Great expectations: Superyacht owners and guests

On today’s luxurious superyachts are some of the world’s richest personnel. With money no object, expectations on quality, customer service and speed are high for suppliers.

But just what are the expectations of owners and guests? Yachting Pages spoke to some of the world’s leading provisioning companies to find out the inside story on what weird and wonderful requests they get asked.

David from Spirit Services, a provisioning company based in France, explained how they were able to contact a factory owner to source specialist bottles of rum that were no longer available on the market. He said, “The latest unusual request I dealt with was to source an exclusive old rum with very limited production per vintage that was no longer commercialised in the market; I had to get in touch with the owner of the rum factory and convince him to bottle 24 decanters of a specific vintage to please my client.”

David from Ibiza Delivers, a provisioning company in Spain explained how they had to deal with a late request. He commented, “Being an island in the Mediterranean, logistics and transport are often a challenge for us due to the fast turnaround times involved. We were servicing a 65m fast, displacement yacht, which had some US Hip Hop celebrities coming on board for a charter. We received the provisions order late on a Friday night and the clients were arriving on Monday morning.

“They had ordered lots of American products, bagels, turkey, ham, American sliced cheese, none of which could be sourced in Ibiza and seeing as it was the weekend it would be particularly difficult to get our hands on it. However, using our extended network on the island, we were able to identify a client of ours who was returning to Ibiza [from the UK] on their private jet. Our colleague in London sourced the products and delivered them to [our contact at] Farnborough airfield and all were delivered on time to the client on Monday morning.”

Joost van Gorsel from Neko Yacht Supply said, “We had an experience with a past customer that required over six pallets of fresh fish, meat, vegetables and fruit from Holland to be delivered to their 110m motor yacht in Salalah, Dhofar, at very short notice.

“After flying from Amsterdam to London, from London to Doha and from Doha to Muscat, we then had to arrange for the provisions to travel 1000km to the yacht by road in temperatures of 35˚C+, we did it, of course.”

Superyachts are a second home for many owners, somewhere to relax and enjoy all the comforts they’re accustomed to, so expectations on suppliers, especially for their favourite foods and drinks are high.

For more unique stories and information on superyacht provisioning, visit https://www.yachting-pages.com/content/provisioning-tips.html.