First Impression: Cristalex

Date toured: May 2008

The 100-foot Azimut motoryacht Cristalex looked to me like, well, most other 100-foot Azimut motoryachts when I saw her from the dock. It wasn’t until I got onboard that I realized just how different she is—not in her design or décor, but in the eco-friendly way her owners and crew run her.
     As I first reported on the CharterWave Editor’s Blog, Cristalex is owned by a couple who are trying to reduce their carbon footprint. To that end, the yacht’s crew has been instructed to use everything from organic sheets to non-toxic cleaning products to biodiesel fuel.
     That’s an unusual set of marching orders in the motoryacht charter industry, and one that, I must say, the crew seem to be doing their best to fulfill. As Capt. Martin Greatbanks told me, “It’s actually quite fine once you learn about it. Things take a little more elbow grease sometimes, but we rarely have to resort to harsh chemicals for anything.”
     And the yacht looks great. She was built in 2006 as a demo boat for dealer Allied Marine in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which basically means she had a heck of a lot of potential Azimut 100 buyers traipsing all over her and taking her for test drives. The current owner bought Cristalex in the fall of 2007 and took advantage of the builder’s warranty program, which brought all the furniture, machinery, and paint work back to brand-new standards. This summer will be her first season in charter, since the owner kept her all to himself during his first winter of ownership. 
     The crew are thus all new, being led by Greatbanks, who was born near London. He started out working in ski chalets in the French Alps during winters and onboard yachts as a deckhand during summers (while his wife worked onboard as a chef). That was in 2004. He got his captain’s license in 2007 and became the skipper onboard Cristalex that fall, when he hired the current crew with charter in mind. His wife, Claire Richards, is the chef, cooking Mediterranean-style dishes with French, Italian, Asian, and Thai influences.
     He says the crew is family-friendly, which I think is ideal, since that’s what the yacht is best-suited for. She has two cabins with queen-size beds and two with twins, which means a pair of families could split the rooms, and the weekly charter rate, without anyone feeling they got a set of lesser cabins in the deal.
     Cristalex takes eight guests with four crew at a lowest weekly base rate of $57,000. She’s part of the Ocean Independence fleet, and you can check with any reputable charter broker about how her first charters this summer are going.—Kim Kavin