{"id":43045,"date":"2021-08-16T19:37:55","date_gmt":"2021-08-16T23:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/?p=43045"},"modified":"2023-05-06T17:33:40","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T21:33:40","slug":"the-charter-sailing-industry-in-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/story\/charter\/the-charter-sailing-industry-in-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"The Charter Sailing Industry in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Catamaran\" <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Not all the charter news was dreadful. Out west, West Coast Multihulls had an absolutely banner year.<\/span>\n Courtesy of West Coast Multihulls<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

Charlie Cary knew from the first moment he laid eyes on the pristine waters of Sir Francis Drake Channel\u2014the storied strait coursing through the celebrated, sun-splashed isles that constitute the sailor\u2019s paradise known as the British Virgin Islands\u2014that he\u2019d arrived somewhere very special. It was 1969, Cary had recently retired after several decades as a successful corporate executive, and with his wife, Ginny, he\u2019d traveled to the BVI<\/a> with a rather vague notion of converting his longtime love of sailing into a solid business opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

He was smitten, enthralled, gobsmacked by the sheer \u00adbeauty of the Sir Francis Drake and the lush islets that dotted its flanks, and also by the astonishing fact that there was little boat traffic, that these were \u201cvirgin\u201d islands in more ways than one. The countless protected anchorages were practically empty. There was literally nobody else around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

And then\u2026Charlie and Ginny hung out a shingle for their new enterprise: a bareboat charter outfit called the Moorings, the first of what would become dozens of similar operations, all of which over the next five decades transformed the formerly sleepy British Virgins (and the rest of the Caribbean) into a bustling nautical wonderland, one of the most revered chartering and cruising destinations in the entire world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Then, in March 2020, in what would usually be one of the busiest months in the crazy high season, the pandemic struck. Basically, and almost instantly, from a traffic and tourist standpoint, the BVI\u2014and the rest of the mostly lock-downed planet, for that matter\u2014reverted to what Cary saw when he initially gazed upon it. Not a sail in sight. A place stopped in its tracks. Indefinitely on hold. The Moorings\u2014and every other charter company in the worldwide network of the vast vacation-sailing industry that had, collectively, more or less adopted its original business model\u2014had come to a complete, utter, screeching halt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Which leaves us with an open-ended question, with few simple answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

And then what happened?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The Outset<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n

Symbolically, you could make a case that the BVI represents ground zero in the realm of the chartering universe, the epicenter from which the destructive shock waves of the coronavirus reverberated worldwide. The cold, hard statistics\u2014as gleaned from an annual survey on the state of the chartering, boatbuilding and yacht-brokerage industries conducted by the publishers of this magazine and presented during a Sail America virtual event sponsored by the American Sailing Association<\/a>\u2014bear it out. Please divert the attention of the young or the frail because these numbers ain\u2019t pretty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Tropics\" <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Navigare Yachting charters some 350 boats in a dozen global destinations, including several bases in the tropics. The company suffered through a rather dismal 2020, but bookings for the upcoming season \u201care through the roof.\u201d<\/span>\n Courtesy Navigare Yachting<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

The results cover a span of 12 months, from September 2019 to August 2020: six months pre-COVID-19 and six months during the pandemic. Forty-four active bareboat charter companies were contacted and 92 percent of them participated, including all the market leaders. The news is grim right from the outset: Eighteen companies were shuttered, their voyage of commerce done and dusted forevermore. Digging deeper, several bullet points from the \u201cKey 2020 Charter Market Findings\u201d tell the sad, sorry tale to a fuller extent:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Bareboat chartering is decimated by COVID-19, down 59 percent from 37,022 charter weeks to 15,256 weeks (for sail and power trips) during the period September 2019 through August 2020.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Sail bareboat charter weeks booked out of the North American source market in 2020 are down 57 percent from 31,971 weeks to 13,879 weeks. Powerboat charters fare worse, losing 73 percent from 5,051 weeks down to 1,377 weeks.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Estimated basic bareboat fees in 2020 came in at just over $68 million, almost $100 million less than last year due to a 59 percent drop in business.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Mercy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Of course, stats are one thing, but to truly comprehend the figures, one needs to speak to the actual people in the trenches who not only crunched the numbers, but also got crunched by them. In a series of interviews conducted with many of the leading charter-industry players, my opening question was a simple one: Do the numbers above, a devastating overall drop in business between 55 and 60 percent across the board, reflect what happened at your company?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said Jesper R\u00f6nngard, owner of Navigare Yachting, a 20-year-old enterprise with some 350 yachts in a dozen destinations stationed around the planet. \u201cWe might have been worse. We sold only 36 percent of what we were forecast to sell in 2020. When the pandemic hit, everything just stopped. Dead. No sales, nothing, nowhere. All destinations closed. With our staff, we had to cut down, lay off, furlough, whatever. These were my personal friends after all these years. The past 15 months have been an emotional roller coaster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said Erin Minner, charter manager for the Americas (and Caribbean) for Dream Yacht Charters, another industry juggernaut with more than three-dozen bases around the world. \u201cWe did the Miami Boat Show (in February 2020), and everything was OK, it seemed. A few weeks later, the world stopped. By the end of March, I\u2019d let go half my sales team. We weren\u2019t closing bases but shutting them down temporarily left and right. At the beginning, it was kind of like reliving Hurricane Irma (in 2017, which ravaged the Caribbean) with all the cancellations and rebookings, but on a global scale. It was pretty traumatic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said Josie Tucci, vice president of sales and marketing for Travelopia, parent company of charter giants Sunsail and the Moorings. When I spoke to her in early June, she\u2019d just returned to the office for the first time in more than a year, one of only a half-dozen Travelopia staffers (out of the usual 90 or thereabouts) back on the job in the firm\u2019s Florida headquarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a stop\/start continuation of reopenings at most of our bases that constantly changed last year, and still is changing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"US <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n The US Virgin Islands was the lone destination in the Caribbean that did plenty of business during the pandemic.<\/span>\n Courtesy Dream Yacht Charters<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

\u201cReopenings\u201d is the current, magic word of hope and \u00adoptimism, the welcome light at the end of the pandemic tunnel that has begun in much of the charter world\u2014and everywhere else\u2014to varying degrees. It\u2019s possible, of course, because the virus is waning; US travelers aren\u2019t allowed to travel everywhere (Canada, New Zealand and Australia leap immediately to mind), but at press time in early summer, Americans were allowed to venture forth internationally to nations that were open as long as they presented a negative COVID-19 test administered within 72 hours of returning home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

However, as Tucci notes when discussing Travelopia bases reopening in the Mediterranean, \u201cmany Americans could come here but aren\u2019t quite ready for that yet.\u201d There are other reasons some popular European bases are opening back up in fits and starts. \u201cFor example,\u201d she said, \u201cwith regard to our Med bases, British citizens can\u2019t travel to anywhere that isn\u2019t on their country\u2019s \u2018green list\u2019 of acceptable countries without risking quarantine and other things.\u201d The Brits make up an ample portion of Travelopia\u2019s customer base in the Med, which is one reason the Moorings and Sunsail aren\u2019t feeling completely out of the woods. Another, related reason is that Travelopia\u2019s fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30, so 2021, financially, is looking like another wash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Elsewhere, along with the antipodal nations of Oz and New Zealand, which have in effect closed ranks (and borders) and \u00adswaddled their citizens in a protected blanket free from \u00adtourists and visitors, several charter destinations in the southern Caribbean remain closed or with stringent quarantine restrictions, including St. Lucia, Grenada and St. Vincent, the latter of which has suffered through what has essentially been a triple whammy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Regarding their base in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Horizon Yacht Charter\u2019s director, Andrew Thompson, made note of the series of eruptions of La Soufri\u00e8re, St. Vincent\u2019s active volcano, in April of this year. \u201cThe Soufri\u00e8re situation has been incredibly sad,\u201d he said, while questioning whether the Horizon base in St. Vincent and the Grenadines will be able to open and be back on track by this November. \u201cYou\u2019re hit by Irma (in 2017), then you\u2019re doused with COVID, then you have a volcano eruption that covers your fleet in ash. It\u2019s just been a nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, incredibly, perhaps in a parallel universe, the pandemic was sparking contrasting and prosperous activity in a distinctly specific segment of the chartering world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The Anomalies<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n

At first glance, Barb Hansen, longtime owner and proprietor of Southwest Florida Yachts in Cape Coral, Florida, and Kurt Jerman, president of West Coast Multihulls in San Diego, seem an unlikely pair. Hansen\u2019s a no-nonsense Florida gal, whose company offers a mix of catamarans for charter but also has a strong fleet of trawlers and monohulls. Jerman\u2019s a Cali dude, who was, is and ever shall be singularly devoted to what he believes are the best, coolest boats on the planet: cruising cats. But both of them share similarities, including business models that offer plenty of instruction and classes in addition to your basic bareboat and crewed chartering, and each also has a yacht-brokerage arm on the side. (Everybody contacted for this article who also sells boats agreed that that side of their businesses went absolutely bonkers over the previous 16 months, which is really the subject of an entirely different story.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Sawicz <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n The Sawicz clan from Chicago are regular visitors to the BVI, and returned last spring.<\/span>\n Rich sawicz<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

For the purposes of this discussion, however, here\u2019s the thread that links Hansen and Jerman: In 2020, despite the pandemic\u2014or, to be completely honest, because of it\u2014both of them enjoyed one of the wildest, craziest, busiest years in their respective firm\u2019s long history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

California was basically closed for the first two months of COVID. \u201cBut,\u201d Jerman said, \u201conce things opened up in June, we ended up having the best year we\u2019ve had in the 11 years since I opened the school and the charter business. It was phenomenal. By the end of the year, we\u2019d exceeded what we\u2019d done the year before. And that was being shut down for two months! It was amazing. About midway through, I was starting to feel guilty. So many people were suffering. But the same thing happened with the biking industry and the RV industry. Businesses that let people do stuff out of doors just thrived through this period. I feel incredibly blessed by the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

On the opposite coast, restrictions in Florida weren\u2019t quite as stringent as in California, but April and May 2020 were still quiet. The economy of scale, obviously, is far different for a local charter outfit than a global conglomerate. But business is business, and what the stateside companies were experiencing was something new and unexpected. \u201cAbout June time, it really, really picked up,\u201d Hansen said, describing a mirror image of what Jerman was experiencing out west. \u201cEverybody was calling and saying: \u2018We were going to do this or that, we had vacation plans, but they got canceled. What do you have available?\u2019 So, we ended up with a really busy summer, fall and winter. It was crazy. Good crazy. But crazy. And I think a lot of that is folding over into this year and next, from what I can see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

What the two companies shared was a domestic destination that people could reach by loading up the family vehicle and driving there. The same phenomenon was underway from sea to shining sea, with charter outfits in the Great Lakes and the Pacific Northwest also reporting \u00adbang-up years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Dream\u2019s Erin Minner, based in Annapolis, Maryland, said: \u201cWe had people coming here last year in RVs\u2014driving across the country!\u2014then taking a boat out for 10 days. It\u2019s nuts. In 2019, we had a handful of bookings in Annapolis, maybe 10 a month. Now we\u2019re taking upwards of 30.\u201d In addition to Annapolis, Dream also reopened bases last summer in Newport, Rhode Island, and Lake Champlain, Vermont, and later in the year in Key West, Florida. And how was business in those locations, I asked. \u201cBooming,\u201d Minner said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

But it wasn\u2019t just the US mainland that was off the charts. So too was the US Virgin Islands, which never experienced the major lockdown and restrictions of its neighbor, the BVI, and which was a relatively easy, open place to reach for US citizens. Dream reopened its St. Thomas base in early October and, Minner said, \u201cit exploded. Like nothing we\u2019d ever seen. We went from starting with six boats, and within a few months, we had 90 there.\u201d Dream flooded the territory\u2019s zone by importing yachts from bases such as Martinique and Guadeloupe\u2014French holdings that were greatly affected by that nation\u2019s pandemic policies\u2014and Grenada, which had a 14-day quarantine in effect that essentially closed that shop. \u201cWe took the majority of fleets in the Caribbean that weren\u2019t operating at full capacity and moved them to where they could be chartered,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, over in the BVI, matters were slowly, \u00adtentatively teetering back toward something called \u201cnormal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The Pilgrims<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n

Horizon Yacht Charters is headquartered in the central BVI hub of Tortola, and it was there to which its director, Thompson, returned in early March after a brief trip stateside. \u201cMy partner and I decided that, as good \u00adcitizens, we\u2019d isolate,\u201d he said. \u201cThat rolled into a government-\u00adenforced lockdown at the end of the month, which meant you were not allowed to leave your property, you weren\u2019t allowed past the end of the driveway\u2014for people fortunate enough to have driveways.\u201d The government did allow several days for grocery shopping before shutting down the islands, and another three-day window to reprovision in the middle of the lockdown. But that was it. \u201cIt was incredibly stringent,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

It would be eight long months, until December 1, 2020, before people were allowed back to Tortola, but with strict quarantine restrictions in place. Thompson was able to keep Horizon afloat in the interim by putting into place a two-tiered maintenance program for the private yachts he managed in his fleet. Nearly every owner signed up. With that scheme, although he had to cut Horizon\u2019s staff to 20 hours a week, he didn\u2019t have to lay off anyone. \u201cThat was our revenue, our cash flow, during lockdown,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Once he was able to hop on a boat and venture out again, Thompson encountered something unexpected and wonderful, the proverbial silver lining rimming the dark cloud. \u201cIt was very quiet, and the whole ecosystem, frankly, had had time to recover,\u201d he said. \u201cAll the sea life moved back in, especially the turtles; there was an absolute abundance of hawksbill sea turtles left, right and center. The quality of the water was spectacular, and the joy of picking almost any harbor and being the only boat in it was fantastic. A few clients started trickling back in. The people who came absolutely loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

After the new year, many more customers\u2014particularly those who\u2019d chartered there before, who loved the place and had made the sailor\u2019s pilgrimage to the BVI on multiple occasions\u2014began to book trips and return to the islands. For several months in 2021, a series of multiple COVID tests were required before traveling and once again after arriving; there was also a four-day mandatory quarantine in place, though you were allowed to do so on your charter yacht in designated anchorages. That was cut to a single day on May 1, and on June 15, fully vaccinated travelers no longer had to take a test upon arrival or quarantine at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\nIt wasn\u2019t just the domestic market on the US mainland that was off the charts. so too was the USVI, which never experienced the major lockdown and restrictions of its neighbors in the bvi.\n\n<\/p>\n<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n

A year to the month after the initial lockdown, this past March, the four members of the Sawicz clan from Chicago\u2014having made the trip down to the islands every other year for the past dozen\u2014once again booked a vacation with the Moorings, this time on a 39-foot catamaran (they\u2019d originally planned a sailing trip to Tahiti, which was still shut down, and were more than happy to pivot back to the BVI). What they discovered upon arrival, with regard to limited resources and a traffic-free Sir Francis Drake Channel, was not dissimilar to what Charlie and Ginny Cary encountered at first glance more than 50 years ago. \u201cEmpty,\u201d said dad Rich Sawicz, a healthcare professional and lifelong sailor. \u201cMaybe like three boats.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

When it came to their itinerary, the Sawiczes had a simple plan: \u201cMy wife said she\u2019d do breakfasts and lunches, but when it came to dinner, she said, \u2018I\u2019m off the boat!\u2019 That was the requirement. Our route followed what restaurants we knew were open.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Like their fellow travelers, the eatery options were few and far between. But old favorites such as Pirate\u2019s Bight, Foxy\u2019s and the Soggy Dollar were all open, and they made it work. And it had some unexpected benefits. When they got to the iconic Baths on Virgin Gorda, which they basically had to themselves, they scrambled up the rocks to the restaurant on the hill and enjoyed an Easter Sunday repast in the company of the locals, all dressed up for the special day. It made it an especially memorable occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

A couple of weeks later, when software executive Michael Heffner of Cohasset, Massachusetts\u2014with his wife and two kids, and another couple from their coastal village, with their pair of kids\u2014descended on the BVI, they had a ready solution to the chow question. They chartered their spanking-new Moorings 50 cat, fresh from South Africa on its maiden charter, with a captain and cook. They ate every delicious meal on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Compared with the Heffner party\u2019s complicated journey, Homer\u2019s travels in The Odyssey <\/i>were a saunter through the park. Bookending their charter trip with a couple of days in St. Thomas on the front end and a four-day stay at the resort on BVI\u2019s Scrub Island on the back\u2014then a return swing through St. Thomas on the way home\u2014the eight intrepid travelers entered and exited the various health and safety portals and protocols via 24 COVID tests (all negative) before all was said and done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Once aboard their yacht, the group actually quarantined aboard in Anegada for the trip\u2019s first four days, along with their fully vaccinated crew, a married couple from Britain. One of Heffner\u2019s favorite pictures from the charter was when skipper Andy dropped the yellow Q flag and they were all free to roam at will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a worry-free trip,\u201d Heffner said. \u201cWe did every kind of watersport\u2014kayaking, snorkeling\u2014and the captain took the kids out on kneeboards in the dinghy, and they loved that. They really leaned into all the activities. The wildlife we saw was incredible\u2014the turtles, the big tarpon, the dolphins. It was an amazing trip. We\u2019d certainly do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Rich Sawicz is also up for a return holiday. \u201cDefinitely,\u201d he said. \u201cOf course, there\u2019s two sides to the coin: Nobody is going to experience what we did, with so many areas totally to ourselves. But we\u2019ll be back in a heartbeat. I recommend a BVI charter to people all the time. This is the best vacation you could ever imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The Awakening<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n

All of which brings us to the here and now, the greatly \u00adanticipated summer of 2021 and that which will follow. Each and every one of us\u2014and each and every business\u2014has lived their own version of the COVID experience. As travel \u00adrestrictions are eased in the US, and daily routines again become, well, routine, there\u2019s a sense of an awakening in everyday life, one that the charter industry hopes to capitalize on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

In that sector, the overall positive vibe, the aura of optimism, is palpable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The domestic operators want to continue to ride the wave they\u2019ve already hooked onto. \u201cI\u2019ve been doing this for 25 years, playing with these silly catamarans,\u201d Jerman of West Coast Multihulls said. \u201cFinally I\u2019ve lived long enough to see them really dominate the sailing world, and especially the chartering world, where they\u2019ve become fairly dominant and taken over. We\u2019re so excited. We see a lot of growth potential.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Down at Southwest Florida Yachts, Hansen said: \u201cThe interest in sailing is getting stronger. We\u2019re thinking about adding more sailboats. It\u2019s not just younger people either, but middle-aged folks wanting to learn to sail. Business definitely picked up in the last year, and I think [the next year] will be better. I think people are ready to go. Do something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The larger companies, of course, aren\u2019t looking to capitalize on bigger pandemic numbers, but rather to almost start fresh in the reopening. To get back to where they were and relaunch from there. And they sure seem prepared to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Moorings <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n The Heffner clan and their mates from Cohasset, Massachusetts, donned matching crew shirts for the obligatory team photo during their Moorings charter last spring in the BVI, but chef Linzi couldn\u2019t help photo-bombing the scene.<\/span>\n Courtesy Michael Heffner<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s great now is that we\u2019re finally feeling like we\u2019re through this,\u201d Navigare\u2019s R\u00f6nngard said. \u201cOur second half of 2021, the next six months, is booked at a higher occupancy rate than I\u2019ve ever had before. It\u2019s fantastic. More than ever, people have money. They didn\u2019t spend a lot during the pandemic. My numbers for what\u2019s coming are through the roof. We all feel like [we\u2019re waking up]. I feel it too. You want to throw parties, see your friends. That\u2019s what you\u2019re dying to do. I think people are just fed up, and they are certainly booking an enormous amount of trips.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere in the BVI, fully vaccinated people are basically free to go after a negative test on Day One of their trip,\u201d Horizon\u2019s Thompson said. \u201cThat\u2019s a game-changer. As a result, our June and July bookings aren\u2019t a million miles off from a normal year. And December and beyond, when we reopen after hurricane season, is also booking up well. We\u2019re very hopeful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cBusiness started picking up in the latter part of 2020,\u201d Dream\u2019s Minner said. \u201cNow, for the past five months, we\u2019ve been hitting records I\u2019ve never seen. The jump in numbers came fast, and without warning. So we\u2019re seriously trying to hire back sales staff and meet the demand for the inquiries coming in. It\u2019s been quite the roller coaster, quite an adjustment. It\u2019s been a lot, but it\u2019s been good. Everyone\u2019s very happy about getting back to business, selling charters again. That\u2019s what we all do and what we\u2019re here to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs people get vaccinated, the confidence level is really rising,\u201d said Tucci, of the Moorings. \u201cIt\u2019s like a switch got flipped and everybody decided to book their holidays. Stuff is flying off the shelves for next year, and it\u2019s going to surprise some people because they\u2019re possibly thinking that everyone is still waiting to see what happens. But it might be a little tough for anyone who hasn\u2019t booked their vacation yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The positive vibes are encouraging, no question. And the forecasts do seem terrific. But at the end of the day, if the pandemic has taught us anything, it\u2019s that nobody knows what the hell will actually happen moving onward. History is yet to be written. But the cold, hard fact is that history was made in the charter industry in 2020, and despite the strong domestic market, it was largely for all the wrong reasons. And history will again be made, as it always is. This time, fingers crossed, maybe for all the right reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Herb McCormick is <\/i>CW\u2019s executive editor.<\/i><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With vaccination rates rising and some pandemic restrictions lifting, the vacation sailing industry is poised to make a comeback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Herb McCormick","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"20210816","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"161","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"The vacation sailing industry is poised to make a comeback with more people getting vaccinated against COVID-19.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"EAFFRMVKAJFNDKLJHDBEUQ7X4E","arc_website_url":"story\/charter\/the-charter-sailing-industry-in-2021\/","custom_permalink":"story\/charter\/the-charter-sailing-industry-in-2021\/","arc_subtype":"right-sidebar","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":0,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[161],"tags":[196,169,188,204],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}