Nick Trotter Owner, Meridian Yacht Charters
Date interviewed: May 2008
How did you get started as a charter broker?
My dad grew up on the water in Virginia. I was always sailing as a kid. I went to the University of Virginia School of Architecture, but I left to go work on charter boats in the British Virgin Islands. I worked my way up to captain, ran boats, delivered boats, raced boats, did some builds—got to know boats inside and out.
I was going from one racing series to another, and they were building a new marina in Virgin Gorda, so I went to work at a sailing resort there in the early 1980s. We were catering to all the charter boats. I lived there in the British Virgin Islands for 25 years, got married there, had kids there, and my wife, Jenny, was a charter broker there.
Time went by, and our kids got to prep-school age, so instead of sending them away to boarding school, we decided to move to the United States. When we moved, at the end of 2000, Jenny and I started Meridian Yacht Charters.
What kinds of boats do you typically book?
Our bread and butter is the 115- to 150-foot range, sailing and motoryachts, Caribbean and Mediterranean. Because we know the British Virgin Islands so well, we do a lot of sailing catamaran charters down there. We know those crews and that style of boat quite well.
What are some of the best charter destinations you’ve personally visited?
The best charter destinations are the usual suspects: the Eastern Caribbean and the Mediterranean. There’s a reason why they’re so popular. That being said, it doesn’t mean you can’t go somewhere else, but it’s harder to match up the client with the right yacht in an exotic destination. In the Caribbean, we went sailing for a month in Belize. It’s not for everybody, and it’s hard to get a good yacht there, but we loved it.
Where the best destination is for a client depends on the client, and on what they’re trying to achieve. Some people are after culture and history. But we have some clients who want to be in the middle of the see-and-be-seen action, with no history or culture. Other people want quiet solitude. You can get all of those in the Eastern Caribbean and the Med.
What is the first thing you ask a new charter client?
If they’ve never chartered before, I want to get their vision of their holiday. Yachting is difficult to market, because especially on yachts 100 feet and larger, it’s not something people can go and sample. You have to be there to know. We try to get their vision, what it is they want for themselves and their guests, and then work back from that to things like location, style of boat, number of people in the charter party, a minimum/maximum budget range. But the main thing is their vision, their dream.
If they’ve chartered before, then the questions are a little different. When people have yachting experience, we try to find out which kinds of boats they’ve been on, what features they enjoyed the most. That gives us a good baseline to move forward.
It’s really just a matter of communicating so that we understand what they’re trying to achieve, and so that they’re able to understand what we’re trying to describe. We’ve taken clients to charter yacht shows before because maybe they were on some really nice 76-foot sailing yacht, but they can’t understand the difference between that and a 150-foot motoryacht until they’ve been on it. We spend a lot of time talking with each client so we can learn each other’s language.
Describe your ideal charter client.
We work best with people who treat other people the way they want to be treated, who listen, who are comfortable with themselves. Those sorts of people tend to be successful, and they tend to understand the value of everybody on the team—from each member of the crew to the brokers.
The kind of people we work best with can see things from all angles. They’re considerate with us, and they treat the crew the same way. People respond to that. We respond to that. The people who have the best time on charter, who say they loved the crew, on those charters the crew always say they were the best guests, too.
Describe your nightmare charter client.
I can’t say that we’ve had a hard time working with anyone, but if you don’t treat people the way you want to be treated, things won’t run as smoothly for you.
We don’t try to work off a great deal of volume or do things very quickly. We try to take as much time with the people as we can without jeopardizing availability, especially in a last-minute situation. But we like to make sure everybody’s really comfortable, and that alleviates most of those nightmare situations.
Describe a previous booking where you worked “above and beyond” for a client.
That’s the whole point of every booking, every single charter!
The only time I think you don’t go above and beyond is when you have a multiple repeat client, where you’re talking almost in code. They call up and say, “July, somewhere good.” And you know exactly what it is that they want.
The rest of the charters, we do a lot of multi-yacht charters with corporate clients at a high level, and those have a lot of balls in the air all the time. It’s not so much the yachts, but everything else that’s going on around the yachts, such as the logistics and the individual needs, other boats and helicopters. You’re juggling all those balls, and you can’t let any of them drop.
What are a few of your favorite charter yachts, and why?
I like a yacht that Thomas Jefferson would have designed: classically elegant, innovative, functional, the sort of thing that is a concept you’ve never encountered, but at the same time sets the premium standard. People had never heard of the stuff he was doing as an architect. They’d never even thought of it. But they saw it and said, “Of course that’s how it should be.”
For charter yachts, in sailing, I like Dubois yachts that are done with wood. Motoryachts, of course, you have the really great stuff that Feadship does. I think charter guests love the way Benettis have outdoor spaces and Italian, modern elegance.
Who are a few of your favorite yacht crew, and why?
We have tons of favorite crew. The qualities of good crew go back to communication and their being part of the team, just like the rest of us. The goal is a great holiday for the charterer.
The people that we enjoy working with are professional. They do things in a way that you don’t even see them being done.
What makes you different from other charter brokers?
We’re the principals of our company. We don’t sell yachts or manage yachts. We’re independent, and we only book charters, so we have no conflicts of interests about representing the boat’s owner as well as the charterer—and you know who’s going to end up at the short end of that stick if there’s ever a problem.
We do corporate charters as well as personal vacations, and we keep a balance between repeat clients, referrals, and new clients. We don’t try to be all things to all people. We spend a lot of time booking charters, and we do it really well.
And I go on actual charters, which sets us apart from other brokers. A lot of brokers go on familiarization trips and see boats at boat shows, but not on actual charters. That is hugely valuable because I see things differently than I'm ever going to see them in one of those other situations. It’s the real deal, day in and day out. And I have an advantage because I’m a regular guest, but I also have access to the behind-the-scenes as the broker. So I get to see everything that’s going on, and the way it’s really done. I know the people and the boats so much better because of those experiences.
What else should CharterWave readers know about you and Meridian Yacht Charters?
We like to talk on the phone with people quite a lot, to understand what they want. People who want to book a charter should call a few brokers and see what they’re like, and see who they get along with best. We try to give our clients the attention they deserve.
How do you prefer that CharterWave readers contact you?
Our e-mail is charter@meridianyachts.com and our phone number is (804) 438-1100.
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