Katharine

Katharine left the CRN yard in Ancona in 2000 as New Sunrise, with lines by Studio Scanu and an interior by Zuretti. She is a yacht of the old gentleman's school, with a canoe stern and a great deal of polished wood, and she makes no effort to pass for something newer. That is much of her charm.

The detail that matters most to a charter party is where everyone sleeps. All six guest cabins sit side by side on the main deck, each with big windows, instead of being split between the owner's level and a lower deck. No couple ends up with the cabin below the waterline, which takes the awkwardness out of sharing rooms among friends. The owner's suite spans the full width of the bow and adds a window seat, a separate study, and two bathrooms with two dressing rooms.

The living spaces follow the same tradition. Upstairs is the main gathering room: roughly 80 square metres, cherry on the walls and a fire to sit beside. Meals get a room of their own on that level, set apart from the lounge, with a baby grand that plays itself and glass doors opening straight onto the stern. Higher still, cushions line three sides of a big Jacuzzi finished in mosaic tiles.

For days on the water, a 12-metre Intrepid runs alongside as a chase boat for longer trips to the beach, and the yacht is an approved RYA centre for personal watercraft, so newcomers can be taught properly before taking a jet ski out. Her fuel capacity gives a range of roughly 5,500 nautical miles, which is what lets her divide the year between the Mediterranean and the Caribbean.

She fits three to six couples, or parents with grown-up children, who look forward to evenings around a proper table more than to a party on deck. If your taste runs to pale timber, minimal furniture and walls of glass, she will feel heavy; and a group in a hurry to hop between islands may find her 12-knot pace a little slow.