Affluent Page - Index

Affluent Page - affluentpage - Index

the insider
Such is the case with Sherakhan, which originally
launched in 1965 as a Dutch training vessel. She wasn’t
much to look at by the time her current owner, Jan
Verkerk, bought her in 2002 following success as owneroperator
of the 124-foot charter motoryacht Jaguar, but the
Dutch entrepreneur saw a hole in the worldwide charter
market for larger vessels that could accommodate more
than the typical 12 charter guests without losing the service
standards and personalized feel of proper yachting.
“We stripped her down to the bare metal,” he says,
showing off a photo of the ship with her steel ribs exposed.
Some three years later, in 2005, Sherakhan emerged
as a gorgeous charter yacht able to take 26 guests—one
of the few available today in this charter class—equipped
with the latest state-of-the-art systems and complying with
SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) regulations. “It’s the highest
standard you can have when you talk about safety,”
Verkerk says, adding that achieving it is an Everest-like
challenge in a vessel of Sherakhan’s age. “It’s easier to build
a new boat than to [re]build an old one.”
What’s interesting about the way Verkerk chose to rebuild
Sherakhan is that her interior is as strikingly contemporary
as the yacht’s exterior is traditional. When I first
stepped on board, as with all guests, I was welcomed into
the main salon and adjoining dining area. At its heart is a
long table crafted of white ash, Wengé, and teak wood,
large enough to hold all of the yacht’s guests at a single
sitting. On either side of this table, curved stainless-steel
staircases sweep to a balcony that wraps around the atrium.
And in the ceiling, above dangling, round, white light fixtures,
is the opaque glass bottom of an 18-person hot tub
on the sundeck above.
As huge as this space is for a yacht of any size, Verkerk
cleverly arranged it to include small gathering places
around its edges, including a TV area, a romantic fireplace
nook, a music space complete with a baby grand piano
40 AFFLUENT PAGE LUXURY INDEX MARCH/APRIL 2009