OceanStyle, a sister company of superyacht management house Burgess Yachts, has opened an office in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

The company says it chose Palma for its newest office because the Balearic Isles yachting market is primarily composed of yachts in the 65- to 130-foot size range, which is OceanStyle’s specialty. The company focuses primarily on yacht sales, but, as I told you here on the CharterWave editor’s blog back in February, OceanStyle has quietly been building a nice little charter fleet in that size range, as well. The company is aiming to have a fleet of 25 yachts for charter by the end of this year.

The new office in Palma is in addition to OceanStyle’s offices in London, Monaco, Miami, and Athens. It will be headed by sales manager Jamie Small, a former yacht crew member with experience working in yacht brokerage houses in Spain.

There is no indication that a reputable charter broker will be based in the new Palma office, but certainly, the folks there can direct you to their OceanStyle co-workers elsewhere for charter inquiries. And for large-yacht charters, you can always contact sister company Burgess Yachts.

I spent some time chatting this morning with Gary P. Carroll, a marine insurance agent with Comprehensive Yacht Assurance in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I called him because a line in his new monthly newsletter caught my attention. Writing to charter brokers, he stated that commonly used charter contracts “… contain hold harmless agreements that could place your charterer’s personal assets in peril–something your clients may not understand–while releasing the yacht owner from all liability.”

Apparently, he’s been getting a good number of calls from brokers lately about clauses in common charter contracts that contain these hold harmless agreements. They’re just what they sound like–stating that one party releases the other party from liability should anything go wrong. In this case, it’s you, the charterer, releasing the yacht’s owner and crew from any legal liability for anything.

“The way they’re applied in a charter agreement, even in a case of negligence, the yacht’s owner and crew still would have no responsibility,” Carroll told me. “I could be out on one of the yacht’s little sailing dinghies, and maybe the mast is cracked, and I don’t know it. Maybe the crew glued it back together, and I don’t know it. And maybe they did a bad job. And maybe it breaks all the way and falls over at the time I’m cruising by a billionaire’s yacht, causing damage. Basically, my life is over.”

According to Carroll, these hold harmless agreements even nullify personal liability insurance that you might have, because your insurance company will not pay for damages if you have agreed in writing to take full responsibility for anything that might go wrong.

Carroll told me these clauses have been in charter contracts for some time, and that the most reputable charter brokers work to negotiate them out. But recently, he said, even some of the world’s most elite brokers have been coming to him and asking how to handle hold harmless clauses because the companies that manage the charter yachts are beginning to insist on their inclusion in charter agreements. It’s a power play, really, being made by the multimillionaires who own the yachts. Sign your rights away or you can’t have my boat for the week.

“My advice in these cases is for the brokers to find another boat,” Carroll told me.

That sounds like good advice to me–and, unfortunately, I believe Carroll is right when he implies that it’s advice you won’t always get from your charter broker. As you know if you read CharterWave regularly, there are reputable brokers and not-so-reputable brokers out there. Some of them may not even know what these types of clauses mean. They may tell you the contract is standard in the industry, which it is, and then leave their advice-giving at that.

“My suggestion, if people want to be safe, is that you contact a marine insurance specialist or a maritime attorney directly,” Carroll says. “You can talk to your regular guy at State Farm or Allstate, but he’s not going to know about this. He’s going to find someone who does. The most important thing for the charter client is to know what you’re getting into before you sign. You wouldn’t drive a car without liability protection. Taking on a yacht is just stupid.”

Yes, he’s the guy who sells maritime insurance, but what he’s saying sure makes sense to me. At a minimum, ask your charter broker which maritime attorney or marine insurance specialist she works with. Ask specifically about hold harmless agreements and see if the broker is conversant in the subject.

Hopefully, the broker will have done her due diligence to protect you financially, and you’ll have the charter yacht vacation of your dreams. If not, you’ll know how to ask for help in the right places–and you’ll still have the charter yacht vacation of your dreams.

Absolute Yachting, which is based in the popular Greek charter grounds, is the first yacht management company I’ve seen to take a wide swipe at the dollar-euro exchange rate that is preventing so many Americans from booking charters in the Mediterranean this summer. The company sent out a promotional e-mail this weekend stating that for 2009, a half-dozen charter yachts in its fleet will be offering price quotes for next summer at $1 to 1 euro–no matter what the actual exchange rate is.

That’s a lotta cheddar, as my hip young nephews would say. As of this morning, $1 equaled just 0.63 euro.

All the yachts making this 1-to-1 dollar-euro offer are sailboats: the 52-foot Mystique, the 52-foot Infinity, the 56-foot Mythos I, the 56-foot Mythos II, the 65-foot Aegeo, and the 65-foot Star. Each takes at least eight guests at weekly base rates from 4,100 euro to 15,500 euro (or dollars, apparently).

Absolute Yachting didn’t offer any reason for this generous offer, but the obvious situation is that there is a disturbing lack of U.S. charter clients onboard yachts this size in Greece this summer. I’ve heard from multiple reputable charter brokers that many of the yachts in Greece are sitting idle at the dock, especially in this smaller size range (50 to 65 feet). The American clients who typically book these yachts are far more likely to be feeling the current economic squeeze than clients who charter larger yachts in Greece and beyond. Thus, offering this price incentive may be the only way to get U.S. clients back into Greek charter waters.

It will be interesting to see whether this offer to eliminate the exchange rate imbalance leads to increased bookings for these yachts. And if it does, we’ll then be staying tuned to see if other charter yacht management companies follow suit.