Marinas
The berth is the hard part
Anybody with the money can buy sixty metres of yacht. Almost nobody can find her a home on the Western Mediterranean coast in July.
Every story
The Magazine
Every long read across the eleven departments, newest first.
Marinas
Charter Destinations
A charter week, decoded
The rate in the listing is about two thirds of what leaves your account. Here is every line, in the order it appears on the contract.
Superyachts
The length that lies
Two boats of fifty metres can differ by half in the only measurement that decides how the week feels. It is not on the first page of the brochure.
Crew Services
The captain is the purchase
An owner spends a year choosing a boat and an afternoon choosing the person who will decide what that boat is like to own.
Beach Clubs
Lunch is the itinerary
Ask a charter captain where the week is going and the honest answer is a list of tables. The beach club is the structure the Mediterranean day is built on.
Sailing Yachts
The case for canvas, made honestly
A sailing superyacht is cheaper to run, quieter, and harder in every other respect. Here is the argument with the inconvenient parts left in.
Yacht Management
The yacht as a company
Above forty metres a yacht has a payroll, a compliance regime, an audit and a board meeting. Somebody has to run it, and it is not the owner.
Luxury Hotels
The hotel with a dock
A handful of grand hotels on the Mediterranean have their own tender landing. They are worth more to a yacht than any restaurant on the coast.
Superyachts
What a superyacht costs in a year nobody talks about
The purchase price is the part the buyer researches. The annual bill is the part that decides how long the boat stays in the family.
Yacht Brokers
What ten per cent buys
The commission on a yacht sale has not moved in fifty years. What the broker does for it has changed completely.
Private Jets
The runway decides the aircraft
Guests do not fly to the boat. They fly to the nearest runway that will take the aeroplane, and that airport decides the whole day.
Catamarans
The beam problem
A catamaran gives you the deck of a boat ten metres longer. The harbour charges you as if she were two boats, when it will take her at all.
Sailing Yachts
The rig is a running cost, not a feature
Standing rigging has a life. Sails have a wardrobe. Carbon has an inspection schedule. None of it appears in the first year of ownership.
Charter Destinations
The Riviera week, honestly
The most chartered stretch of coast on earth is also the most crowded. Done badly it is a traffic jam. Done well it is still the best week in the Mediterranean.
Superyachts
The boat in October
A superyacht spends most of her life tied up, empty and being worked on. What happens in those months decides what the summer feels like.
Yacht Management
The refit year
Every five years the boat comes out of the water and is opened up. The invoice is the largest of the ownership, and it is entirely predictable.
Luxury Hotels
The hotel as a base
Every charter that starts smoothly started the night before, in a hotel next to a marina with an airport an hour away.
Catamarans
Two hulls, one family
The catamaran became the default family charter boat in a decade, and the reasons have almost nothing to do with sailing.
Crew Services
What a crew costs, line by line
Salaries are the part everybody quotes. Flights, insurance, training, uniforms and food add a quarter again, and rotation doubles what it touches.
Private Jets
What an hour in the air costs
Four ways to fly privately, and a single number of hours a year that decides which one is not a mistake.
Marinas
Reading a harbour in ten minutes
Shelter, depth, services, town. In that order, and the fourth one is the one everybody judges a harbour by.
Beach Clubs
How a yacht books a table
It is not an app. It is a chief stewardess with a telephone, a relationship, and the boat's name, in roughly that order of importance.
Sailing Yachts
Racing her once a year
The superyacht regatta circuit is the only place in yachting where the owners compete in public. It is also the best week of the season, and the most work.
Charter Destinations
The Caribbean season
The winter half of the fleet calendar runs on trade winds, short hops and a completely different idea of what a charter week is for.
Catamarans
Power catamaran or motor yacht
Take the rig off a catamaran and you have a boat that carries more, burns less and berths worse than a motor yacht of the same length. Which of those matters is the whole decision.
Yacht Management
Charter as an offset, and what it does to your boat
Eight to twelve weeks a year can cover half the running costs. It also changes what the boat is, and the owners who are happiest are clear about that trade from the start.
Yacht Brokers
The survey that saves a million
A condition survey and a haul-out on a fifty metre yacht costs the price of a small car. Skipping it is the most expensive decision in yachting.
Luxury Hotels
The island the boat cannot reach
There are places worth a week that no yacht programme reaches without a month of passage. That is what hotels are for.
Marinas
The two continent calendar
The serious fleet lives on a loop: Mediterranean summer, Atlantic crossing or a ship, Caribbean winter, back again. Everything else follows from it.
Beach Clubs
The clubs worth the tender ride
A hundred places on the Mediterranean call themselves beach clubs. The dozen the fleet returns to have four things in common, and a DJ is not one of them.
Crew Services
Why crew leave
The owner, the captain, or somebody at home. In that order, and the first one is the only one an owner can do anything about.
Private Jets
The last forty minutes
Everybody plans the flight. The part that decides whether a guest arrives happy is what happens between the aircraft door and the boat.
Yacht Brokers
Flag, VAT and the paperwork that decides where you can go
Three decisions made with a lawyer before the purchase, each of which can move the value of the boat by more than the brokerage.
The Log
One entry a week, on a Saturday.
One entry a week: the new long read, one boat worth studying, one number worth knowing. No advertising, no tracking, one click to leave.