With their collective experience covering many different roles aboard, Joe, Clare, Anne, Maria and Gilles are able to combine this with their extensive knowledge of the Mediterranean, to give Superyacht Captains and Crew a really authoritative insight into the best Superyacht Services available in the Mediterranean.

Joe Naysmith
A marine engineer of 30 years experience, Joe has crewed both above and below deck on some of the most prestigious yachts of their time. Joe originally moved into the Superyacht industry after spending four years as engineer to the Jaguar Offshore Race Team in the U.K. Since then, he has freelanced as delivery Captain and Chief Engineer on a wide variety of professional yachts up to 200' plus, in both the Mediterranean and Caribbean. His seagoing experience includes the Atlantic Challenge Race of 1997 and numerous other TransAtlantic crossings; whilst shoreside works have included extensive refit projects... giving him all the right broadbased experience to really understand the needs of the Superyacht market.

Clare Sudlow
Thanks to her father - a sea-faring R.N.Commander - Clare spent her latter teenage years crewing aboard the family yacht throughout the Mediterranean. Having acquired sufficient sea miles by the age of 20, she became an RYA Yachtmaster Offshore; and following the addition of a Cordon Bleu Diploma, she soon found employment in the Superyacht industry. Over the following years in the Mediterranean, she gained wide experience in various different roles... as Deckhand aboard a 65' ketch; Mate aboard an 80' classic; Stewardess aboard a 180' motor yacht, and Chef aboard the very first Superyacht to carry a helicopter on her upper deck!

Personal Thanks
As ever our special thanks go to our good friends Steve, Derry and Caroline O´Keefe, for their support and friendship, and for providing us with such a special home base whilst in Mallorca. We would also like to thank Sue and Jim Loynes for looking after us so well at the Monaco Show time; our good friends Jim and Marianne Brooker for providing a wonderful ‘rest stop’ and kind hospitality whilst on our mainland travels; and to brother Guy and Sarah for their welcome and understanding (and internet access!) in Somerset. Production wise; we would like to say a big thank you to J for his design talents, and to Tippi for her hard in work also in the design studio. Lastly but by no means least, we would like to thank ‘the boss’ Andrew Blatter for his continuous understanding, enthusiasm and unwavering support.
Clare Sudlow & Joe Naysmith

Anne Vandromme
Anne was born in France, though still speaks better English than most of us do! She is a dear lover of animals, and is dedicated to protecting the natural environment. As a highly competent windsurfer, she then followed her love of the sea by joining the professional yachting industry, and spent 10 years as crewmember on a variety of prominent yachts. Moving shoreside, Anne then spent a couple of years uplifting Martinique's (the French Caribbean island) appeal to the Superyacht market, by becoming the 'island liaison' for visiting professionally crewed yachts. Indeed, she made such a success of her role, that we found ourselves receiving emails from yacht Captains informing us how the island should be 're-named' as... "Anne Vandromme"!

Personal Thanks
Last year has been a very exciting one, with the launch of our first guide covering the entire Mediterranean. I would like to thank all the services and Captains for their enthusiasm about the guide, their help and support. Their highly positive feedbacks are our best reward. On a personal note I would like to thank Ted Hood, for his unconditional support; Norma Trease, for all her advice and the great time we share together; Claudine Maccanti, my long time friend that the guide brought back together; Pascale Desneux, for her friendship and help in Italy; Anne Cecile Appietto for her energy and help for Corsica, and Paul Lewis for his invaluable technical feedback. I also would like to say a big thank you to Andrew - you are a great boss! Clare and Joe for their friendship and support, and J for being so talented. It feels great to be part of the big yachting family!
Anne Vandromme

 

Maria Herant
Born in England, Maria moved to Rhodes straight after graduating from university. She first worked as a deckhand and hostess on board smaller boats, but soon switched to Superyachts.

After two Caribbean seasons, she returned to the Eastern Med where she continued working on board some of the best charter sailing yachts in the region. Motherhood did put a stop to her sailing career for a while, but her two children and the need for a land base did not stop her from publishing the first-ever dedicated yacht shore service guides to the Dodecanese Islands and Turkey. Maria now lives in the UK for most of the year, but keeps a keen interest in the evolution of yachting in the Eastern Med through her many friends involved in the industry.

Gilles Herant
Through yacht skippering and boatyard managing in the Eastern Mediterranean for the last 25 years, Gilles has acquired extensive knowledge of the local yachting environment. Born in France, but brought up in Greece, he witnessed first hand the expansion of yachting in the region through the family run boatyard, one of the first modern yachting facilities in area.

In the second half of the 1980’s, after a three year introduction to professional sailing and the yachting industry in the UK and France, Gilles started skippering professionally, starting off with a delivery from Djibouti to France and moving on to work as a charter skipper in Greece and Turkey. In the early 1990’s, he took over the management of the family yard, and has since then witnessed and taken part in the extraordinary transformation of the Eastern Mediterranean waters from a quiet backwater to a well developed cruising ground for the professionally crewed yachts. As yard manager, Gilles kept a close contact with yacht service providers throughout the region and thus developed a thorough understanding of their abilities and limitations. When not travelling through the region, Gilles now splits his time between his family in the UK and the remote Greek island of Kastellorizo.

Personal Thanks
For this newly expanded Eastern Mediterranean section of the book, our special thanks go to all our friends that have shared with us their lifelong charter experience of the region. Also, many thanks to all the Captains who took the time to select those few service providers they thought worthy to be in the guide, amongst the many professionals in the industry. Last, our warmest thanks to Anthony Just that guided our steps in the Adriatic and made our research there that much easier.
Gilles Herant