First Impression: Georgia Rose 

Date toured: May 2007

When I met Capt. Paul Roberts onboard the 97-foot motoryacht Georgia Rose, he was about to celebrate his fifth year onboard. The yacht’s chef had been with him for four of those years, and the engineer, for three.
     That’s the kind of longevity I look for in charter yacht crew. It hints at a yacht whose owner treats the crew well, whose guests are happy with the charter service, and whose crew know how to work as a team to pull off a lovely charter yacht vacation.
     Georgia Rose was built in 1992 by the Italian shipyard Azimut. That brand name is known nowadays for sleek, speedy motoryachts, but Georgia Rose comes from a different era in boatbuilding. “This is not a glorified taxi,” as Roberts puts it. “We don’t just drive people super-fast from place to place. We go in a nice, cruisy way instead of just screaming across the water. We’re comfortable. We have all the toys. We can do proper dinner parties. We’re a good all-around boat.”
     I think that’s a fair assessment, based on the tour Capt. Roberts gave me. Georgia Rose is a well-maintained yacht whose owner continually makes investments to keep her looking her best. He installed a new transom in 2005, for instance, so guests would have a proper swim platform instead of a ladder. In the winter of 2006, he added a bow thruster to make maneuvering more comfortable under way. The week before I was onboard in 2007, new carpeting was installed on the main deck.
    “It’s an ongoing refit, really,” Roberts says. “You have to keep on top of things.”
    The master cabin is on the bottom deck near two guest cabins with twin beds. I though the twin beds looked a little small, since each one abuts a wall at its foot. Roberts—who is 6-foot-3—indulged me by lying in one of the beds (see photo above) to show me just how large a person can fit inside with their legs entirely stretched out.
     The VIP cabin is down a separate staircase all the way in the back of the yacht. “The owner actually likes to stay in here because it’s away from all the commotion of the kids,” Roberts notes. I mention this in case you are looking for a charter yacht where two couples can split the bill and each have a great cabin.
     There are plenty of shaded outdoor areas onboard Georgia Rose, and her foredeck sunpad is inset—an unusual design feature nowadays (see photo at right). Roberts says he feels this kind of design is safer for teenagers, who will be protected from rolling right off the sunpads as they might onboard more modern designs.
     Also worth noting is that Georgia Rose has a large table on her top deck, one that should make for fantastic alfresco dinners in quiet coves along the coasts of France and Italy.
     Georgia Rose is part of the fleet at Fraser Yachts Worldwide. She takes eight guests with five crew and is available for charter only during the summers, in the Western Mediterranean. Her lowest weekly base rate is 35,500 euros, or about $7,500 per person with 25-percent expenses factored in. Contact any reputable charter broker to book.—Kim Kavin