FEBRUARY 2010

Dear Charter World,

2010 is already marked as our family's year of chartering. Lynn has a big birthday this year and after battling illness for most of last year we have booked a canal cruise in Burgundy and bareboat in Croatia in September. I am also taking a few mates to New Caledonia in May on our rescheduled trip.

Jack made the World's team at the Australian Optimist Titles and will compete with four other Australians against 55 nations (also sending their best five sailors) in Langkawi, Malaysia in December, so a bareboat would be a useful spectator vessel. At least we are chartering by example!

European airfares under $2000pp and a favourable exchange rate are also enticing a record number of Australians to sail in the Mediterranean.

Hope we can see you there!

CHARTERER IN FOCUS

Paul & Myra Hyne and Bryan & Sheila Randall have been frequent clients over the past two decades, and in recent years have continued to return to their favourite (and mine) cruising area of Turkey.

Paul has enjoyed it so much he would like to return in the future perhaps as a skipper of his own yacht and is in the middle of obtaining his Yacht Masters which required a considerable amount of studying and time afloat.

Over the years this group has gravitated towards catamarans for their charters preferring the space and comfort offered by such large platforms. Like the Hynes & Randalls I also prefer the cats in tidal areas although in the Mediterranean the reason to take a cat are I believe less compelling. Given you are attached to shore in most anchorages and eating ashore, monohulls more than suffice.

This group is again lining up for another Turkey catamaran charter in 2010 on a different route to Bodrum.

HEAD WEST TO THE BALEARICS

Our charterers who have returned to the Mediterranean in the last 15 years usually start in the east - Turkey, Greece, Croatia, then move to Italy and France, and often the Med's western end in Spain.

Although there are chartering appeals on the Spanish coast itself, most head to the Balearic Islands which lie in roughly equal distances from the east coast of Spain, south of France, west of Sardinia and north of Algeria.

The main islands include Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera running in a chain over approximately one hundred
and fifty miles. All of these islands are heavily indented and offer numerous protected anchorages.

Unfortunately the Balearics have the tag of packaged tourism with associated overdevelopment in the major cities, not unlike Bodrum or Rhodes, but outside these towns the real and traditional Spanish experience is easily found.

Friendly, helpful, kind, honest, inquisitive and excitable are all terms that are most used to describe the unaffected Spanish. They have very little sense of time or urgency and manana (tomorrow) will be the answer to anything but the easiest of questions.

The local fare, including wines, is of good quality and not surprisingly seafood is a specialty.

Flights into Majorca are available for most European capitals with budget carriers offering cheap flights.

A wide range of bareboats both monohulls (up to Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 54 Deck Saloon) and multihulls are available.

Please contact our office for further details including charts, weather details and suggested sailing itineraries.

ROBERTSON CAINE NEW RELEASE FROM CHINA - VOTED BOAT OF THE YEAR!

South African catamaran builder Robertson and Caine have released the new 384 catamaran. Morrell and Melvin (designers of high performance cats such as Playstation and Cheyenne) have created a functional platform with two doubles, a single and head in each hull.

Powerboat style open transom and 30hp twin engines will also appeal to a wide range of charterers. This 38' galley up cat is as spacious as any up to 40' with a clever and functional design. Interestingly the boat is produced in China - apparently the main reason is to reduce shipping costs as freighting catamarans by ship is a very expensive exercise.

Our clients generally enjoy the Robertson Caines and comment on the user friendly thoughtful design however the finish and feel have generally been lower than the French competitors. The brochure claims an edgy European styling (from South African designer and built in China).

Eleven are set to arrive in Thailand/Malaysia over 2011 with most charter destinations including the Whitsundays and Tonga currently receiving deliveries.

My research would indicate that they will be a great value and well designed catamaran. It will be interesting to see the final product and finish, and of course how they perform under sail.

CHARTER GEAR & NEWS

This seasons offerings include more vessels with generator, air conditioning and fresh water makers, as well as bow thrusters and electric halyard and primary winches. Traditionally these extras have been only offered on 50' plus vessels; however they are creeping down into the 40's.

There is no doubt that charterers are getting more discerning, and I notice that the better equipped vessels are always the first to book on operators booking sheets.

Teak decks are also now more available as owners want them in the end, and they are much nicer to walk down.

Our experience is that no two yachts are the same. When we compare vessels on your behalf we will highlight these types of extras and inclusions which can be the difference between two seemingly identical yachts.

Please call us for a full inventory list of all vessels.

IN THE WAKE OF ULYSSES by JEFF WALL

The Ionian - A Charterers Experience Seventeen years had passed since my last cruise around the Ionian Islands in the Bombay Grab, a 45' Taiwanese built ketch owned by a great mate named George Middleton, and 30 years,
and some, from the halcyon days of youth and three years afloat in the Mediterranean on our fondly remembered iroquios catamaran Pyewacket.

We had purchased Pyewacket from Patrick Wentworth Boyd; our worthy mentor who ran the brokerage arm of the yacht agency Camper and Nicholson in the UK. Patrick actually owned the vessel and fitter her out. At is suggestion we three novice sailors left the Isle of Wight and traversed France, firstly through the Brittany Canals from St Malo to Lorient thereby avoiding the difficult passage around the Ushant and then down the Biscay coast entering the Gironde Estuary at Royan. From there it was an exhilarating sail on the flood tide to Bordeaux and through the many locks of the Canal du Midi to Sete. If my memory serves me correctly it was there, in this small basin that I recall Alain Colais berthing his huge spidery trimaran single handedly, under sail, in a very stiff breeze.

The Balaerics, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and Italy followed and then across the Tyrreanean Sea to Corfu on the western coast of Greece. We returned to Gouvia Bay in Corfu at the end of that summer after some months in the Aegean Sea and the islands of the Dodecanese, Cyclades and Saronic Gulf. Leaving Pyewacket afloat the impercunious crew returned to London to work and to replenish the cruising kitty. At that time the concrete quays were in place but only a few itinerant yachties and local caiques sheltered there. Taki's and George's tavernas, a baker and small grocery store serviced what was then the isolated village of Kondokali.

So to the present.... read more

Good chartering!
Brook Felsenthal
and the Charter World Team