First Impression: Mary Jean

I almost walked right past the 160-foot motoryacht Mary Jean at a late-2005 industry-only charter yacht show in the Caribbean. It had been a long day of touring boats, Mary Jean looked a bit older, and, well, I just wasn’t sure she was going to be worth the effort of climbing onboard and taking a tour.

Boy am I glad I made the effort to check out this 1981 build. She had just completed an extensive refit by her new owner—including knocking out bulkheads to make better staterooms, modernizing equipment and audio-visual setups, and even lengthening and enhancing the stairs and aft deck that lead down to the swim platform. About $5 million worth of renovations later, here she was with me standing onboard.

And yes, I was impressed.

I didn’t get a chance to evaluate the crew properly, so I can’t speak to the level of service that you’ll receive if you decide to charter her (check with any reputable charter broker). However, I can say that she represents a unique value in terms of her stateroom configuration.

Mary Jean has seven proper en suite cabins, as opposed to the six onboard most other yachts in her size range. While you still can only have the legal number of 12 charter guests onboard for any give overnight stay, you can spread them out across an extra stateroom’s space, which is a fantastic option if a couple of people in your charter party are single and don’t want to share a room with twin beds.

Yachting Partners International (www.ypi.co.uk) is managing Mary Jean for charter. Her weekly base rate is $126,000, or about $13,000 per person with 25-percent expenses included.—Kim Kavin