Trevor De Foite was talking with a client in Monaco. It started with a simple conversation. But as so often happens with these kinds of ideas, one thing naturally led to another, and a business partnership felt almost destined to happen.
De Foite is managing director for Outer Reef Yachts, which builds midrange motoryachts that are designed and outfitted to go places. The kinds of people who choose an Outer Reef don’t generally want to hang around a popular marina sipping cocktails. They tend to be more like that client De Foite was talking with in Monaco, a man who had already gone around the world on his previous yacht, which was a Royal Huisman.
“He’s looking to build with us for a bigger motoryacht,” De Foite recalls. “He said he wants to go to Galapagos and places like that, so he wants to use the same services that get all the paperwork sorted out. They did it all for him. It led from there basically to thinking that a lot of our clients could use this.”
The client was talking about EYOS Expeditions, a company founded in 2008 to organize expeditions for yacht owners and guests in remote locales. EYOS has long been popular with larger-yacht owners and charter-yacht operators who want to go to places like Antarctica, where the infrastructure is minimal and the terrain is daunting. The EYOS team organizes a range of services for yacht owners to use with their own boats, from logistics support to onboard pilots and guides. EYOS also works with a variety of explorer yachts to offer adventures in parts of the world where people don’t want to take their own yachts.
Both types of assistance will now be available to Outer Reef owners, who De Foite says are a great match for that kind of expedition-minded thinking.
“They want to do more of the adventurous stuff, but they maybe don’t have the confidence to do it themselves,” he says. “For competent coastal cruisers, going to the top of Alaska can be a bit daunting. EYOS can supply captains, crew, whatever is necessary.”
A partnership like this wouldn’t have made sense for owners of midsize motoryachts in the past, he says. Most of the boats simply weren’t built for this kind of exploring off the grid. But that has been changing for a while now. Two years ago, a 70-foot Outer Reef went around Cape Horn. “Nobody would have thought a 70-foot powerboat could have done that 20 years ago,” De Foite says. “Now they have the range, the capacity and the equipment to do it.”
What the motor-yachts in this size range don’t generally have is, say, an ice pilot in the crew. Or some kind of security staff that’s a good idea for a particular crossing. Those are among the things that the EYOS partnership can provide, in addition to services such as accessing expedition captains for questions. Pairing that kind of know-how with Outer Reef’s own in-house knowledge, De Foite says, is a powerful package for yacht owners to have at their disposal.
“We know our own boats better than anyone, so if our client is stuck wherever he might be, we can provide all of that,” he says. “We know the vessels inside and out, and we have a 24/7 emergency help line, so when EYOS rings us up, we can solve the problem immediately.”
For owners who want an adventure on somebody else’s boat, Outer Reef will work with EYOS to put together an itinerary that’s exclusive to Outer Reef’s clients. It would have, perhaps, a dozen staterooms, and all of them would be used by Outer Reef owners, De Foite says. “Maybe it would be Newfoundland, Greenland, into the Arctic and the ice floes, back to Scandinavia,” he says. “Maybe it would be in Patagonia. We would take it for that 10 days or whatever it is, and nobody else could go on it. This would be tailored for Outer Reef owners.”
The partnership between the boatbuilder and the expedition company seems like a natural progression, De Foite says. “Looking at this from a client perspective, this is their dream,” he says. “They’ve hankered after this their whole life. This is about making the experience better and supporting that journey.”
