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Antigua Yacht Meeting: The World's Charter Showcase
As the yachting calendar goes, the past few months have taken us around the world in Yacht Shows. But from the dust settling over MYS to the bustle of FLIBS, there’s nothing quite like the Antigua Charter Yacht Show. With a certain Caribbean edge, the world’s biggest annual charter show gave us sun, sea and probably the most exciting showcase of yachts available on the charter market today.
Boasting the luscious green backdrop of Antigua’s national parks, both English Harbour and Falmouth Harbour join together each year to provide a platform for brokers to not only exhibit but also visit a wide range of yachts on the charter market.
From sailing giants such as Hemisphere to the recently refitted Nero, we spent the week hopping from yacht to yacht and taking in the best of Caribbean charter.
While each and every participant rolled out their red carpet; Flag's tropically-dressed crew hosted a dock-side barbeque, Lucky Lady, a 7-Course Broker Lunch, and Trending, the party of the week, we spoke to the show Chariman, Paul Deeth, about the history of the meeting, “In 1961 was the first ever Antigua Charter Yacht Show, and ever since then it’s been our 56th year and we’ve had a charter show ever December since then!”
Touching on the success of this year’s show, he made light of the fewer yachts in attendance by addressing that sometimes less is more; especially where intimacy is involved. Paul continued, “We had slightly less yachts this year; 65 yachts… but it’s worked out very well because we had over 300 charter brokers and the feedback has been really positive, the yachts really felt like they’d seen a lot of brokers and the brokers felt they seen all the yachts.”
Further where quality was high, it was safe to say brokers were also happy with the standard, despite the small drop in numbers which Paul put down to the tragic events of Hurricane Irma.
Nevertheless, Antigua still boasts an unrivalled location for this show, with its Caribbean situation and natural harbours’ reigning supreme. This alone keeps exhibitors bringing the best of charter back year on year. Listing the island’s hosting skills Paul expands, “You’ve got Falmouth and English Harbour and you really can’t beat them as far as natural harbours to tie up in.”
He develops, “Also, the location of Antigua is in the center of the Caribbean, and traditionally yachts could base here and if they had a charter in the north or the south it wasn’t far to go. So it’s hard to beat!”
So with the 56th successful show up Antigua’s sleeve, we look forward to bringing you content from across the week and hearing reports of the show’s charter successes in the New Year.
"“We had slightly less yachts this year 65 yachts… but it’s worked out very well because we had over 300 charter brokers and the feedback has been really positive, the yachts really felt like they’d seen a lot of brokers and the brokers felt they seen all the yachts.”"