In the state of Florida, if you want to sell real estate, then you must meet a list of criteria determined by the Department of Business Regulation. You
must be at least 18 years old and hold a high-school diploma. You must provide a valid Social Security number and agree to have your fingerprints recorded
electronically, so the state can track your whereabouts. If you’re a new broker or even an experienced broker who is new to the state, you must take a 72-hour pre-licensing course. No matter who you are, you also need to prove that you’ve been working as a real-estate associate (in training) for at least two years. Only then are you entitled to take the 100-question exam to actually become a Realtor-and if you are among the lucky 50 percent of applicants who typically pass, your license will be good for only two years. Then you have to take a 60-hour post-licensing course as part of the license renewal process.

If you get caught selling real estate in Florida without a license, or if a client files a valid complaint against you for shady business practices, then you can
face fines or have your business license revoked. If your violations are extreme, you can be prosecuted just like a drug dealer or a tax evader. If it’s proved that you discriminated against a client based on race, gender, or marital status, then you can also be prosecuted under the Florida Fair Housing Act. For that alone, the state can go after you with a penalty of $10,000 per violation.

In other words, even if all you’re selling is a cheap piece of swampland in the Everglades, the client has a formal state body standing by to take action if you fail to represent him legally and ethically.

By contrast, in order to sell a million-dollar yacht charter from an office in Fort Lauderdale, you need to get a job working for a company that markets itself as being in the charter business. Or hang a shingle on your door saying that you are declaring yourself to be a charter broker. If you do an unethical job, if you break the law, or if you vanish with the client’s money in the night, then the client can hire a lawyer and try to sue you. If he can even find you.

“It really is quite a thing when you compare them side-by-side,” says a Florida-based retail charter broker who also works in the real-estate business, and who asked to remain anonymous. “The Florida State Real Estate Commission is one of the strongest in the country. It was made that way intentionally, because there were so many retirees in Florida being taken advantage of. That commission has teeth. It protects clients from unethical agents. The charter industry? We don’t even have teeth behind our contracts if the yacht owners decide to ignore them and hang the brokers and clients out to dry.”

The idea of licensing for charter brokers has come and gone several times in recent years, with most industry professionals more than happy to dance on its
grave every time it seems buried for good. Nobody relishes the idea of government regulations or fees-and that’s just as true in Monaco as it is in Miami.

In fact, geography is often cited as a primary reason that licensing would not work in the charter industry. Real estate laws are easier to conceive because
properties for sale have a physical location that does not change. If you’re selling real estate in Palm Beach, then you are bound by the laws of Florida, plain and simple. Charter yachts are far different. Each has a different flag state, is marketed out of a different country, and is booked by brokers worldwide representing clients of multiple nationalities.

Who, then, would license a retail broker who sits at a desk in Antibes and promotes boats for charter in Italy to clients in America? Would she need a license in every country where she books a boat? And if she wanted to book a boat in Newport, Rhode Island, would she need a license there in addition to one from the state of Florida? Would there be a charter license that covers the entire United States? The possible permutations of the actual licensing body are downright mind-boggling.

Another practical consideration is funding. One reason the Florida Real Estate Commission can afford to investigate impropriety and take action is because it is so well-funded by the fees that people pay to become Realtors. Beyond application fees, it costs most Realtors about $1,000 a year to maintain an active license in Florida. There are about 84,000 real estate companies in the state. If each one has just three employees, that’s a quarter-million Realtors paying fees that amount to millions of dollars a year. It’s a hefty budget to have in place, one that allows the commission to bring real leverage to bear when necessary.

By contrast, the charter industry is minuscule. To financially support a commission in a way that gives it power and teeth, the industry would either have to explode in terms of the number of brokers or make annual fees so high that they would be impossible to pay.

“It’s just not practical when you get into it,” the Floridabased retail broker says. “Would it be good to have stiffer standards? Of course. But a license without a strong commission to enforce it isn’t worth anything. It’s just extra fees that we don’t need to be paying as an industry.”

Interestingly, while there is broad, industry-wide agreement that licensing is a bad idea, there is also an overall feeling that stronger standards would be a good thing for business. Many central agents say that retail brokers should be required to undergo training, while many retail brokers say it is the central agents who should be put under the microscope. Countless charter professionals seem to think a higher barrier to entry would be good for the overall business, but nobody thinks that applying tougher standards would do much good if they only affect one segment of the industry.

A Florida-based central agent who asked to remain anonymous says that she was more than a bit surprised at the complete lack of licensing required to enter the charter business. She agrees with the retail brokers who say that CAs should have some kind of formal training, if not in the form of a state or federal license, then at least in the form of an industry-wide curriculum of classes that are required to do business. But she also feels that retail brokers should be made to do the same.

From her standpoint as a CA, some retail brokers are regularly working without basic knowledge, let alone ethics.

“I came to charter after being in the real-estate business, and I was shocked at the way the charter business operates,” the central agent says. “You deal with far more contract legalities in charter than you do in real estate, and yet anybody is allowed to call themselves a retail broker or a central agent. I’ve gotten inquiries from retail brokers who have no idea what the contracts mean. They absolutely are not protecting their clients’ interests at the same level that I am representing the yacht owner. So to me, the question isn’t so much about yes or no on licenses as it is about overall competence. I’ve always thought it would be a good idea for retail brokers to be required to have a basic level of education before doing business, and I guess I’d have to agree that maybe CAs should be required to do the same.” The closest that the charter industry comes to requiring education about how to do business is the admission standards that are used by professional organizations.

The American Yacht Charter Association is the strictest, requiring seven years in the charter business before an application will even be considered. MYBA requires two years of experience, as does CYBA International. The Florida Yacht Brokers Association does not ask about years of experience in its online application, although it does require an applicant to have two sponsors from within the industry.
None of these organizations has the power to impose fines or revoke a member’s ability to legally do business, even in the most egregious cases of misconduct. The most that these groups can do is revoke membership, which means nothing to a charter client who is unaware that the professional groups even exist.

In this respect, professional organizations are quite different from state-backed licensing commissions, especially in the eyes of a client seeking financial relief from a charter experience gone bad. However, the industry experience required for most memberships does jibe with licensing standards that are intended to ensure basic competence.

“To me, the closest organization we have in terms of ensuring serious business ethics and standards is AYCA,” says the Florida-based retail broker. “You need seven years of experience. That’s an even higher standard than you need for real estate in Florida. It just doesn’t have a licensed attached. At the end of the day, we’re a cottage industry. Smart clients check references. Anybody who has been booking charters for seven years is going to have a track record that can be verified.

“In an ideal world,” she continues, “if you could have an enforcement agency with teeth, that would be great for charter clients. But we’re too small of an industry. We’d all do better spending our time on beefing up the entrance requirements and education requirements in our professional organizations.”

Publisher’s Opinion

Yes, a formal license might indeed ease the minds of clients booking a vacation, but the important question is not whether people would prefer to buy charters from licensed brokers as opposed to unlicensed ones. Of course clients might prefer to see a license – if given that choice – but the desire of the client doesn’t mean that anyone actually needs a license to get the job done.

What’s more important is that the people who control and offer the charter product need to know what they are doing and be provably qualified to do it. In our opinion, the central agents and charter captains should be held to the highest standard. Going overboard about qualifications at the retail level, to us, is a mistake. The charter industry needs all the retailing help it can get to expand sales, including through travel agents.

Some CAs believe that retail brokers should know everything possible about charter before they are even allowed to talk to a client, but we suspect this might have more to do with protectionism and professional snobbery than with actual consumer benefits. In our experience with other luxury leisure products, it falls to the wholesale agents to be the true experts about the products that they are paid to represent. The foremost knowledge, experience, advice, protection from honest mistakes, and protection from dishonest representations should be provided by the wholesale community – which, for the most part, it is within the charter industry.

Retail brokers, in our opinion, need not be consultant surgeons as well as general practitioners. In the charter industry, the job of a retailer should be to fire the imagination of potential customers. The CA should offer strong and friendly support to such retailers, including providing the administrative framework for bookings—payment systems, contracts, suggested itineraries, preference sheets, and so forth. An occasional “thank you” to the retail broker would not go astray, either.

This is a well-established structure for doing business across most industries. Licensing is one way that this structure is achieved in other segments of the luxury industry, but we do not necessarily believe it is best for charter. Retail brokers should not have to be licensed at all, in our opinion. CAs do require some sort of provable competence, but we believe such testing could be adequately and formally achieved by a process administered within the industry—through professional groups such as MYBA and AYCA.

Are you better off making a deal for a timely cover feature with a leading magazine? Can you get more mileage out of a publicity plan that includes multiple magazines over time? Charter Index Editor Kim Kavin gets the inside scoop from the marketers and journalists who make magazine articles a reality.

Each time a new yacht launches, the owner believes it is the finest boat the charter market has ever known. He has visions of his pride and joy appearing simultaneously on the covers of Showboats, Yachts International, Boat International, The Yacht Report, Yachting, and more, with each magazine providing extensive coverage along the lines of, say, an eight-page feature. He tells his management company to line up the requisite exposure, envisioning central agents and marketing directors on the telephone with editors and writers around the world.

And then, the reality of the publishing business sets in. The exclusive, as it’s known in the marine magazine world, is a concept that drives coverage more than any other. Every magazine editor wants to splash the screaming words “World Exclusive!” across the cover, telling readers that they should buy that particular magazine because it offers a first look at a new yacht that they can’t read about anywhere else. This, of course, directly conflicts with the typical yacht owner’s wishes. He wants his boat to be featured in as many magazines as possible.

When the idea of exclusives first descended on the charter scene, they came with few restrictions. Magazines demanded, say, a one-month window during

which they would have exclusive information about a yacht. After that, the yacht could appear in every other magazine worldwide. Most central agents, yacht owners, and editors alike felt this was a fine deal. They made it again and again without hesitation.

Nowadays, though, some magazines are working in ways that extend the one-month window far longer. In some cases, a single magazine will gain copyright to
the photographs of a yacht’s interior and then hold them for more than a year, just so other media can’t publish them.

“The competition has really gotten a lot stiffer among the magazines,” says Diane M. Byrne, who coordinated megayacht coverage as executive editor of Power & Motoryacht for many years before creating the website MegayachtNews.com. Some editors are going to yacht owners as early as the first weeks of construction. They promise a cover and a big feature, and they tell the owner, ‘You’ll have the biggest coverage in time for the boat show or yacht race or whatever it is that’s important to you.’ The owner gets excited, and the magazine doesn’t necessarily make it clear that they’re going to prevent any other magazine from doing feature coverage for three months or six months or longer.”

Alev Karagulle, marketing director at Burgess Yachts, says restrictions from non-marine magazines in the luxury publishing business can be even worse. “Non-yachting titles are way more brutal,” she says. “The embargo can last for a year, which is commercial suicide for a charter yacht. We’ve never accepted an exclusive with a longer embargo than one month after publication in a marine title, but it can and usually does stretch the embargo period if the magazine with the exclusive has copyright on the photos. In these cases we just have to become more creative about the type of coverage we extend to other titles.”

From a marketing perspective, Karagulle says it is actually better to stagger media coverage across as many months as possible for a longer time period of overall coverage. Amy Halsted of The Halsted Agency, which handles public relations for International Yacht Collection, agrees—and says that the business of magazine exclusives plays a bigger role in overall coverage than most yacht owners realize.

“I once had a client tell me that he had agreed to an exclusive after being approached by a photographer,” Halsted recalls. “The client was excited because the photographer told him he could get the boat into a particular magazine. What the client didn’t know is that the photographer had promised the photographs to that magazine as an exclusive, and the magazine ended up taking 16 months to run the article. It was horrible. It’s important on these exclusives that you negotiate the exact terms, differentiate between print and online usage, and spell out the dates when coverage will appear. If I give an exclusive to a magazine that tells me the story is going to run in August, then I call them in May and say, ‘I want you to know I’m dropping a press release about this boat to all the other magazines, so they can run it in October.’ I will not have the publicity on that boat bound up in any way without control.”

The danger in attempting to stagger coverage is that some magazines will end up in a position where the yacht has already been featured in all competing titles. The editors who are last to get the story don’t want to look like their coverage is outof-date, so they simply wait for the next build from the same shipyard. The effect on charter publicity is not even a consideration.

Byrne says that one strategy for yacht owners who want to maximize publicity is to sign on for the exclusive, but also request that the magazine send a wellknown freelance writer instead of a staffer to produce it. Freelancers get paid by the article, instead of by a salary from a single title, so they have a financial incentive to produce as many articles as possible for as many magazines as they can. Once the exclusivity period ends on the original article, the freelancer can immediately pitch other articles to additional magazines.

“For me as a freelancer, a good example is the 281-foot Derecktor Cakewalk,” Byrne says. “I told the shipyard and the captain that I write for Superyacht World in London, Yachting in the United States, Boot Exclusiv in Germany, and a few others in addition to my website MegayachtNews.com. They specifically wanted to be in Yachting, but they got all of the other coverage as a bonus based on what I had in my notebook. They were thrilled, and of course I still have all my notes and am looking for even more angles that I can sell to even more magazines.”

In reality, there is a smarter way to gauge website traffic. Yes, you need healthy traffic in order to have a successful website—but “healthy traffic”
means far more than just the number of unique visitors. It means the most possible people who are seriously interested in yacht charter, finding your website through multiple sources.

It’s not enough to ask, “How much traffic do I have today?” The smarter question is, “How are valuable, potential clients finding me online?”

The best answer is through multiple traffic sources. The healthiest websites regularly get serious readers from all kinds of places. Some of the key traffic sources for any healthy website are described below, along with tips for making the most of each avenue.

Search engines. Typically, search engines such as Google and Bing! are among the top traffic sources for any healthy website. They are important because they tell you that your program of search-engine optimization is working. This means search engines are actually finding the content you are uploading and then directing other people to it.

Search engines are affected by everything from website construction to content updates. If you’re failing to receive healthy traffic from search engines-
say, at least 25 percent of any given month’s new and unique visitors-then you might consider rebuilding your website or adding more content, either on your own or through a database add-on program like the one that Charter Index offers.

Social media. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are all examples of social media. While many websites receive less traffic from social media than from search engines, many websites also report receiving more targeted traffic from social media followers. The quantity of visitors may be lower, but the quality may be higher.

The easiest way to begin a social media campaign for your website is to ask your current customers which social media outlets they already use. If 85 percent of your clients are already on Facebook, then it makes sense to start a Facebook page and use it to grow your website audience from your existing client base. This is the technological equivalent of mining for referrals-a tried-and-true marketing technique since long before social media even existed.

Content marketing. Content marketing means writing keyword-targeted articles that are published on other websites with links back to your own website. For instance, if you are interested in targeting charter clients for the Virgin Islands, then you might write a “guest post” for a popular blog that covers the Virgin Islands. As compensation for producing the content, you would ask for a live link back to your own website.

The primary benefit of content marketing is that it lets you reach the entire audience of another website in one fell swoop.

Direct marketing. This is another tried-andtrue marketing technique that existed long before the Internet, but that can now be applied to it.

One of the easiest (and free) ways to direct market your website is to include a link to it in your e-mail signature. Other methods (not always free) include enewsletters that direct readers back to your website.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising. Pay-per-click advertising, be it on Google, Facebook, or any other high-traffic website, can be a good way to generate website traffic. And the traffic does tend to be healthy, since most services now let you target potential visitors with serious detail.

However, anyone who gets into this game should be aware that the deepest pockets tend to get the best results. Several charter companies report spending upwards of $7,000 each month on pay-per-click advertising to generate the best results on Google.

Camper & Nicholsons International

Those of us who work in and sell the yachting lifestyle are specialists of this venue. At a recent luxury marketing forum, one of the highlights focused on being a specialist in your field and standing out from those who are not! I would have to say I would not encourage anyone to sell a product they are unfamiliar with. Many details come into play during the charter process that need to be pointed out to clients and explained. Someone from outside the industry would not understand this process. Some examples to note are contracts, cruising areas, distances, yachts, and crew. The concept of planning a yachting holiday is very specific. Having a full understanding of the “how’s and why’s” matters tremendously. By adding a third person into the charter process, information can easily be diluted. The trend of our industry for years has certainly been repeat and referral business. Clients who spend the amount of money they do want to know they are dealing with knowledgeable individuals—specialists in the field. Similar to anyone purchasing any expensive item, clients prefer to go to the source that knows the item intimately.

Central Agent: Shawn Laird,

Northrop and Johnson

I never want to shut the door on a potential booking, even if that client comes from a travel agent who has never before booked a yacht charter. However, I do think that most travel agents lack a basic understanding of how yacht charter works. It is their job to represent the client while I represent the yacht’s owner, and I am not willing to work with a travel agent who is failing to represent the client properly. I just don’t feel it’s the professional thing to do.

In the past, when travel agents have brought bookings directly to me, I have always suggested that they use the co-brokering system that the charter industry has in place. A travel agent working together with a seasoned charter broker has always produced good results for me in terms of past bookings. And, to the best of my knowledge, it has always produced good results for the retail brokers and clients as well.

The most important thing is that we get as many qualified clients as possible into the charter industry, so they can see what a fantastic vacation experience chartering is. If the client happens to come through a travel agent initially, I see no reason why the industry shouldn’t welcome that client using the co-brokering system that has worked so well in so many previous instances.

Charter Captain: Glenn Brain,

Essence – International Yacht Collection

In my opinion, yes, travel agents should be encouraged to sell yacht charters.

In the current market, where many yachts are struggling for bookings, the charter brokers just aren’t getting bums into the beds. From my perspective as a captain wanting as many charters as possible, it makes sense to widen the scope of marketing and allow travel agents to sell.

If travel agents can increase charter revenue, then just about everyone will be happy. Yes, the travel agent will get the commission, but the charter brokers didn’t have those clients anyway, so they’re not missing out on a commission. If the brokers were bringing all the clients all the time, it would be different, but the current economy shows us that we need to bring clients however we can, and reward whoever brings them with the commission.

From the yacht owner’s perspective, a travel agent’s client is no different than a charter broker’s client. The owner is receiving revenue.

And the crew’s perspective is the same. No matter where the client originates, we just may earn a tip.

Nobody wants to be quoted for this article. It’s kind of amazing, really, given how freely charter yacht captains, retail brokers, and central agents typically discuss one another’s flaws. I’d wager that one in every three of the boat show luncheons I attend includes an animated discussion about charters gone wrong—and, more interesting, who is to blame. When it comes to fam trips, the odds of such a discussion emerging (dare I say erupting?) are a solid 100 percent. After more than a decade of hearing these rants, I can almost sing them like a song.

Unfortunately, the conversations typically take place among like-minded retail brokers, or among like-minded captains, or among like-minded central agents. It’s rare for a retail broker to say her piece while sitting next to a central agent who controls access to yachts, or for a captain to cut loose within earshot of a retail broker who has paying clients at the ready,
or for a central agent to say anything in the presence of anyone who could cost the yacht owner a charter. Each camp has the same complaints, but the other two camps rarely hear them.

In the interest of enhancing the conversation, the following pages include the most commonly uttered complaints about retail brokers, captains, and central agents alike.

Retail Broker Mistakes

1. Negotiating Vaguely.

When rate negotiations became common, the role of the retail broker changed. Instead of being primarily a matchmaker between yacht and client, the broker now also has to be a smart negotiator.

These are very different skills, as evidenced by the number of central agents who complain that retail brokers leave them in a no-win position. The most common negotiating mistake that retail brokers make is calling the central agent and asking, “What’s the lowest rate the yacht owner will take?” This is about as likely to succeed as walking up to a listing Realtor and querying, “What’s the lowest price your homeowner will accept?”

A better question for a retail broker to ask is, “Will the owner accept a specific reduced rate of 10 percent? Because that is what my client will pay.” This type of inquiry gives the central agent an actual dollar amount from which negotiations can begin.

2. Booking a Boat You Don’t Know.

Little upsets a client more than being surprised by something he hates when he gets on board, and little upsets a captain more than having a client who is disappointed within five minutes of embarkation.

I’ve heard captains say that charter guests were expecting everything from non-existent Jacuzzis to completely different interior décors, all because the retail broker booked the charter without full knowledge of the yacht. The best retail brokers know the products they are selling, and they inform clients of every possible detail before putting a yacht forward for consideration.

3. Failing to Provide Guest Details.

Another major complaint that captains have about retail brokers is that the latter don’t know their clients well enough, and that they sometimes don’t know them at all.

It makes the captain’s job far harder if the clients are not the people he is expecting. Top retail brokers know their clients’ preferences, allergies, medical conditions, and special requirements before they book a charter. Failing to get this information, or failing to share it with the captain, is a recipe for disaster.

4. Making a Bad Boat Show Impression.

I once heard a central agent talking about a retail broker who got on a yacht, started asking the crew typical questions, and then wondered aloud, “Do you crew members have sex with each other while the guests are onboard?”

It’s one thing to get to know a boat, but it’s another thing entirely to be obnoxious. If a captain feels weird about you at a boat show, then he’s going to resist having your clients onboard. The same is true for central agents—only they will resist having your clients aboard any of the boats that their company manages.

5. Failing to Mention Gratuity Protocol.

Retail brokers cannot ensure that a client will leave a gratuity, but it is part of the broker’s job to inform the client that a gratuity is standard procedure. Perhaps the single biggest complaint that captains have about retail brokers is failure to educate clients about gratuities.

The MYBA Tipping Guidelines state that 5 percent to 15 percent is a common gratuity range. These guidelines exist so that retail brokers, captains, and clients can all be on the same page. What could be an easier problem to solve?

Captain Mistakes

1. Insisting on a Gratuity.

Nothing turns off retail brokers faster, or ensures that they’ll refuse to book a yacht in the future, than a captain who insists on a gratuity. This is true not only of captains who request the gratuity before the charter contract is signed, but also of captains who are perceived as harassing the guests about a gratuity after the charter has begun. What some captains think of as subtle—such as stating in a guest information book that a 20-percent tip is typical—many brokers think of as obnoxious.

It is appropriate for a captain to ask a broker whether she has informed the client about gratuity protocol. That, however, is where the talk of gratuities should end if captains want to remain on brokers’ good sides.

2. Working Directly with Repeat Clients.

I once attended a boat show luncheon aboard a long time charter yacht. The chef and stewardesses put on a terrific meal, and the captain was an absolute delight at the table. By the time dessert came around, every broker said he would book the yacht.

The lunch ended, and another broker came aboard—and got into a shouting match with the captain in the salon. The captain had contacted the broker’s client directly to gain repeat business. The broker cried foul, and the captain said that he had waited two years to the day, which is the length of time for which the broker was protected by the original charter contract. The broker didn’t care. She felt shafted.

The broker not only made a stink that wafted over what otherwise was a lovely luncheon, but that also quickly spread around the docks. In trying to cut out a single broker’s commission, the captain managed to eliminate dozens of brokers from his sales force. The smartest captains take the long view over the quick win, and keep as many retail brokers as possible as friends.

3. Failing to Keep Central Agents Informed.

The central agent’s job includes notifying retail brokers about changes and improvements aboard a yacht. And yet it is the captain, not the central agent, who knows about every change and improvement that is made.

Central agents get frustrated when captains fail to provide regular updates. If you get a new paddle board, or a new third stewardess who speaks a unique language, or a new stash of the latest video games and movies, then do your central agent a favour and drop him an e-mail. He will then have a reason to promote your yacht to retail brokers, and everybody wins.

4. Making a Bad Boat Show Impression.

I’ve done boat show tours where the yachts absolutely reeked. And where the stewardess didn’t know anything about the boat. And where the deckhands thought I couldn’t see them smoking. And where the chef served a luncheon that included not one, but two courses with food to which a broker said she was allergic.

If a broker believes that a captain can’t get his crew organized to give a decent presentation at a boat show, then there’s no way that broker will ever send her clients aboard for a weeklong charter.

5. Fudging the Books.

Captains who play fast and loose with clients’ APA funds are quite simply asking for trouble.

Some retail brokers go line by line through final APA statements, checking at the client’s request to be sure that everything is as it should be. I’ve heard from several brokers who found inflated charges and outright stealing, including charging for twice as much fuel as was actually used according to the engine hours. You may get away with keeping some extra cash, but if you get caught, you’ll lose the trust of the broker who sniffs you out, the trust of all his colleagues, and, perhaps, the trust of your yacht’s owner once word gets around.

Central Agent Mistakes

1. Failing to List Specific Availability.

If a client calls a retail broker and says, “I want to charter in Sicily,” the broker attempts to find a yacht that is available in Sicily. This process is made virtually impossible by central agents who list availability as “West Med,” but who really mean “South of France and maybe also Corsica, if the owner is in a good mood.”

Ideally, a central agent will list the specific locations where a yacht is available. “West Med including Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily” is a more helpful notation.

2. Failing to Update Retail Brokers.

If a captain does his job and keeps you informed about changes or improvements aboard a yacht, then it is your job to in turn share those details with retail brokers.

When a charter broker has out-of-date information, he shares it with the client, leading to countless possible problems. Even worse, if an owner loses a charter because the central agent failed to properly promote the yacht, then the central agent may lose the listing altogether.

3. Ignoring Retail Broker Inquiries.

Retail brokers contact central agents when an inquiry is in hand. When the central agent fails to return a broker’s inquiry in a timely manner—or never, as is sometimes the case—then the broker can lose the client altogether.

If you are the central agent who cost this retail broker a potential booking, do you think she is going to look to your yachts for her next inquiry? Be diligent about responding, even if you don’t think a deal can be done with the current yacht in question.

4. Putting Marketing before Truth.

I’ve sat at boat show luncheons where the chef was a complete flop—the incident with curry ice cream comes to mind. Brokers and press alike put down their forks, exchanging knowing glances around the table. The worst thing a central agent can do in this situation is say the chef is fantastic. Instead, try something like, “Four out of five courses were great, yes?”

Everyone knows there has been a gaffe. Don’t make it worse by trying to gloss over it. That’s true in other situations, too. If a client gives a bad review after a charter, don’t tell brokers the client loved the boat. The industry is small, and you can quickly get a reputation as someone whose word is not to be trusted.

5. Making a Bad Boat Show Impression.

The dream scenario at any boat show is to have retail brokers walk off a yacht wanting to book it. The nightmare scenario is having those same brokers come on board, take a

tour, and realize that you cannot answer a single one of their questions. If retail brokers believe you don’t know the product you are selling, then they will not put their own reputations with clients on the line by relying on you for information.

Even worse, the captain may overhear you talking and realize that you are not up to date on the yacht’s information, pricing, and amenities. This can get back to the owner, not only costing you a few charters, but perhaps also the listing.

Publisher’s Opinion

It won’t surprise anyone that we believe the single biggest—and most expensive—mistake that a central agent can make is to rely solely on myba.net (or Yachtfolio when it eventually reappears). We believe that this system fails to deliver a wide enough broadcast of charter yachts’ vital information to satisfy today’s information hungry markets.

Charter Index delivers information not only to the trade but also the public, via nearly 100 integrations into retail broker websites around the world (see who they are at www.charterindex.com/who-uses-portals.php). The authored digital brochures by Charter Index, which set the industry benchmark for quality graphics and design, can now be seen virtually everywhere. They are all linked into Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, and are instantly translatable into virtually any language.

Retail charter brokers and central agents make a big mistake if they think one system is enough. Neither myba.net nor charterindex.com is sufficient on its own. There are hundreds of yachts in charterindex.com that are not in myba. net, and some important large yachts in myba. net that are not in charterindex.com.

For the time being, everybody needs both, and—fortunately—Charter Index is still affordable enough to let central agents and retail brokers avoid the mistake of relying on one system only. Our rates are just $495 for view-only access for a year and $328 to list a yacht for a year, which are most certainly a bargain in today’s charter industry.

Some charter companies continue to produce thick, expensive, printed catalogs while others have moved primarily to digital marketing models. Some yachts, too, have abandoned glossy brochures in favor of websites, Twitterfeeds, and downloadable PDFs. Charter Index Editor Kim Kavin examines the changing demand for printed and digital marketing materials.

Today, the combination of shrinking marketing budgets and expanding electronic options is making printed brochures obsolete at boat shows. Some central agents still pass out flers, and the occasional glossy brochure is available aftera tour, but more oftenthan not, brokers are handed a memory stick or are asked to visit a website when they return to their own office Which, of course, begs the question: If central agents no longer concentrate on printed brochures to market yachts, do retail brokers still need printed brochures to sell charters?

For a fastgrowing number of brokers, the answer is no—and that includes not just brochures, but all kinds of printed marketing materials. In 2010 and early 2011, several leading management companies offered digital editions of key handouts in addition to print versions—not as a substitute, but as an option for clients who preferred digital to print. It is a concept that was literally unthinkable as recently as fie years ago, but that leading marketers have now embraced. Camper and Nicholsons International created an iPad and iPhone app for clients who want to view free downloads of the custompublished magazine Sea & I. YPI Group produced an availableuponrequest digital edition of “The YPI Selection,” a 56page catalog featuring everything from charter yachts to interviews with yacht designers. YCO offeredall 200 pages of its “The Yachts 2011″catalog in a digital format, free for anyone to view online.

While no statistics are available about the percentages of clients who still request printed brochures, anecdotal evidence suggests that the need is declining, and fast.

“I can’t remember the last time I sent a brochure to a client. Maybe three or four months ago,” says Fiona Maureso, head of charter at YPI Group. “Occasionally, we still come across people who like to have a printed brochure, but it’s in decline. It tends to have nothing to do with the boat, but instead with the client. Older clients who are not comfortable with the Internet tend to prefer the printed brochure. When brochures are being used nowadays, it’s oftenas a souvenir at the end of a charter. They’re used more for that than for actually selling the charter.” Lisa Peck, marketing director at YCO, agrees that printed brochures are becoming less necessary. However, she says demand typically has to do with the size of the yacht, not the demographics of the client. “With the larger yachts, there’s still great demand for paper brochures,” Peck says. “There’s still a luxury feel to receiving a highquality brochure in print, so for owners of yachts 50 meters and up, we recommend a printed brochure. For yachts less than 40 meters or 30 meters, we tell the owners it’s up to them. The paper brochure is still useful, and it’s nice, but there certainly are owners in that size range who are doing only electronic brochures without any problems.”

In some cases, yacht owners are replacing printed brochures with dedicated websites to promote their boats—and not necessarily because the website option is less expensive. One example in the larger size range is the 163foot Campanella Mary Jean. The sleek, interactive website www.yachtmaryjean.com was created to promote a 201113 circumnavigation with charter availability everywhere from the Tuamotus to the Maldives. A downloadable brochure was embedded along with an interactive map of the projected route and a video of the yacht (which is also available on YouTube). Links to the site were distributed via social media including the yacht’s feed on Twitter, which had already accumulated more than 120 followers afterless than a month online.

“I think the days of the printed brochure are long gone,” says Richard Orme of Large Yacht Solutions, which markets Mary Jean for charter. “Digital is the only way that we will be promoting Mary Jean. Our site went live about three weeks ago, and we already have more than six weeks of charter booked. We are still registered on myba.net, so we are reaching the industry through there, but the site itself is reaching clients directly. Most charterers are online. The only thing we’re missing without a printed brochure is that kind of coffeetablestyle exposure, where it’s sittingthere and people might pick it up, but for us, we believe the way to go is through the Web and tools like Twitter.”

That “coffeetable”exposure is still important to management companies, which is why YCO, YPI Group, and most other large companies continue to produce printed versions of their annual and seasonal marketing books. They do make the books available in digital formats, too, but neither Peck at YCO nor marketing director Mark Duncan at YPI Group see digitally formattd books replacing printed books the way that digital brochures have usurped their print predecessors.

“A printed book is something that people enjoy when they’re at home,” Duncan says. “They can leisurely enjoy it without opening a computer. In the years to come, with things like an iPad, that may change, but still, people today like the experience of casually going through a book.”

Duncan and Maureso said they still encourage yacht owners to get fantastic photography of their yachts, even if a printed brochure will not be made. Those photographs are more important than ever, they say, because they are now used everywhere from company books to iPad downloads to emails to FTP sites. And on websites like the one built to promote Mary Jean. Orme says the owner was instrumental in developing it, and that while the financialinvestment to create the site was real, it was significantlyless than a printed brochure would have been, even with photography costs included.

“Cost was a factor in not going the print route, but for us, it was secondary to the effectieness of the Web,” Orme says. “We want to go direct to the clients as much as possible. Printed brochures are great once you have an inquiry that comes in, but nine times out of ten, the charterer is always online. He’ll look on his Blackberry or his iPad.”

]]> http://www.charterindex.com/blog/2011/06/01/are-printed-brochures-obsolete/feed/ 4 http://www.charterindex.com/blog/2011/06/01/how-pagerank-affects-your-google-position/ http://www.charterindex.com/blog/2011/06/01/how-pagerank-affects-your-google-position/#comments Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:57:10 +0000 Charter Index http://www.charterindex.com/blog/?p=336

Everyone wants their website to be listed firstin Google search results. A key factor that influenes the order of those results is called PageRank, and it’s an important concept for anyone with a website to understand.

PageRank is named for Larry Page, one of Google’s co-founders. It is a complex algorithm that incorporates multiple layers of variable elements to help Google de-termine which web pages are bette, or more relevant to a search, than others. The web pages that earn the best PageRank end up at the top of Google search re-sults. Thus, you want your PageRank to be as high as possible for every page on your website. Google’s preferred variables are an industry secret, but they are widely believed to include a number of things that you can control. Experts in search engine optimization spend countless hours trying to discern the PageRank variables—which are always chang-ing—and generally recommend the following steps for anyone who wants to improve their website’s Page-Rank.

Build inbound links. Google itself acknowledges inbound links as a PageRank variable. Every web page that links to your web page is essentially casting a vote for your web page. If a web page that already has a high PageRank links to your web page, that’s ideal. In Google’s eyes, it’s like gettinga recommendation from The Queen as opposed to a plebeian. You can build inbound links in a number of ways, including by ex-changing text links or by purchasing advertising on websites that are already popular for the search terms that you are targeting.

Avoid link farms. Just as pages with high Page-Rank values can help you with Google, so can pages with low PageRank values hurt you. Some unscrupu-lous developers rely on clusters of websites known as “link farms.” These sites link back and forth to one an-other to try to build inbound links quickly, without the real value of reader eyeballs. Google’s algorithm is de-signed to identify and negate these link farms, which are essentially a form of spam aimed at search engines.

Choose smart keywords. Keywords are words and phrases that search engines use to determine what your web page is about. If you want to have a high PageRank for the keyword “yacht charter,” then you’d betterhave the phrase “yacht charter” in important lo-cations on your web page. For instance, a headline that reads, “Yacht charter is our specialty” is more likely to get Google’s attentionthan a headline that reads, “We have spent the past 50 years working in the luxury yachting industry.” That second headline may sound betterto the ear, but the firstheadline is far more important for Google Page-Rank of the term “yacht charter.”

Update content regularly. Google likes fresh con-tent. It’s just that simple. A website that goes for weeks or months without any updates is likely to receive a lower PageRank than a site that is updating daily. If you fail to update your website for months or years at a time, Google may even stop checking for new content on a regular basis, fur-ther hurting your PageRank. The best thing that you can do is update your site daily.

Have a lot of really good content. It’s not enough to get your web page onto the firstpage of Google search results. The ultimate goal is to have people actu-ally click on that Google search result, go to your web-site, and stay there. From Google’s perspective, people actually clicking a search result and then reading sev-eral pages on your website indicates that your content is valuable. And yes, Google can track not only how many peo-ple click to visit your site, but also how long they stay on your site. Having a single, good web page is not enough. Ideally, your site will grow over time to in-clude many good web pages that keep reader interest and, in turn, earn excellent PageRank.

Fraser Yachts Worldwide

As a charter broker in this industry for many years, I can attestto the fact that fam trips are definitelyworth it. That’s true whether the owner pays all of the broker’s expenses or the charter broker pays for some of the ex-penses.

You have the opportunity to experience what only paying guests get to experience—the quality of the yacht, the service of the crew, and the cuisine provided by the chef.  Doing regular inspections of yachts, which is standard procedure, educates the charter broker on the surface details and perhaps gives some insight into the captain and his crew, but not to the depth that a fam trip affords. 

I have had fam trips that have given me the knowl-edge I needed to book clients onto the yachts. It’s not only because of the up close and personal experience of being pampered in the manner of a paying guest, but also sometimes because I got to experience a cruising area that I had yet to visit.

In some cases, an owner might host a fam trip but say that the charter broker has to pay her own airfare to and from the yacht. If the broker then books a client onboard, the owner reimburses the airfare. Happily, I have always been reimbursed for my airfare, and I think that says it all about what fam trips make possible for everyone involved!

Central Agent: Nicole Caulfield,

RJC Yachts

Fam trips are well worth the time and expense, but make no mistake, planning these trips really does require a lot of time and expense.

The biggest fam trip that I ever helped to plan was this past winter. RJC Yachts worked with International Yacht Collection and Churchill Yacht Partners to edu-cate brokers from around the world about the Bahamas. The owners of fie yachts—the 147-foot Tuscan Sun, the 141-foot Big City, the 145-foot At Last, the 105-foot In-dependence 2, and the 97-foot Hooter Patrol IV—paid for food, fuel, and some dockage. Each of 34 retail charter brokers and managers paid to get themselves to and from those yachts, including transatlantic airfares from Europe. The Bahamas Tourism Bureau paid for all air-port transfers, and Atlantis Marina and Albany Marina each paid for two nights of dockage for each of the fie yachts.

So tens of thousands of dollars were spent, along with at least 40 or 50 planning hours by the charter man-agers alone, not to mention all the hours dedicated by each yacht’s captain and crew.

We won’t know the results for sure until bookings come in for this summer season, but just two weeks af-ter the trip, two of the Mediterranean brokers have al-ready secured bookings. These are brokers who never before would even pitch the Bahamas to their clients. Now, they are marketing the area from a strong position of personal knowledge.

Charter Captain: Will Keiser,

Four Aces - International Yacht Collection

I believe that fam trips are key to the success of any am-bitious charter yacht.

While I do agree that good advertising and trade shows are important, I also feel that it is essential to im-press those people who bring us our clients: the char-ter brokers. A fam trip gives them the chance to get to know our crew and yacht far betterthan they ever could during a boat show tour, and their feedback about our crew’s talents and/or shortcomings is necessary to help us stay on top of our game.

Charter brokers who come aboard for fam trips also help us by pointing out any areas on the yacht itself that may be improved upon. These are areas that they may not have a chance to fully appreciate during a short tour, but that they can truly understand afterspending a few days on the boat.

To me, a fam trip is a no-brainer as a form of ad-vertising. It is money well spent. I have seen the direct results from brokers who have been onboard for fam trips: new charters being booked.

the mid-2000s, Samuel Le Gall helped to get the fledgling Azimut Charter Club of the ground. The charter agency was a partner to industry powerhouse Fraser Yachts Worldwide, with the new group focusing on Azimut-built yachts in the 60- to 100-foot range. Le Gall and his colleagues created easy-to-sell, prepackaged experiences – the spa charter, the golf charter, that sort of thing – and calculated the engine hours needed to complete each itinerary. They then came up with all-inclusive pricing that would appeal to clients most likely to charter yachts in the Azimut size and price range, meaning primarily first-timers who were completely new to the yachting industry.

“We thought it would get a new market segment: travel agencies,” Le Gall recalls. “They may have qualifiedclients, but they don’t know how to sell yachts. To sell yachts side-by-side with cruise ships, when the agent presents the pricing, the yacht sounds like a scandal.”

The Azimut Charter Club did not survive, but the con-cept did. It’s now being tested in the form of Neo Yachting, a year-old company based in Nice, France, where Le Gall is a key player along with former Azimut Charter Club executive Nicolas Valin. Many of the yachts advertised through Neo are those same-size Azimuts, but today, they are marketed alongside Maioras, Palmer Johnsons, Ferrettis, Benettis, and more.

“On any yacht up to 100 feet, it can be done,” Le Gall says. “More important is that with that pricing structure, you have got the client onboard with the idea of charter. There are clients who start at 80 feet and the next year they book a 150. They just want to start slowly and reduce their risk until they understand how it works.”

Understanding how charter pricing works is one of the greatest obstacles that new clients face. They discover charter online, in a magazine, or in a promotional fler, where they see a yacht they like advertised at a weekly rate they can afford.They then call a charter broker, thinking they’re going to hear the kinds of things that are described by agents selling luxury villas and private islands – a base price, a price for extras, and a definitie bottomline. Instead, the charter broker speaks to them in an alphabet soup of APAs, VATs, and MYBA terms. They learn that the base rate is nothing more than an enticement price, like the midnight television ads that offer products for “only$9.99″ without mention of the $25 shipping and handling charge. By the time it’s explained that the crew gratuity alone can add 15 percent to any charter rate, many would-be clients bolt, thinking the broker is operating in a strange and shady way.

What those potential charterers fail to realize is that it’s not the broker. It’s the entire charter industry, trying to sell a vacation product in a way that no other travel segment does. “The price we give, the price we advertise, is not the price that the client pays,” Le Gall says. “It’s not that they don’t have the money. It’s that we are beginning the relationship with deception.”

If you ask around the industry, the standard belief is that charter pricing has evolved in tandem with the sales pitch that gets clients to book. “It’s your boat for the week.” “You can have anything you want.” “French champagne at 4 a.m. in the Exumas? Sure – we’ll helicopter it in.” These types of promises cannot possibly come with a set price, because nobody knows exactly what the client will end up wanting. The sales pitch itself makes a definitie pricing structure impossible.

And yet smaller yachts, like those in the Virgin Islands and the ones Neo Yachting is promoting in the Mediterranean, are regularly booked at all-inclusive rates. The broker explains to the client what he will get for his money, the yacht provides it, and everybody walks away from the charter experience smiling. The sales pitch is inherently differentfrom the start. The client’s expectations have been managed instead of amplified to the point of fantasy.

It’s hard to think of another product that is sold in the same way as luxury yacht charter. Not cruise ships, not private villas – not even custom – built homes, cars, or yachts themselves. When a buyer goes to Amels and says, “This is what I want on my fully custom 200-footer,” Amels provides a contract with a price before the client signs. There may be change orders that add to that price during the build process, but the client enters the financialrelationship with a realistic vision of the bottomline – a bottom line that is, for all intents and purposes at the start, an all-inclusive number.

So if the guy building the yacht can get a good idea of his final expenses, why is it so challenging for the guy chartering the yacht to enjoy the same benefit?

“I know charter brokers who are very good at getting close to a bottom line before a charter starts, even on the big boats,” says Leslie Adams, manager of the charter division at Feadship. “They’ve been at this a long time, they know how to communicate with the captain, the captain knows how to communicate with the client – everybody knows when things sound like they’re getting out of hand, and they won’t let the client’s budget get out of control. But it’s just not always possible. With a last-minute deal, it’s hard to get all of that up-front legwork done. Or you can have a captain who goes overboard despite the broker’s best efforts,or vice versa, and the client leaves the charter industry after just one experience.

Capt. Keith Moore of the 190-foot Abeking and Rasmussen Lady Sheridan says it is entirely possible to control costs on a large charter yacht. That’s not the same as offering allinclusive pricing, but it’s also not very far off “We really pride ourselves on looking afterthe client’s APA balance,” he says. “We try to buy direct instead of using agencies, which keeps costs down. And before a charter, myself, the chief stew, and the chef all try to speak with the client. That eliminates guesswork spending. We’re able to have everything they want as exactly as possible, to keep quality high and spending down. I feel there’s a lot of wasted money in this industry, and that can be avoided with extra crew effort. We take the time to do our due diligence. We don’t settle on the easy way out.”

That type of pre-planning is the same thing Le Gall says Neo Yachting is employing aboard smaller charter yachts, to create all-inclusive pricing in the firstplace. At the end of the day, a simpler pricing structure just seems to feel more natural to most clients. If they once bought a leather jacket and then later bought a fur coat, or if they once bought a Honda and then later a Bugatti,they didn’t have to pay differently. They just had to pay more. It’s not a question of how much the charters cost. It’s a question of how they are advertised, packaged, and sold.

“I recently heard a consultant from outside the yachting industry say that we should give 50 percent off the firstcharter to get people in the door,” Adams said. “He was looking at charter from a strictly business point of view, the way an outside investor would view it. At that same seminar, one of the interesting comments made was that other industries don’t get away with making the kinds of commissions that charter agents do. Look at real estate. Look even at the brokerage side of selling boats – those commissions are often negotiated down. People in the room who were involved in the yachting business, but not in charter, were making comments about charter commissions, too. It was shocking for me to hear, because it’s just the way things have been done for so long. It never occurred to me that hearing the commission percentage might prevent some people from booking, that they might see it as surprising or unusual.”

Growth in any industry depends on expanding the client base, and charter is no different. As Moore sees it, even if pricing structures don’t change, atttudes must.

“This industry looks at rich people with big, open pockets,” he says. “It’s unfair to the owners, and it’s unfair to the clients. They’re not cash cows. When the money outshines the fun, we’re all done.”

Publisher’s Opinion
Imagine checking into a luxury resort and being told that your room rate includes the staff’s wages, the staff’s meals, and the resort’s insurance. It sounds suspicious, doesn’t it? Of course one would expect such basics to be covered. And yet, this is exactly what charter clients are automatically advised as part of the standard terms. It’s obvious that some charterers want to stay put day after day while others want to move regularly. That means fuel. Some guests favor secluded bays while others want to be at marinas. That means dockage. Some drink the bar dry while others don’t drink at all. That means a liquor budget. We can all agree that charter operating costs will vary enormously depending on such factors, but the same is true for the costs incurred by luxury resorts that offer spa services, on-site dining, and water-sports equipment. Yet resorts are regularly offered at base rates that include many of the amenities, with additional, a la carte options priced separately. Why not settle on a similar, common approach for charter pricing across the globe? Such a pricing structure could always include accommodations plus three meals a day and use of the yacht’s equipment for one week for two adults – with everything else being extra. The “everything else” elements for each yacht could be separately listed on a standard industry menu (with ‘N/A’ or ‘Inc’ or the price, as appropriate) so retailers can see for themselves or be able to input their clients’ needs, leaving the search engines to do the work. What could be simpler?

Who the judges are, and who the winners are, continues to foment behind-the-scenes gossip year afteryear. Charter Index Editor Kim Kavin talks with first-time entrants, past winners, and one leading organizer about how chefs’ contests are organized and judged.

When a longtime charter fleetmanager talks about a particular chefs’ competition from the mid-2000s, he describes it with the clarity of a person remembering where he was the day two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center. ”

I was standing there at the awards ceremony, listening to the winners’ names being announced,” says the manager, who asked to remain anonymous. “Of course, I’m rooting for our chef, but then I watched the announcer open the envelope, and I felt that something very wrong had happened. As the announcer looked at the results, she smiled and said, ‘Ah, the winner is so-and-so, and I’d just like to personally thank the captain for the wonderful dinner and wine that I enjoyed onboard last night.’ She didn’t even take a breath in between. It appeared so obvious that the two things were connected.”

The manager’s attitude toward chefs’ contests is not exclusive to him alone. Countless captains, chefs, and charter yacht managers have complained in years past – sometimes loudly – that they believe chefs’ competitions on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean are laced with a black streak of politics. It’s frustrating, they say,that the same chefs seem to win year afteryear. It’s not even worth entering, they claim, if the judges have their favorites chosen before the food even goes onto the plates.

It is impossible to say whether such claims are the sour grapes of losing competitors or the scuttlbutt of an industry scandal. Only the judges know for sure, and by all appearances at recent boat shows from Newport to Genoa, the judges are acting honorably.

Even still, says Sarah Sebastian of the Antigua Charter Yacht Show, it’s understandable that longtime industry veterans might recall the days when certain yachts had an undue advantage.

“I took over the chef’s competition afterShowboats stopped doing it at the St. James Club, and only for the boats that were anchored there—and they happened to be all of the boats in the Bob Saxon charter fleet,”she says. “That was something like 13 years ago, but it was always Bob Saxon boats that placed number one, two, and three.”

Nowadays, yachts docked at all three Antigua venues are eligible to compete, and the contest itself is run on a rigorous, public schedule. Registration opens online at 9 a.m. each November 1, and by noon, the competitor slots for the December contest are usually full, Sebastian says. The composition of the judging panel changes from year to year, as does the requirement for what the chefs must prepare. The idea, Sebastian says, is to make it impossible for any previous competitors to have an advantage against new entrants. ”

We have had judges who know chefs in the industry,” Sebastian says. “But we also try to have one or two longtime charter yacht chefs as judges, because the competitors say they enjoy being judged by their peers. And we never ask retail brokers or charter managers to judge, because we don’t want any bias for a certain fleet to creep in.

To many chefs who enter the competitions, the playing fieldappears completely fair. The 2010 Antigua Concours de Chef, for instance, was the first industry contest ever entered by Chef Tarina Shadget of the 163-foot Christensen Casino Royale. She was not just new to the contest, but also relatively unknown in the charter industry, having worked as a photo lithographer until she was 30 years old and then, once on yachts, keeping mostly to herself in the galley.

After meeting with the judges and seeing the precision with which they tasted and examined her food, Shadgettwas nervous about her odds, but she felt that she had as good a chance as anyone at winning. ”

I usually avoid these contests, but I went in hoping that everybody is judged by the same rules,” she says. “I’m rather insular—I don’t know everybody in this industry—but that should not be a disadvantage in a competition.”

Chef Patrick Roney of the 132-foot Amels Monte Carlo felt the same way. Roney is the opposite of Shadgett,having won the 2009 chefs’ competition at the Newport Charter Show and having earned a reputation for excellence among many industry leaders during his time aboard the 115-foot Crescent Kapalua.

Even still, Roney appeared nervous in early December 2010 as he donned his chef’s jacket and made his way, alongside all the other competitors, toward the announcement of winners at the Admiral’s Inn at Nelson’s Dockyard. When people wished him good luck, he thanked them in a manner that indicated he thought he truly needed it.

As Shadgett,Roney, and all the other competitors waited with anticipation of this year’s Antigua contest results, Sebastian was flankedby the panel of judges. There was Chef Anne Carson of the sailing yacht Adele, Beverly Grant of MCI Yachts, Executive Chef Nigel Marten of Nonsuch Bay Resort in Antigua, Troy Bailey of Liat Quikpak Antigua, and two representatives of Boat International publications.

Sebastian read the results as the sun set over Nelson’s Dockyard, occasionally handing the microphone to the judges to reveal the winners’ names. In several instances, chefs’ names were mispronounced—an indication that the judges didn’t know the chefs they were judging at all.

When the evening came to a close, industry veteran Roney had earned a second-place nod in the category for yachts from 111 to 159 feet. The big winner of the season was Shadgettfrom Casino Royale. Her firstever entry nabbed the top prize in the megayacht division, which is the most prestigious of all.

She bounded up to the stage to accept her applause, her face beaming like a child’s with surprise. And while no other winning chef had been given a chance to speak into the microphone that night, Shadgettgrabbed it just long enough to tell the crowd, “This is for my crew.”

Her firstthought was far from thanking the judges, or even acknowledging them as a behind-the-scenes cohort might. Instead, her only words gave her crew mates their due for a job not only well done, but also well recognized in the eyes of the charter industry.