CharterWave eNews
October 2007

CharterWave Celebrates First Anniversary
with New Features, Crewed Yacht Focus
It’s official, folks: CharterWave is celebrating its first   year online as of this month. And we’re moving full-speed into our second year of business by adding even more features to help you find great boats, reputable brokers, and timely ideas for your next charter vacation.
     For starters, you’ll notice some improvements to our home page. We’re responding to reader demand by maximizing our crewed yacht content, featuring not just one crewed yacht of the month but instead a crewed motoryacht as well as a crewed sailing yacht. Our bareboat content will remain online, but our focus for   the future is going to be on crewed yacht vacations, which most first-time charterers come to CharterWave to research.
     In fact, we’ve amassed so many reviews of crewed yachts in our First Impressions section that we’ve now split it into two separate indexes, one for crewed motoryachts and another for crewed sailing yachts. Hopefully, this will help you to find information about the kind of yacht you’re seeking even faster.
    Also on the home page, CharterWave now has a feature called “This Week’s 10 Best.” It will include everything from the best cruising itineraries for golf lovers to the best yachts for wine enthusiasts. Our first offering is “This Week’s 10 Best Yachts for Movie Buffs,” highlighting charter yachts that have awesome entertainment systems onboard. Check it out by clicking here.
     Our home page also has new links to our sponsored pages, where charter brokers, yacht captains, and fleet managers are blogging every day with tips, insider info, and destination information. We want to help you connect with reputable sources, and we know of no better way than to give them a place to voice their opinions through the CharterWave sponsored sections.
     Last—and perhaps most exciting in this multimedia age—is that we have added links to podcasts and vidcasts, which we’re beginning to produce on CharterWave this month. These audio and video segments will let you hear brokers’ voices, watch yacht chefs in their galleys, come along with us on actual charter vacations, and much, much more. Our first proper vidcast, an interview with Broker of the Month Gina Robertson, is online now. Check it out by clicking here.
     All of us here at CharterWave hope you enjoy these new features. And we of course thank you for your support during our first year online. Keep telling us what you want, and we’ll keep giving it to you!

Welcome New Sponsor: Boatbookings.com
We’re thrilled to announce that Boatbookings.com has   signed on as CharterWave’s featured home page sponsor.
     We’ve had several offers in recent months from    advertisers seeking to be on the CharterWave home page,   but we turned them all down because they weren’t much   more than  websites without proper companies behind them—people looking to make a quick buck off charter vacations without providing reputable services.
     Instead, we held our featured home page sponsorship open for a company like Boatbookings.com—which has a good reputation as well as in-house brokers like Sharon Bahmer, a member of CYBA International (one of the professional associations that CharterWave trusts). We at couldn’t be prouder to introduce you to this charter-booking agency, which has offices in Florida, England, and France.
     It also makes us happy that a company like Boatbookings.com sees CharterWave as a valued online partner. Tom Virden, the director and founder of Boatbookings.com, is not just a sailing aficionado but also is a technology expert, having worked at Apple Computer, Netscape, and for various e-commerce enterprises. We are delighted that he sees us as bringing high-quality charter editorial content to the Web, and that he shares our vision for growing the worldwide charter industry through the Internet.
     Help support the people who support CharterWave by clicking on over to Boatbookings.com today!


CharterWave Traffic Continues to Climb
And the hits just keep on coming: CharterWave had its biggest month of traffic ever in September, thanks to features that promoted us in newspapers, on radio, and on the Web around the world.
     We were thrilled to have CharterWave editor Kim Kavin quoted prominently in a yacht charter feature in The Wall Street Journal, the most prestigious business-oriented newspaper in the United States. Kim also was featured on The Good Life radio show, which is syndicated across America, and in a Power & Motoryacht podcast interview—which was downloaded more than 500 times during its first 14 days online alone.
     CharterWave also got a nice review last month on TheBoaters.tv, which featured our content about the differences between cruise ships and yacht charter. You can watch the short video clip by clicking here.
    Stay tuned for more media features about CharterWave as our audience and advertising base continue to grow. The bigger and better we get, the more people notice us—and the more support we’ll have to bring you even better content in the future.

U.S. Congress Seeks to Verify Cruise Ship Crime Data
CharterWave editor Kim Kavin was in Washington, D.C., last month for the fourth U.S. Congress subcommittee hearing about crime onboard cruise ships.
     It’s a startling topic when you listen to the hours upon hours of testimony. The upshot is that the only people keeping track of crime onboard cruise ships are the cruise lines themselves, and that they appear to be reporting fewer crimes than actually do happen—while covering up many of the most heinous rapes and missing-persons cases at sea.
     In response to last month’s testimony, Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) issued a press release stating that he would personally introduce legislation in the Senate this fall to try to hold cruise lines accountable and keep them honest. Representative Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut) also took action, adding cruise ship crime reporting to the mandatory requirements of a pending Homeland Security bill in the House.
    Other leaders on the issue of exposing the seriousness of crime onboard cruise ships have been Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) and Doris Matsui (D-California).
    We at CharterWave will continue to support their efforts by promoting and assisting the group International Cruise Victims, which is pushing for better cruise ship safety as well as more honest reporting of cruise ship crime statistics to the public.

Second Edition of “Charter Bible” Available This Month
CharterWave editor Kim Kavin’s book Have the Whole Boat is being issued in a second edition this month with lots of updated content, plus a spiffy new title and cover design.
    The new edition of what several reputable brokers are calling “The Charter Bible” is now known as Dream Cruises: The Insider’s Guide to Yacht Vacations. The publisher is putting the finishing touches on the interior page layout, and the book should be available through online retailers like Amazon.com within the next few weeks.
     Of course, you’ll also be able to buy the book here on CharterWave. We’ll have the proper links for you before you can find them anywhere else.

We’re Scouting for You in Fort Lauderdale
This month, CharterWave editor Kim Kavin is heading to Florida for the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, where she will scour the docks for the best charter yachts and crews on display.
     Keep an eye on the CharterWave Editor’s Blog for daily updates from the show, which begins October 24.

Best of the CharterWave Editor’s Blog
I received a press release yesterday that got my blood boiling. It was from a magazine that stated: “Our mission is to deliver unparalleled quality and unbiased editorial on the finest yachts available for charter worldwide.” I’ll tell you, I actually screamed at my computer screen in rage. … Read More…

Best of the CharterWave Sponsored Blogs
Capt. Jared from the motoryacht Charisma posts: Here we are in the Exumas. It is the first yacht charter for this individual and his guests. They had an idea that it would be nice to charter and then maybe see a yacht to purchase in their future. Now our discussions continue to address that it shall be chartering from here on in. At least once a year they would like to charter a yacht… Read More…

Motoryacht of the Month: Curt-C
We found this 145-foot motoryacht in Newport, Rhode Island, and she’s headed to the Caribbean this fall to offer what many brokers consider one of the best values in large-yacht charter.
     Click here to check out our exclusive review.

Sailing Yacht of the Month: Aldebaran
’Tis the season for booking Virgin Islands charters, and this 57-foot sailing catamaran is returning with her fabulous crew of two. They offer megayacht-level service at an entry-level price.
    Click here to read about Aldebaran and her crew.

Captain of the Month: Jack Boye
It’s not often that we come across a charter captain who is such an experienced sailor, he’s done three transatlantic crossings and placed second in an around-the-world-alone race.
     Today, Jack Boye runs the Lagoon 58 sailing catamaran Pride with his wife, Susan. Click here for our exclusive interview.

Chef of the Month: Elias Verniers
This chef had so many requests for recipes from his motoryacht’s charter guests that he created a gorgeous, full-color cookbook for them to take home (complete with wine pairings!).
    We caught up with him at the Genoa charter yacht show, where he gave us this exclusive interview for CharterWave’s readers.

Broker of the Month: Gina Robertson
Our exclusive interview with Gina took place off the coast of Thailand, where she was continuing her work of touring yachts worldwide to make sure they live up to their brochures.
     Gina also graciously agreed to be the guinea pig for CharterWave’s first charter broker vidcast interview, which you can watch by clicking here. If you’d prefer to read her interview, then you can click here.

Charter Company News:
BCR Yachts announced a price reduction for the 86-foot motoryacht Indulgence of Poole, which will accept charters at a weekly base rate of 30,000 euros instead of the normal 38,000 euros as she remains in the South of France throughout the Mediterranean off-season… The company also has the 76-foot sailing yacht Sunday Morning offering charters in Australia’s Whitsunday Islands until November, then in Thailand in December and January, followed by the Maldives on her way to offer charters in the Red Sea beginning at the end of March 2008…

Camper & Nicholsons reports that one of CharterWave’s favorite “gigayachts,” the 228-foot Sherakhan, will be available for charters this winter in the Caribbean. Check out our exclusive onboard review…

Churchill Yacht Partners is having a Bahamas blitz, promoting six yachts for charters in the stunning island nation. Many are what we at CharterWave consider to be in the entry-level size range for crewed charters, including the 88-foot Lady Victoria, which has a base rate of $30,000 for eight guests (about $4,600 per person with 25-percent expenses factored in). Churchill also is offering the 97-foot Odysseus in the Sea of Cortez, a destination where it can be hard to find reputable charter yachts…

International Yacht Collection is welcoming the 116-foot motoryacht Muchos Mas to its charter fleet with a “new to fleet special” base rate of $40,500 per week for eight guests with six crew in the Bahamas. The rate is only good through October, so book now…  The company also has five motoryachts heading south from New England to Florida, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean for the winter season, and special deals are available on them all. They range from the 142-foot Chevy Toy with a weekly base rate of $130,000 to the 107-foot Caribbean Sparkle with a weekly base rate of $31,000…

Merrill-Stevens is opening an office in Mexico City, making it one of the first charter companies to establish a permanent base in Central America. “It reflects our interest in reaching one of the international markets we have targeted for development,” Whit  Kirtland, the company’s president, said in a press release. … The company also is promoting its Caribbean offerings, including the 98-foot motoryacht Obrigado, which takes eight guests with five crew at a weekly base rate of $45,000… Only four of the Merrill-Stevens fleet motoryachts are still available for the Christmas/New Year’s holiday charter weeks…

Neptune Group Yachting is celebrating one year in business with the addition of two new staff members in its operations and charter marketing divisions. The company is run by longtime broker DJ Parker, one of the reputable brokers we recommend here on CharterWave…

Northrop & Johnson tells us that CharterWave favorite Sovereign, a 120-foot motoryacht that takes 12 guests at a weekly base rate of just $65,000, is heading to the Caribbean. She’ll offer charters in and around St. Lucia and the Grenadines from December through February, then will move north to offer charters near Sint Maarten in March and April… Another CharterWave favorite, the 75-foot sailing yacht Bahamian Rhapsody, is taking eight guests at a weekly base rate of $16,000 in the Bahamas…

Sunseeker Charters is taking requests for bookings onboard the soon-to-be-launched Sunseeker M4—a brand-new 121-foot trideck motoryacht that will be available for charter exclusively through the company. Itineraries are going to be along Mexico’s Pacific coastline for as many as 12 guests…

The Shipyard Group has added the 70-foot Hatteras motoryacht All My Girls to its fleet of crewed yachts. She’s in the Bahamas offering charters for six guests with two crew at a weekly base rate of $15,000—which includes the use of the owner’s 24-foot center-console fishing boat as well as his 17-foot flats-fishing boat. What a hook! … The company’s fleet now also includes a 68-foot motoryacht with one of the best names we’ve heard in a long time: Straight to Voicemail. How appropriate for anyone on a true charter vacation…

New First Impressions Posted on CharterWave This Month:
Lulworth, 151-foot classic sailing yacht
Polycarpus, 114-foot motoryacht
Pride, 58-foot sailing catamaran

New Crew Interviews Posted on CharterWave This Month:
Jack Boye, s/y Pride
Elias Verniers, chef, m/y Polycarpus

New Broker Interviews Posted on CharterWave This Month:
Sharon Bahmer, Boatbookings.com
Gina Robertson, Yachtstore

New Vidcast Posted on CharterWave This Month:
Interview with charter broker Gina Robertson of Yachtstore