Our BEST Moments of 2023!

hi guys I'm captain Paul what a year it's been let's dive into [Music] it hey everyone Captain Paul here I'm here with Blair and we're just thinking you know the year's wrapping up and we figured would kind of do a bit of an episode of The Best of the Best of 2023 and some of the things that we most memorable and most exciting and then just a highlights real from there so uh stick around with us we're going to go through all the way from the beginning of purchasing the yacht in Marseilles in uh April yeah and then going through so it's going to be a really cool episode guys so stick around and uh let's check it out sweet sounds good cool all right so uh I guess we start at the beginning right uh yeah purchasing the Yen Mars or do we even want to rewind a little bit further from that and I loto really yeah so uh in February in February of this year I flew from St Martin on a airron red eyee over to lassota and uh in France in the south of France and stepped on what was icon at the time and ended up doing spending two days two and a half days on board going through the boat with the crew and pretty much straight away I was impressed with the yacht and blown away and so I'm called up the boss and we got the wheels rolling in purchasing uh purchasing icon and uh that began the journey uh fast forward a few weeks later uh we were back in lassota and uh we were doing survey so going through the vessel with a team of uh experts that do the survey purchase period and go through the entire vessel from paint engines uh toys uh do the Taps work do the toilets flush uh do the ovens work all that sort of stuff and they give you a big survey report a big book and then from there we said hey you know what it's not too bad let's let's go ahead with the purchase and uh we then ended up buying what was icon and quickly renamed her Lon and uh that was what April 26th of this year um so uh so you joined us in basically on the day of closing or I think the day after um you flew into marsill and then drove over to lasso so yeah I joined literally a day or two after you guys got here and went straight to work straight to getting her ready for the season and getting all the camera gear set up and all the the YouTube channel just started then yeah well that's that was our first episode the uh we bought a super yacht and that's basically what started the YouTube Journey uh Blair had already been doing uh guest videos SL deckhand on uh 180 and so when we purchased this new boat we wanted to step it up to that next level and Hit YouTube and hit uh more content creation and really the marketing social media side of it and so that's yeah when you went fulltime so uh day two of board I think or was it even day one I was like that's it we're out of lasota we went over to mares so I'd never driven the boat before i' had no real Handover from the previous crew and was just like well here's a super yacht and let's figure it out so Ross our chief engineer at the time and myself we're down in the engine room looking for the key on how to how to start it no no she doesn't have a key um but we we fired up the engines we threw the Lines Tyler was on board uh Franco was here claraa was here and a bunch of other temp workers and we delivered the yacht uh just around the corner I think it's maybe 25 miles from lassota into Mar Port where we sat for the next four weeks and uh got got busy getting the boat uh to the standard that we wanted to have the boat and to continue through the summer season we ripped off the icon name we put on The Loon name and uh wow yeah what a time looking back now I mean we've come a long way we've come a long long way that's really where all of the the base work happened getting everything ready is was in Mars and I mean I remember the first time that we were lifting the tenders out I like that was such a big day for us we never operated big doors on on Old loon like this we we didn't have you know big doors to open to get our out we just had open decks and everything so just seeing how all the new operations worked and it was it was really cool it was it was awesome everything was a learning experience wasn't it it was just like everything we did was like how do we do this and we had to go through it slowly and methodically and be like are we doing this right are we doing it safe are we uh and you know and then we had to write the SOP as a standard operating procedures on how to do each maneuver so then when the season hit we were we're ready to go and then about a week in I think Lon 180 showed up and so then we had the two loons right next to each other which was really cool um having both both loons together having uh Captain Jay and Shan and the rest of the crew from that yacht over there with us as well I mean I think they spent you know almost 10 days with us in Marseilles so having both the Yachts together having almost 40 crew 37 crew all together in one spot that was that was something really really that was awesome so so good to see and then we had to obviously had to get up a bit of Mischief while we were there as well uh yeah so we've been kind of planning uh what do we do with uh Lon 180 when they arrived and uh we waited until one night when it was all calm I think they had all gone to bed early and uh we'd found a inflatable mannequin we'll call it in in the build on board the boat so we uh we blew her up um good thing about Lun 180 was obviously Blair and I had been on her for the previous two years so we we knew where all the security cameras were and we knew what all the where all the sensor pads were and all that sort of stuff so it was kind of like Mission Impossible where we had to duck and dive and weave around all the SEC all the security points but then we managed to climb up to the top of her M and uh and and put uh our our doll our cheerleader on the uh on the top of the Mas there for for everyone to see but then like we thought like the next day when the sun came up uh we thought that they see it pretty quickly but um it was it was there for a good couple of hours until the point to the time where we were like hey guys yeah like what what is that just have a look up man now they're kind of wrapped up our Mar time and then we rolled into that first Charter where um we did that trip through the south of France and all through uh San Trope uh pulling into monacco for the first time with the big boat now we'd obviously taken Lun 180 into Monaco a bunch of times but you know pulling in with a 70 M yacht now is a little bit of a different experience and so that was really cool to show up there and and take her in and you know just the whole vibe of Monaco the whole Marina everyone sort of stops and watches the Yachts maneuvering which was which was a really cool experience and um Franco missing the re missing the heing line I mean it was kind of kind of like a not really such a big issue on on board I mean the green crew always you know learn you know how to throw their lines and miss them and so we kind of just you know gave him a little bit of stick he ended up having to buy around of beers that night but then you'd caught a real of it Dean Dean had actually taken a photo of it on a video of it on his phone and Franco very quickly became the world's most famous lth thrower I mean that video got a couple million views just on Dean's page and it got reposted all around every platform there is on social media and people were literally walking up to at B being like you're the guy that Miss l in mon poor guy yeah he's okay with it though he embraced it he loved it yeah U and then uh all right moving on um oh there's a good one for you Blair all the uh diving for drones ooh yes we did some good diving in the in the history of of Lon but on this boat especially has just been yeah incredible we've done some drone diving and some amazing place we pretty much you know DJI has had a record year because of your Jord they really have flying this season but to be fair I mean you have drones in the sky 5 to 6 hours of the day so you know accidents are bound to happen but I mean I remember I went diving in Porter in poro when you lost the IAT when you said the propeller fell off the propeller did fall off but that was a fun one because I mean how cold was that water and for late June and then deep as well I I think I was diving down to almost 30 free diving down to 30 plus M I'm using a seab BB and we eventually found that one yeah so that that was a good one the Pino one cuz that was deep that was probably our deepest one I think we lost one another aat on the charter after that yeah um I'm not sure if I have footage of that though but that did happen then Sardinia happened oh I thought wow yeah Blair's best day ever possibly the worst two days of my entire life I think I just cracked open we just got back our mavic 3 or yeah I think it was a mavic 3 Pro and I had it hovering above the guests while they were just changing Riders on the on the Wake booat um who was in the wake and the sailboats Mas just was just I had the Drone hovering and the sailboat just went straight into the Drone and just took it out the scar that was the first one then the next day we were allowed streaming flying the Drone because we have a couple on board flying the Drone and um just trying to do too many things once forgot that the Drone is in in the scar 5 minutes later went to go check it had lost connection and then returned to home which was home was in the water at that point yeah I mean who would have thought that there'd be sailboats in Sardinia me who would have expected I mean they're everywhere so lesson learn there yeah for sure one of the other cool things that happened during the season right about that time was uh when Dan Bion was on board um love him or hate him he was pretty cool to us we had a we had a great trip on board but uh he came up one day and he's like Captain Paul I want to wake behind the boat and I was like no way dude not going to happen and then as it as the trip went on and then the conditions actually got nicer to it was milky glass calm I was like all right let's do it so we actually sat down we planned it out we did it we got a whole safety team together we had the two Tenders in the water and we had rescue divers on both cuz you know he was not wearing a life jacket all he wanted to wear was his little shorts short shorts so short shorts so um you know we put it all together and I mean obviously you just see the final footage of him behind the boat but there was a lot of planning and a lot of uh safety meetings that went into putting him you know behind the boat but it was actually pretty cool it's something that I've always wanted to do myself and it's kind of hard it probably wouldn't play well if the captain of The Vessel was wake about boarding behind it um but Ian it was really cool to make it happen and I mean something that we we've been wanting to recreate as a crew as well definitely we'll definitely have to do it at some stage so I think you guys should all comment below and say if you want us to do it cuz I really want to who wants to see Play Wake behind the Wake foil wake foil yeah I'll do that on the hyra foil for sure yeah excellent yes um and then after that we went down to Capri and was on the Amalfi Coast I think we did two three trips almost back to back through the Amalfi Coast that was really cool being in Capri we always LED being there Naples posano uh you know all through that area malfie is always just it's just spectacular especially in July and you know into early August is such a great spot and we we spent you know almost 3 weeks in that in that area running up and down theal coast and I mean we just got so many great visuals and had such a great experience there yeah for sure and then actually that's not so we one of those Charters we ran across to uh we ran back across to sardin and we're in the Sardinia area and I mean that Charter when we were sitting in uh the Melina islands and then um we were having a kite surfing session the guest had actually gone out to lunch and both me and Blair I think I was writing at the time and I was like wait a minute what's going on with this sailboat and um next thing you know there's just a an on man sailboat uh drifting past us so we went into rescue mode and uh ended up having to go and board this sailboat and uh you know re-anchor it and find its own cool moving on um yeah going into Bona fascia for the first time and doing our first live stream um was that the first live stream no Monaco Monaco was the first live stream mon but I think Monaco we hadn't had everything kind of sorted out B iio was probably one of our better ones at the time CU our second that was a great live stream so if you haven't seen that one you know go go back to the live section check out the live stream I think it's about an hour maybe even an hour and a half you actually have to wait a little while before going in but that was a really cool live stream always pulling in a bona fasio super cool it's one of those ports as a captain that you it's kind of like a a test and a badge to be able to do it because you're able to come in and then uh it's quite a tight maneuver so you pull into the harbor do a full 180° Spin and then you have this massive back down through all the boats through all the docks all the way down to the end of the of the harbor so that was that was definitely a fun one doing live added a little bit more pressure uh pressure not to get it wrong and to do it all correctly while also talking through the whole maneuver the whole way but I mean how awesome is B of fion A such a beautiful place such a long backd down like that with the clips on each side it's just incredible to see it was my first time being there and um we managed to get in there a couple more times that season I think yeah I think we went in three times total over the season we normally only go in for one night so the guests can sort of explore and then you go out to dinner and then we come back in and we usually shoot back down to Sardinia the next day but um no that was great um and then moving on oh and then after after the Alfie coast and S we actually uh cruised over to Croatia and uh we spent two and uh two and a bit weeks almost three weeks in Croatia going through the Adriatic islands and um that's where we met up with Lon 180 and did the tandem Charter we had actually both of both the loons together you know Lon 220 Lon 180 yet again we reunited with Captain Jay Shan and the rest of the crew there was 35 crew 24 guests and we spent you know seven eight nine days cruising through the Adriatic rafting up every day having good pranks and lots of playing and I mean that was almost one of the highlights of my yachting career I think it's yeah that was definitely my highlight of the year for sure that was Unreal we have two incredible YouTu videos if you haven't seen them already they didn't perform that well yeah they didn't ter in terms of our other videos so I don't think many of you have seen them we'll link them below um but yeah you can go and check them out and see what we got up to Croatia is just the most beautiful place honestly it's unreal I mean we did a we did a tie which I've never done before where both boats rafted up uh bum the bum is what we called it and I mean that was just incredible and yet that was something I've always wanted to do but you had to wait for the perfect conditions and everything and it was just the absolutely most beautiful day to do that but then to be able to Raft up every day in every different Anchorage was something really cool and awesome and I mean we had a lot of fun with both boats again I think it seemed to be usually more us picking on our uh picking on our little sister but uh you know we at one point we put uh TT loon down the side of it TT stands for tender to so basically saying that you know there are there are little tender but um they didn't take that too well no they didn't cool and that that pretty much ended up the the midseason at the end of the Croatia tandem Charter that was really about the end of the Mediterranean season and then the boat started making its way back West to uh go back to Florida I actually jumped off in Croatia and ended up taking five weeks of vacation uh and I ended up doing a road trip with Maxine up the uh eastern coast of uh Northern Australia which was absolutely epic I was checking in with you guys almost daily but um I mean I you were on board for the crossing so it was it was a good Crossing we got really really lucky we were threading the needle the entire time with um weather systems all around us but we had relatively good weather the entire town um and then once we got to the halfway mark yeah King Neptune showed up I remember seeing that man I love it when King Neptune shows up Blair doesn't like it when King neptun shows up H but King NE you only got you only got to pay your Jews once yeah yeah Davey was in charge of the whole um the whole operation of initiating all of the the Greenies and I was part of it I'd managed to dodge Crossings up until then and yeah he he took pride and joy in making that as fun as possible for himself hey one day you'll be you'll be up there King Neptune try and you know the crown and you know throwing slot buckets all over the other Juniors so it's part of it it's part of the uh you know welcome to yting and welcome to things it's all in good fun knowing gets hurt and it's a it's just a a moment that we all laugh over for years to come I remember when I when it happened to me in the early 2000s and yeah I Davey was way Kinder on you than what than what happened to me but yeah it's uh it's Ying's calm down a lot since then it's 2023 exactly we'll give you a safe space to cry about later mate um yeah and then you guys rolled into to uh West Palm Beach and uh and we spent and I I flew back in shortly after but the boat spent I think about just under four weeks in uh in the shipyard in West Palm Beach there getting a whole bunch of work done we we got the the hull uh painted and Polished we did tenders we what I mean it was just there was a million miles hour of work going every day we pulled the domes off of the boat the uh satellite domes they're no longer needed on board so we pulled them off cuz we now have starlink running running the internet right now um yeah this the whole brid yeah the whole bridgy fit of course I mean this was such a big part of it the uh the bridge before how it had that little boxed area back here so we opened up the bridge and gave everyone much more light uh yeah so in Florida we uh got another new chase boat so it's been it's been a year of tenders but uh we've got the uh the htb 53 which we absolutely love so we leave the and and the m and then we keep the HCB on this side uh both boats serve different purposes the HCB is much more rugged it's able to bash through the largest SWS that we have down here in the Caribbean it's really comfortable to run our guests and crew around on it's a great fishing boat it's an awesome diving platform and uh you know we we beat it up a lot more which the m is a little bit more fragile and probably wouldn't do so well with dive tanks and fishing guts and all that sort of stuff throwing around in it so but I mean it's an absolute Beast of a boat and uh I'm so so happy with it yeah I mean quad Outboards you just yeah everyone's dream but yeah 1700 horsepower massive sound system super comfortable some really great features on it and we did a video on her as well so um yeah quick link and uh check that one out check that one out as well I mean that video was really fun to make you know we showed the dynamic positioning and uh and then just the maneuverability with the joystick and did some really high speeded runs and big banking turns and went lost a cushion um yeah Dam oops sorry hcv yeah um and uh and then we had our first Charter of the Season where we uh started in Antiga and then worked our way through to St Martin we spent quite a fair bit of time in uh sarts where we're in side two on the dock in some BS that's something that I have never done before and I've really only ever seen one yacht before do it so it was really really cool to be able to get loon cuz they have a 200t roll in some BS that anything over 200 ft is not allowed into the harbor uh loon being 221 I had to go and beg and ask permission and you the guys there Earnest the doc master was like well it's a little quiet it's early in the season so he let us come in and go side to the Caper there which was something really really special for for the crew and and I mean and great for the guests that were able to you know step straight off the boat and be in downtown some BS to be able to go around and go shopping and do their restaurants and and all the other stuff so uh after sitting in for that Char end up we ended up dropping that Char off this was something that i' something i' been dreading probably a couple of weeks was day was eventually coming and having to take the did a full video we did a video actually our biggest video I think thank you everyone for watching thank you everyone for watching but I mean myself personally myself personally it was I didn't s too well the night before to well the night before knowing that this was coming and then um you know I mean we got through it we got through itly the team whole te worked brilliant you know we man manag to get through man to get through that bridge always little bit butterflies as I think you've said before it's it's even claimed a couple skilled captains before it's it's a can be a very tricky thing to do and I think we captured it pretty well we had like nine different cameras all around the boat all going at once so yeah it's a cool video you should definitely check it out yeah it was a big day for you it was a big day probably the most yeah I think every camera we had every camera literally everything like two drones I think we had five GoPros and insta 360 both of the big cameras just just everything yeah that's good nice nice nice yeah and then that was charter number one and then we ran to step back down to St Thomas and we started our BVI season so um that's we had a repeat Family onard that have been with us numerous times and I mean they were absolutely incredible I mean we picked up in St Thomas and then we spent 8 Days nine days running through the British Virgin Islands and uh did a lot of our favorite spots there did some diving did the bath did some hiking uh tied up in Norman key and I mean just that just jam-packed ch so man what a beautiful part of the Caribbean too like it's I know we say a lot of places are our favorite places but that seriously is like one of the best places in the Caribbean yeah if not the best yeah the BBI is especially for us as a super yach uh there's always a protective Anchorage there's always a nice Beach uh there's always an activity that guests can do no matter if the wind's coming out of the North it's coming out of the South it's coming out of the East coming out of the West there's always somewhere where you can seek shelter and there's always a nice beach somewhere there's always a beach bar there's always a nice scuba dive there's always something for someone to do no matter what the weather conditions are which is why we love the bvis a lot more over some of the other islands that can often be blown out due to weather so um yeah I mean that that was a great Charter great great guests and uh we loved every minute of it yeah but uh but then the fun had to end and we had to pick up anchor and head on over to Antiga for the Antiga Charter show so this was early December and we were sitting in Antiga for 5 days had a really fun tight docking that uh that they made me do which I was not particularly thrilled about but but we got through it well and we actually live streamed it as well which which definitely always adds a little bit pressure to it but um well it wasn't wasn't a yeah was incident free and uh and then we sat in Antiga for five nights six nights and did the Antiga Charter show which uh is where all the Yachts are on display there's a ton of Charter Brokers around and they um they come tour the bage and then go back to their clients and sell uh the boats and the crew and everything for for potential Charter clients yeah definitely I mean that was it was so cool to see it we don't really get to do many Char shows or shows in general we're just so busy but it's was just nice to be on the dock and see loads of other yacht crew speak to people meet new meet new people met a couple fans yeah so yeah was that was a good time mhm yeah I mean it was it was awesome we got maybe a couple of Charters out of it met a lot of Brokers as you said a couple of fans so was uh I mean just the response to the YouTube has been incredible and it's almost everywhere we go now there's someone that's like oh my God there's modon and I mean I don't think I've ever taken as many selfies as in the last couple of months but I mean it's it's such a such a cool feeling and it's actually amazing to see the amount of people that are watching these videos so um yeah it's crazy it's crazy but then we had to quickly rush back and we rushed back down to uh St Thomas for our third Charter of the season and we just did another little BVI it was only 5 days so it was a quick sort of rush Charter through the bvis but um had a really nice family on board only four guests so it made it easy and uh you know but the weather absolutely turned on I mean the wind died out and they had one of those postcard Picture Perfect weeks that was Unreal on board I mean the Drone footage was just out of this world just crystal clear glass glass water you never really see days like that in in the Caribbean where there's just not a breath of wind so yeah they they scored those those four or five days yeah they did cool well I think that basically wraps up our year I mean it's December 29th we're sitting here in St Thomas and the year's almost over yeah so uh wow it has been a big year but it has been a great year and I mean we couldn't have done it without without all of you guys we are so so so grateful and also just cannot believe that the uh following that we have amassed in such a short amount of time and so we're very appreciative of everyone and all of the fans and we love meeting and seeing you so if you ever do be in an area in Florida Monaco uh St Thomas please make sure to come out and say hi and I would love to love to see you take a selfie you know if you see us snap a photo put it up on Instagram and we'll make sure to repost it but um guys thank you so much it's been awesome it's been an absolute pleasure and we will see you in the new year thank you very much sweet

Channel: Motor Yacht Loon

Views: 66,325

Keywords: bvi, superyacht, yacht crew, crew day off, superyacht crew, british virgin islands, norman island bvi, caribbean, the baths, scuba diving bvi, scuba diving, scuba, necker island, necker island tour, kitesurfing, kite foiling, yacht, yachting, snorkeling, willie t, yacht life, virgin islands, kiteboarding, yachts, super-yacht, yachting lifestlye, luxury yacht, megayachts, super yachts, working on a super yacht, richard branson, real life below deck, yacht charter, below deck

Id: mswHrrCxO1A

Length: 28min 5sec (1685 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 31 2023