese fritter. For our main courses, the choices were ricotta gnocchi with sautéed Caribbean prawn or pan-roasted hangar steak with mango sweet chili salsa. Everyone ordered what they liked best—and some people smartly shared to taste it all—and Hong delivered on the mouth-watering menu descriptions. Service, too, was excellent, with all meals being served simultaneously and to the correct person who had ordered them.
    After lunch, our group enjoyed a sail aboard Ranger, to get a further taste of the way future guests might experience a charter. Vita is offered for charter on her own as well as in tandem with Ranger. If you book a tandem charter with both yachts, the total weekly base rate is $210,000—a $50,000 price break over the individual yacht rates for a possible total of 22 guests.
    Based on my experience, I must say that if you can afford the tandem booking, you should go for it. Vita, while one of several Trinity motoryachts on the charter market, offers a lovely experience, and Ranger, as a newly launched J-Class replica, is the only sailing yacht of her kind available for charter today. The package of both yachts together may truly be a once-in-a-lifetime charter opportunity, especially considering that the owner currently has both yachts for sale on the brokerage market.
    Northrop & Johnson is the management company for Vita and Ranger alike. Any reputable charter broker can help you book a week onboard.—Kim Kavin

Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!