{"id":55044,"date":"2018-09-15T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-15T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/?p=55044"},"modified":"2023-08-11T14:25:17","modified_gmt":"2023-08-11T18:25:17","slug":"live-your-westport-charter-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/live-your-westport-charter-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Your Westport Charter Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\"\" <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Live Your Westport Charter Dream<\/span>\n <\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

At first, he didn\u2019t want to share. The yachtsman had owned a 28-foot Chris-Craft as well as 64- and 95-foot Azimuts, but at boat shows, he always admired the Westports. He loved the speed and style of his own rides, but he craved more space, which he got with the impulse purchase of a Westport 40m at the 2014 Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show.\n\u201cWe said we were going to put her in charter,\u201d he recalls, \u201cbut once we got on her, I thought we wouldn\u2019t. Why would I want strangers on my boat?\u201d\nLike a lot of Westport owners, he softened after the first few years of ownership, and he found a near horde of clients clamoring to charter his yacht. Far Niente, during the first half of 2018, booked seven charters in six months. That\u2019s more business than many yachts get in a year \u2014 a level that has kept owners of Westport 112s and 130s flush with revenue for years, and a marketplace that the builder now hopes to tap into itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\"westport <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n (Clockwise from top left) Outdoor deck spaces aboard various Westport models can be configured with loose furniture when tenders and toys are in the water; Hospitality\u2019s extended swim platform; The Hospitality seaplane and tender; The sun-deck hot tub aboard the Westport 164 Hospitality, which is accepting inquiries for charter this winter in the Caribbean.<\/span>\n Westport; Charl Jordaan\/Moran Yacht & Ship<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

This past May, Westport announced the creation of a charter department run by Kim Vickery, a longtime broker who helped establish the HMY Yachts charter division. Westport aims to create an in-house fleet that would-be buyers can try, and that fans of the brand can charter for fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUp until this point, it really wasn\u2019t a big thing unless the potential owner spoke about charter or tried to justify the costs\u201d of ownership, says Ron Nugent, Westport\u2019s director of marketing. \u201cWe could tell him, \u2018Yes, you can charter and get X amount,\u2019 and we\u2019d put them with somebody we were comfortable with in the industry. But now, we have so many potential owners who want to charter, to try the boat out, that if Kim can put them on these boats, we have a way to try it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a broker with other firms, Vickery says, she has booked 20 or 30 weeks of charter aboard Westports, including placing the first-ever charter aboard a Westport 164. While nearly two dozen of the smaller Westport models are available for charter, only a handful of the 164s are advertised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\"westport <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Far Niente is available for charter this winter in the Bahamas and Caribbean. Her lowest weekly base rate is $125,000 for 10 guests.<\/span>\n Churchill Yacht Partners\/David Wright<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

The Westport 164 Hospitality, built in 2011, just joined that group, under the command of Capt. Gavin Hurd. He says the owner plans to offer Hospitality this winter in the Caribbean with a 42-foot Yellowfin tender, and that the yacht is an example of how, while Westports are series builds, each one is a little different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hospitality was built so her original owner could cruise the world. \u201cHer stabilizers are slightly oversized, and she runs with four. That makes her extremely stable,\u201d Hurd says. \u201cShe also can run at 15\u00bd knots for cruising. That\u2019s extremely comfortable. So many yachts out there are running at 11 or 12 knots. I can kick in a turbo and get to 24 knots. We don\u2019t run at that speed, but the old owner used to do 20, 21, and they went everywhere from Norway to China to Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The owner of Far Niente also sees his Westport 40m as having unique attributes for charter. Though he bought it after the yard had built it on spec, he added cushy seating around the sun-deck hot tub, a sitting and dining area at the Portuguese bridge, and beds that convert from twins to a king in one of the staterooms, allowing for charters with four couples instead of three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\"westport <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n The Westport 130 Far Niente has a custom-built Portuguese bridge with seating, a dining table and umbrellas for shade.<\/span>\n Churchill Yacht Partners\/David Wright<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

And it doesn\u2019t hurt that a lot of Far Niente\u2019s charter clients want the types of toys that his family enjoys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just bought the Seabobs a couple of months ago \u2014 boy are they a hit,\u201d he says. \u201cMy kids and I, we can\u2019t stay off of them. And we have these turbo kayaks that you pedal, and we got the Hobie Mirage, which is like a paddleboard elliptical. It\u2019s so much fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the name of the charter game \u2014 fun \u2014 and Westport is eager to introduce more people to it through its new division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been talking about this for the last three years,\u201d Nugent says. \u201cWe know it\u2019s going to be great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With so many Westport yachts having earned followings in the charter market, the builder is now opening a charter division of its own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Yachting Staff","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"20180915","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"156","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"With so many Westport yachts having earned followings in the charter market, the builder is now opening a charter division of its own.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"Live Your Westport Charter Dream %%sep%% %%sitename%%","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"7FYGIBVNSFCNRI4QSZGSFMT5SI","arc_website_url":"live-your-westport-charter-dream\/","custom_permalink":"live-your-westport-charter-dream\/","arc_subtype":"no-sidebar","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":false,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":"","sponsored_url":"","social_share":true,"ad_targeting":"","ad_settings_ads_on_this_page":true,"ad_settings_automatic_ad_injection_into_the_content":true},"categories":[156],"tags":[376,191,218,173,214,248],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55044"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}