One of the things I enjoy while cruising is checking out the huge yachts that appear in Caribbean ports. They can be seen year-around, but mostly during the winter when it’s too cold for the French Riviera or Monaco, I guess. They seem to gravitate toward St. Thomas, St. Martin and San Juan, probably because they have harbors and marinas large enough to handle ships their size, and airports to handle the private jets of the owners. My understanding is that the owners don’t actually sail on them, they just have crew to take the ship to whatever port they wish to sail from, then the owners hop in on the private jet for a long weekend or a week.
Here are two of the notable spottings from our recent cruise.
From Wikipedia: M/Y Eclipse is a superyacht built by Blohm+Voss of Hamburg, Germany. Her exterior and interior were designed by Terence Disdale. The yacht was delivered to Russian businessman Roman Abramovich on 9 December 2010. At 162.5 metres (533 ft 2 in) long Eclipse was the world’s largest private yacht until the Azzam was launched in April 2013, which was 17.3 metres (56 ft 9 in) longer. The yacht’s cost has been estimated at €340 million. (Note: the Carnival ship we were on was 306 meters or 1004 feet long, but carried 4000 passengers and 1400 crew!)
From Wikipedia: The 80m Excellence yacht was built in 2019 by Abeking & Rasmussen. She features an exterior design by Winch and an interior by Winch. She cruises at 14 knots and reaches a top speed of 17.0 kn. She can sleep up to 14 guests taken care of by a crew of 20.
Oh, and while not exactly a superyacht, a properly-equipped catamaran is always a pleasant sight. 🙂
I too like the sight of a nice-looking yacht. Your understanding vis-a-vis the owners of and the yachts is correct. We have a friend who, in her younger days did this work for several years. She was responsible for catering. The great thing about the job was that the parties/events happened either in various Mediterranean ports, Islands in the Atlantic, ports on the east coast of the USA or in the Caribbean. On a couple of occasions, they even had to go to the Seychelles. And the trip to these ports was always without owner or guests. They only had guests on board 50% of the year, some years even less so it was a rather well-paid, relaxed lifestyle for her, a rather nice way to see parts of the world that few people get to see and get paid for it without food or boarding expenses
Several years ago I spoke with a crew member for a sailing yacht that was docked in Fort Lauderdale and he related a similar story. It’s great work for those who love to sail, and ideal for someone with the willingness and ability to be away for weeks or months and wants to see the world. Like any kind of hospitality work it likely has it’s downsides too. But as they say, nice work if you can get it!
Love catamarans!
Just like large homes, yachts are not something I want nor do I believe people need. Thankful not everyone thinks as I do. While working as flight attendant I discovered the similar lifestyle for corporate flight crew. Pilots and flight attendants on some of these aircraft had a chance to see much of the world the rest of us don’t. I’ll take the catamaran.
We have a friend who lives on a sailboat with his dog. It’s a reasonably-sized boat, not one of those monstrosities. He probably wouldn’t mind some of that “equipment” from the catamaran. 😉
Who wouldn’t?