A couple of years ago I was up in Queen Charlotte Sound sailing with some friends and we came across this yacht – Kokomo. She is 58 metres of pure gorgeousness! In fact I was speechless when we came around in to the bay and saw her anchored. I had never seen anything so huge and beautiful in all my life.

You can charter her for a cool EUR210,000 per week.

Of course this yacht was the talk of our evening. We googled it and heard that Tom Cruise might be on board. So we sailed around her playing the theme from Mission Impossible as loud as we could on our yacht stereos. We tried calling Tom up on the VHF to see if they might like to raft up with us. But we had no response. In fact we didn’t see anyone on board at all the whole time we were there!

So while we were anchored up in a tiny cove with stern lines ashore – rafted up with four other yachts, drinking wine in the sun, kids mucking around in the dinghies, we almost felt sorry for poor Kokomo having to be anchored miles out in the middle of the Sound as she was way too big to get anywhere close to the beautiful shoreline. It seemed like we were having way more fun with all our friends and boats tied up along side together, eating the scallops we had caught earlier and thrown on the BBQ, and drinking $10 bottles of wine.

It made me realise that money can buy you a week on a stunning yacht, but on a dollar for dollar basis, I would bet that my friends and I were having way more fun!  Still if they ever fancy a raft up – then we would be more than happy to come to the party!

My friend Vaughan in his 7m trailer yacht “No Excuse” sailing past Kokomo in Queen Charlotte Sound – 2011