In this issue, we profile Ocean Emerald, a Norman Foster designed 41m superyacht whose luxury charters most companies can only wish to emulate. We also examine Euro Design Furniture, the interior design and furniture company, whose own standard of excellence allowed it to complete an interior refit of the boat in 2019.

Ocean Emerald was built in 2010, and owner Nigel Plaskett brought her to Thailand in 2013 in a container, shipping her through the Suez Canal to Singapore. Nigel was drawn to Thailand for the climate, people and a more relaxed way of life, and probably subconsciously because of the longer seasons, tremendous marine life and stunning topog-raphy.

Nigel has had boats all his life, but when he first arrived to live in Thailand he was without a vessel, then he chartered a boat for a day, caught the bug again, and realized there was a market for 5-star luxury charters with properly trained and qualified crew.

And the Ocean Emerald staff is very well-trained. Unlike in the Med, once you leave shore Phuket or Pattaya there are very few marinas around. So they are basically alone at sea for a week to ten day’s charter, with very little back-up, so they take the majority of their provisions with them, and must be ready to deal with any scenario that may arise.

Nigel’s 10-person staff is split between the technical and service side; the technical staff consists of a captain, two engineers (one electrical, one me-chanical) and two boat boys, The service side include a male and female chef and three hostesses all coming from the high-end of the hotel industry.

Because of COVID-19, rich Thais are now starting to explore their own country and spend some of the money that they would be spending else-where here. But they still seemed fixed on the Phuket region, not really aware of the wonders that aware them into the Koh Chang archipel-ago. As Nigel owns a home in the Pattaya area, he is hoping that will change but for the here and now realizes that most of his charters will be Phuket-based.

Guests are given a questionnaire before boarding as to what their food and drink prefer-ences are. But Nigel only charges people for the charter and the crew, guests are just given a bill, at the end of the voyage for the food and drink they ordered, no mark up.