At first, the owner thought he and his family would use the 112-foot Hannah without making any changes. Then, his wife looked at it.
“The original idea was just to change a few things inside, but you start one thing, and you say, ‘Why don’t you do the next one?’” he says. “We kept going and going and going.”
After buying the Westport yacht in early 2020, the owner brought in Destry Darr Designs for the refit. She ended up orchestrating a total overhaul, finishing the project at the end of 2020. The yacht’s post-refit maiden cruise with the family was during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays that winter, then Westport Yachts began offering Hannah for charter.
By the end of 2021, the yacht had done 12 weeks, with clients continuing to line up for more.
“The styling of the yacht, the look—it’s just beautiful,” says Kim Vickery, who manages Hannah’s charter program at Westport Yachts. “Clients are very drawn to it. It’s modern with open spaces. You send them the photos, and they say, ‘OK, I want that one.’”
The parts of the interior refit that charter guests can see in those photos include the flooring, headliner, woodwork, paint, galley countertops, appliances, upholstery and guest-stateroom layouts. “We had twin berths in the VIP that the [previous] owner originally used for bodyguards,” the owner says. “We destroyed all that and made a new VIP with a queen bed. It had two bathrooms; we made one of them a closet.”
He and his wife weren’t even close to being done after that.
“Then in the master bathroom, it had a column in the middle,” he says. “We removed that and did a brand-new shower with new marble, new showerhead and so forth. We have new marble sinks and whatnot. New toilets. New flooring.”
The owner also invested in an engine-room refit because, he says, what was there “was not very appealing. We had the engines painted, we had a full service done on the engines—that wasn’t needed, but we figured we might as well do it. We put in new risers, lights in the engine room because it didn’t have any.”
And he gave Hannah a fresh paint job. “Bottom to top, the whole thing,” he says. “We did some silver paint on top to give it some contrast.”
Additional investments included new electronics at the helm, new wiring and low-voltage lighting, and additions to the toy chest.
“I got a second Jet Ski because we only had one,” the owner says. “We got rid of the 14-foot tender and got a 35-foot Whaler as the tender.”
The decor was selected in large part because it’s what the owner likes. “What I did originally was take Destry to my home,” he explains. “I said, ‘This is the way I live. This is what I would like to see on my boat.’ And that’s exactly what she duplicated.”
Except, Darr says, all the materials for the boat’s refit were chosen with charter in mind. The yacht had to be ready for bookings to begin the minute Hannah relaunched.
“The wife was very nervous about how it would hold up for charter, especially if the boat was heavily chartered, but it’s holding up phenomenally well,” Darr said in early 2022. “We thought about the stone, the wall materials, the paints that we used—we used so many different materials, from papers to fabrics to quartz stone and vinyls. We used a lot of outdoor materials, veneers, different kinds of paints. It all added to the interest of the design.”
Darr says one of her favorite spaces on the yacht post-refit is the lower foyer.
“It’s a custom-made tile and a custom-made wall covering,” she says. “They have silver studs in them. It was something that the owner loved when he saw the wall covering, and we wanted to play one off the other, so we came up with this custom tile that we designed.”
The owner says he could not be happier. He ended up with what he says is “basically a brand-new boat,” and he got it for less than half of what he would have to pay to order the same yacht new from the shipyard.
Darr says the owner had a palpable level of excitement all throughout the refit project too.
“I rave about him all the time,” she says. “It makes all the difference in the world to have a wonderful client, somebody who really has a great eye for design and knows what they like. He loved the project. He was there all the time. If it wasn’t for COVID shutting things down, he would’ve been there even more. It was nice that he wasn’t micromanaging—he just loved to see what was going on.”
Today, the owner also feels more comfortable as a first-time charter-yacht owner.
“I have a very good captain and crew who make sure that it’s maintained in pristine condition,” he says. “One of the concerns I had was that you charter and people destroy what you have, but the crew is very keen on making sure the boat is taken care of. When I get on the boat, it looks like the first day that I got on it.”
Details, Details
Westport Yachts manages Hannah for charter. Accommodations are for eight guests in four staterooms, including a master with a California king berth on centerline. There are five crewmembers on board. Cruising speed is 18 knots for exploring Florida and the Bahamas. The lowest weekly base rate is $60,000.
Waiting for the Right Opportunity
Hannah’s owner says he waited 10 years for a Westport to pop up in his price range. “This one came up, and I bought it in two seconds,” he says. “There was a bidder who had done a survey and all that and then negotiated more with the owner, and the owner said, ‘No more.’ I was the underbidder, and I got it.”
Take the next step: westportyachts.com
