First Impression: Antares Avance

Date toured: May 2008

Let’s talk for a minute about chocolate. I’m one of those people who doesn’t understand why anyone would eat a dessert made of anything other than chocolate. Lemon meringue, raspberry tart—all a waste of calories to me. Give me anything made from the cacao bean, any day of the week, dark or milk, with nuts or nougat, and my sweet tooth is satiated.
     Thus, you can understand how happy I was to spend time onboard the 100-foot Jongert sailing yacht Antares Avance—whose chef uses 70-percent cacao black chocolate from Tuscany to create his homemade sweet treats. I said I would be happy to politely taste just one during my tour. Some 10 or 15 minutes later, after my third or fourth sample, I was as hooked as a tarpon on a baited prong.
     The yacht is a 1991 build that was kept private until she got a new owner in 2006, according to business manager Eugenio Tagliafico. That owner did a million-euro refit that included her electronic systems, exterior paint, and interior décor to make her charter-ready. The work was completed in May 2007, and the yacht did its first two charters during the winter of 2007 in the Caribbean. This summer will be her first Mediterranean season, with the same Italian (and English-speaking) crew, minus the captain, who was being replaced at the time of my tour.
     One of the things I liked most about Antares Avance was her double-cockpit layout, which includes one seating area near the helm as well as a second seating area with tables for the guests. Both are shaded and comfortable, but only one is “in the thick” of the crew’s work of actually operating the yacht. Thus, you can take part in the sailing or simply relax with it in the background, an option that is unavailable to guests onboard sailing yachts with just one, large cockpit.
     There are two twin-bed cabins onboard, plus a master cabin with a study that converts to a fourth cabin with regular and bunk-style Pullman beds. That convertible study has its own bathroom, so it is, indeed, a proper cabin. I noted that the sofa that converts into a bed is about the size of a double bed, and that I thought I would be perfectly comfortable there for the duration of a charter vacation.
     Because one of the cabins in convertible, Antares Avance is marketed as being available for six to eight guests with four or five crew, depending on how many guests come aboard. Her base rate year-round is 35,000 euro, and she’s part of the fleet at Yachting Partners International.
     Contact any reputable charter broker to learn more.—Kim Kavin