She was built for the world’s most extraordinary cruising ground and she shows it. GALAPAGOS SEA STAR is a forty-two-metre expedition yacht delivered in 2011 from a custom yard, refitted in 2019 and purpose-configured for private charters through the Galápagos Islands 14 a destination where the wildlife dictates the itinerary and the vessel exists to serve the landscape rather than compete with it.
At a hundred and thirty-seven feet she carries the scale to accommodate sixteen guests across eight suites, a rare capacity that makes her one of the few private yachts capable of hosting an extended family or a corporate retreat in a destination where commercial expedition ships are the usual alternative. The suite categories 14 Sea Star, Galápagos and Balcony 14 sit across the upper and main decks and are named for what they offer rather than for hierarchy: the Sea Star Suites occupy the upper deck with king beds and dedicated lounge areas; the Galápagos Suites carry king or convertible twin configurations with desk spaces; the Balcony Suites open onto private outdoor terraces with direct sea views, a feature that would be unremarkable on a river cruiser but is genuinely unusual on an ocean-going yacht in equatorial waters.
Inside, the public spaces run from a full-beam main salon with a bar counter and deep seating, through a dedicated dining room that seats all sixteen guests under a single service, to a library and a social area that absorb the overflow when the group fragments after dinner. The salon is finished in warm wood tones and panoramic glazing, its bar anchoring one end and a wall-mounted television the other 14 practical rather than ostentatious, built for a yacht that spends its days at anchor while the guests are ashore with the naturalist guides.
On deck the arrangement is expedition-first. The sundeck carries a Jacuzzi and an alfresco dining station beneath a permanent awning, and the upper deck bar adds a second cocktail station with stairway access to the main deck. A porch seating area at the stern provides a shaded vantage point for watching marine life without moving to a tender 14 sea lions, blue-footed boobies and marine iguanas are as likely to come to the yacht as the yacht is to go to them.
Her steel hull and aluminium superstructure were built for full-displacement passage-making. Twin engines deliver a cruising speed of twelve knots and a maximum of fourteen, and her four-hundred-and-eighty gross tonnes give the kind of directional stability that makes long overnight repositions between the central and western islands comfortable rather than endured. The refit brought modern navigation and communication systems aboard, and a Zodiac tender supports daily island excursions, snorkelling runs and kayak deployments.
A crew of nine keeps the operation running 14 a ratio that permits single-table service for sixteen and a naturalist-guided programme ashore without stretching anyone thin. At sixty-eight thousand four hundred and fifty dollars per week she is priced in a category that opens the Galápagos to a group of sixteen for roughly what two adjacent suites on a commercial expedition ship would cost per person, with the privacy and itinerary freedom that only a private yacht can offer.
