Sur La Mer

This Benetti was launched at Viareggio in 2011 and has carried several names since: Told U So, Moka, then Hom. Today she is Sur La Mer, and her 2024 refit kept what made her known: an interior by Molori Design that sets old furniture beside new, bespoke stonework beside made-to-measure joinery, with objects collected far and wide. Each of the five cabins has its own look, and the dining room is set with chairs that deliberately do not match.

That eclectic style is the reason to choose her, or to look elsewhere. Guests who like a yacht with a personality will find a piano and a fireplace in the salons, a wine cellar, and a sky lounge where a painting slides away to reveal a cinema screen. Anyone who wants calm, uniform minimalism should pick another Vision 145.

The owner's suite is the most private place on board. Placed forward on the main deck, it looks out over the bow and adds a study and a private screening room; the bathroom is split in two, and outside there is a sun terrace of its own where six people fit in the spa pool. One deck up, meals are taken in a room whose glass sides slide away, so dinner moves outdoors without changing table. If you want friends from shore to join you for drinks at anchor, up to sixty can come aboard.

In the water, diving is the strong suit. The yacht has run as a PADI training centre and carries a Brownie's Third Lung, a hookah system that lets guests with no certification breathe from the boat a few metres down. An 11.6-metre Boston Whaler serves as chase boat, with flyboards, a Seabob, jet skis and wakeboards for the rest of the day. A range of some 4,000 nautical miles at 12 knots gives her the legs to move between the Bahamas and the Caribbean as the season turns.

She fits a group of up to twelve, two or three families or a gathering of friends, that wants design with character, some diving and the odd evening with guests from shore.