White Pearl

Thirty-three metres nine of Sunseeker with a crew of six. That ratio is the first thing to notice: six crew for eight guests is close to one each, and it is an unusually high figure for a yacht of this length anywhere in the Mediterranean.

The number is doing something specific. Eight guests on a thirty-four-metre yacht is already a comfortable allocation, and adding six crew to it turns a well-sized boat into one where nothing has to wait and nobody in the party is asked to do anything at all.

Eight guests across four cabins, two to a room, dividing evenly. Four couples fit the layout as drawn, and so does a family travelling in pairs. There is no compromise cabin, no odd berth, and nothing to negotiate before anybody comes aboard.

Her draught is shallow enough for the Lycian bays, and on the Turkish coast that is the specification that matters most. The good anchorages there are small, steep-sided and close in, and a yacht that can get inside them has a different fortnight from one that lies off.

The water-toy inventory is full. On this coast the yacht is a base rather than a destination: the days are spent in the water and on the rock, and having enough equipment aboard to put the whole group in at once is what keeps an anchorage from becoming a queue.

Sunseeker build for use rather than for display. The deck plan is strong, the exteriors stand up to a full season of hard summer work, and the interior is arranged for a group that intends to live aboard rather than to visit and photograph.

She works the eastern Mediterranean, which is the ground she suits. Turkey, the Dodecanese and the Aegean are all within reach of a fortnight, and the distances between the bays are short enough that the yacht moves in the morning and stops for the rest of the day.

Take her if there are eight of you and the crew ratio matters more than the length. There are larger yachts in this fleet, and few of them put this many people at the service of this few.