HYDRUS | 2023

Best for: families and groups of up to ten who want a brand-new crewed catamaran in the Greek islands. She is stable, shaded and easy underfoot, with a Greek crew who know the Cyclades and Saronic islands inside out.

HYDRUS is a 2023 Lagoon 55 (16.8m) running fully crewed out of Greece, and her booking sheet tells the story better than any brochure: she charters back-to-back from May through October, year on year, with a long tail of returning guests. That kind of calendar is the surest sign of a boat that is run well. Accommodation is five cabins for up to ten guests, four doubles plus a twin that converts to a fifth double, so she flexes between two families and a single large group without anyone drawing the short straw on a bunk. Every cabin is en-suite, and between the flybridge, the foredeck lounging and the shaded cockpit she gives you the kind of spread-out deck space a monohull this size simply cannot.

Aboard is a crew of three. Captain Pantelis Vairaktaris is a Greek delivery skipper who has brought yachts to Greece from yards around the world and knows the islands intimately; chef Sotiris Vlachos cooks fresh Mediterranean and Greek to guests' preferences; and Konstantinos Xirogiannis runs the interior off the back of eight years in VIP hospitality. All three are fluent in English and Greek. She runs on MYBA terms, takes rendezvous divers, and is happy to have pets aboard.