Yacht
The 120-foot motoryacht Kayana is a Vosper-Thornycroft that went through a nine-month refurbishing to bring her up to an appropriate standard for charter. The work is not so much a full refit as it is an intense touch-up, and additional renovations are expected in the future. We think that’s good. This yacht is on her way, but not quite there yet in terms of top-notch luxury outfitting.

The workmanship done so far is good quality, especially for a yacht in this price range. Kayana’s dining room turned out the best of all the redone rooms, with beautiful woodwork and a long, rectangular copper-top table that makes eating indoors a stylish event.

Kayana’s luxury level should rise even higher with the expected, additional renovations. Be sure to ask your charter broker what’s been added since our review.

Crew
Kayana takes seven crew, including a naturalist, which is important in Alaska if you want to learn about the bears, spawning salmon, whales, and other wildlife you are likely to encounter.

Capt. Russ White—a captain since 1994—and his girlfriend, chief stewardess Lisa Reedy, win our vote for most impressive members of the team. Both are quick with smiles and terrifically attentive, making sure you have whatever you want or need. They are not formal in terms of service—think polo shirts instead of epaulets—but they know the cruising grounds and the yacht’s routine so well that they more than make up for whatever question marks remain about Kayana’s continuing refit work.

Engineer Brantley Sweat is also worth a mention. He’s more personable than most engineers you’ll find onboard yachts in any price range, and he has overseen all of the fairly intense mechanical and electrical renovations onboard Kayana. When things break, he knows how to fix them—and with a smile, to boot.

Chef
Randy Ortega is a California-born chef who trained in his home state, in Canada, and in Washington state. He specializes in spa cuisine—low sodium, low cholesterol, everything in moderation. He says his recipes are all originals, meaning you can’t taste them anywhere but here. He likes sticking to a general routine of meals on charters, but does make substitutions based on the preference sheets that clients fill out before coming onboard.

A typical three-course meal includes:

• salad of roasted vegetables with a carrot vinaigrette of parsley juice and port wine reduction, topped with ground porcini mushrooms
• main course of bacon-wrapped salmon roulade atop a savory mushroom-herb pancake with honey soy glaze, topped with a dollop of mashed potato and a side of broccoli
• dessert of creamy cheesecake with a trio berry merlot sauce

Of special note are Randy’s dessert presentations, particularly his “sugar webs” that encase everything from ice cream to puddings in an elegant presentation.

Accommodations
Kayana takes ten guests, all in cabins on the bottom deck. The master and VIP staterooms are forward with queen-size beds, while the three additional guest cabins are aft with twin beds.

Both the master and VIP, as well as one of the twin cabins, are set up with athwartships berths—meaning the head of each bed is parallel to the side of the yacht, not its centerline. This means that when the yacht rolls, anyone in the beds will have their heads and feet moving up and down as if on a see-saw, as opposed to side to side as if in a cradle. Kayana’s owner compensated for this design issue by installing stabilizers that prevent the yacht from rolling too much, and though we usually are uncomfortable in athwartships berths, we slept beautifully the entire charter.

Two couples with children could easily split the cost of this charter and feel as though everyone had staterooms of equal caliber. If you have more adults than children, fear not; even the grown-ups in our party who had the twin cabins reported being perfectly comfortable.
 
Destination
It’s hard not to love Alaska, unless you prefer swimming to sightseeing. Our cruise was in August, arguably the best month to visit because of warm sunshine, and even though it was the height of the cruising season we still found protected nooks and crannies far away from the big cruise-ship crowds.

The nice thing about Kayana is that she spends every summer in Alaska offering charters, as compared with other yachts whose owners go for one year to visit the area and squeeze in a few charters along the way. The difference is apparent in the crew’s local knowledge. No matter what other boats came around, our crew always found a way to offer us an exclusive experience along the route from Juneau to Sitka.

Our favorite spot was the tip of an iceberg that we cruised up close to on our first day out. It will have melted down by the time you read this, but we have faith that whenever a similar opportunity presents itself, Kayana’s crew will look to take advantage of it for you to remember for years to come.