ITHAKA

ITHAKA is a 16.80m (55ft) sailing catamaran delivered in 2022 by Bali Catamarans, and she reads exactly as a yacht conceived for Caribbean cruising should: wide, level, and organised around open-air living rather than around corridors. Her four cabins accommodate eight guests, with the detailed bed configuration available on request. What defines life aboard a catamaran of this generation is less the individual cabin than the geometry of the whole: the beam of two hulls translates into a saloon and cockpit that sit on the same plane, so the transition from lunch in the shade to a swim off the transom involves nothing more than standing up. She cruises at 9 knots — an honest catamaran pace, and the right one for the Virgin Islands, where the distances between anchorages are short and the point is to arrive early enough to claim the good spot. ITHAKA spends her summers between the U.S. and British Virgin Islands and her winters in the BVI, waters where a shallow-draught multihull earns its keep: the sandy shelves and lee-side anchorages that deeper monohulls have to admire from a distance. A crew of two runs her, which sets the tone for the week — attentive and personal rather than formal, with a captain who knows the passages between Tortola, Virgin Gorda and St. John, and a service style built around the day you actually feel like having. On a yacht this size, that proximity is the point: menus discussed rather than presented, itineraries adjusted at breakfast. For families and groups of friends who want the Virgin Islands at anchor-level — swimming, snorkelling, long unhurried lunches — ITHAKA offers a straightforward and genuinely comfortable way to do it.