NEXT CHAPTER makes an unusual argument for a 2003-built Benetti: that a serious sport-fishing programme and a formal, old-world interior aren’t opposites, they’re just two different rooms on the same yacht. Stefano Natucci drew both the exterior and interior, and a recent refit has kept the mechanical side current while leaving the dark wood, brass fittings and inlaid marble that give her the gravity of a much older vessel. Cross the marble foyer and a compass rose set into the floor sits beneath a curved staircase trimmed in gleaming mahogany, the kind of entrance a modern build rarely bothers with anymore.
The fishing programme is the real headline. A 45-foot Seahunter Tournament chase boat with quad 425hp outboards travels alongside NEXT CHAPTER, backed by a genuine tournament and spearfishing kit and an annual supplies budget in the six figures. This isn’t a rod holder bolted on for the brochure photo, it’s a program built by people who actually fish, and the mothership’s aft deck and cockpit are laid out to support it without getting in the way of everyone else’s holiday.
Everyone else’s holiday, in turn, is well provided for. The sundeck jacuzzi sits beneath its own shade sail with loungers to both sides, a spot best appreciated from directly above where the water reads a startling turquoise against white teak. Aft, a round dining table under an inlaid ceiling medallion seats the full party for lunch with the coastline close enough to name; bow-forward, four teak loungers face open water for guests who want nothing more than sun and a paperback. Belowdecks, a gym with panoramic windows and a proper ProForm treadmill keeps a workout from feeling like a chore, even at anchor.
The main salon runs cream leather and dark timber in equal measure, deep sofas facing a coffee table that could seat a small dinner party on its own, orchids on every surface and a bar built into the aft wall for evenings that start there and end on the dining table beyond the glass doors. It is a formal room without feeling stiff, helped along by the sea view running the full length of both sides.
Six staterooms sleep twelve across a genuinely varied plan: a master with oval portholes and full-height wardrobes, a VIP with its own vanity desk tucked beside the bed, and twin cabins finished in the same rich mahogany with framed sailing prints standing in for art elsewhere on board. Every room keeps period detail, brass hardware, curved joinery, real wood rather than veneer standing in for it, without feeling dated, credit to a refit that clearly understood what was worth keeping.
A crew of fourteen runs NEXT CHAPTER’s programme between the Bahamas in summer and a wider circuit through the Caribbean and Central America for winter, chasing both good fishing grounds and calm water in roughly equal measure. For a charter party that wants serious sport fishing without giving up a proper formal dining room and a staircase worth walking down twice, NEXT CHAPTER argues her case well, a yacht built when volume and craft still meant the same thing, kept current enough to charter like she means it.
