THEY’RE young, glamorous with the most Instagram- mable job on the planet.
Now a slick new reality show is opening up the cut-throat world of superyacht brokers, battling to sell vessels worth as much as £100million.
![Apprentice superyacht broker Vika Avramchuk has celebrities and billionaire businessmen as clients](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/apprentice-broker-834648590.jpg)
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![Hot Yachts, coming to Paramount+, follows party-loving sales teams competing to sell luxury boats](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/56463c91-2084-45cd-973a-e6f1ef709884.jpg)
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After Selling Sunset, which lays bare the world of luxe estate agents, comes new show Hot Yachts, which airs on Paramount+ from Thursday. It sees the party-loving sales crews competing to sell or charter luxury vessels.
In the series set in Miami, they reveal the secrets of their wealthy clients – from the billionaires who spend thousands of pounds flying basic supermarket bread to their boat, to what its like trying to steal a kiss from Leonardo DiCaprio.
With an eye-watering commission of between ten and 15 per cent, one deal can land a broker millions — meaning ruthless competition is the name of the game.
Katya Hall, known as the Queen of Yachts among her colleagues, won’t get out of bed for less than a £10million, 150-footer and earns a staggering amount arranging luxury summer breaks for her mind-bogglingly rich clients.
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“A lot of my colleagues sell yachts that are under a million dollars but I’ve done a £2.5million rental for 24 weeks for one client,” she tells The Sun. “So the value of my charter is three times higher than someone else’s sale.
Brokers play dirty
“Sales-wise, I only do £10million and up. I could be selling 20 £300,000 boats a year but I don’t do that. I won’t deal with less than a 150-footer. I have recently sold boats for £28million and £30million. Just a couple of those deals a year is already pretty good.”
Hot Yachts follows the 39-year-old mum-of-two, who lives in a penthouse apartment overlooking the marina at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as she shows a young couple round the 240ft vessel Coral Ocean, worth £94million.
The six-cabin beauty boasts a fine dining area for 32 guests, a huge gym with its own yoga instructor, fully-staffed spa and jet skis.
With a weekly charter price of between £505,000 and £615,000 depending on the time of year, a booking would land a commission of £92,000.
One of Katya’s rivals, Nick “Mr Yachts” Cardoza, shows off the 175ft Mizu, worth £12million, in the hope of earning a £1.2million commission, inviting two beautiful girls on board for an Instagram photoshoot because “girls look good on everything”.
The plushy vessel, which made an appearance in singer Taylor Swift’s End Game music video, has five cabins, a jacuzzi, basketball court and a stunning glass staircase.
But Katya reveals other luxuries are now required fittings for many of the larger yachts.
“Many of the bigger yachts have helicopter landing pads that take up an entire deck,” she says.
“Also full beauty salons and high-end spas, with multiple saunas and treatment rooms, are popular.
“I have some clients who are paying for new construction and I always tell them to put a beauty salon in because, if the men want to go fishing or diving, the ladies will want to go to the spa.
“But submarines are the coolest new accessory to have on board. You can get them for two to four people. They are very safe. One of the crew will be trained to pilot that and the team might also include scuba diving instructors, windsurfing instructors and a yoga teacher or personal trainer.”
Katya, originally from Siberia, boasts celebrities and royals among her clients and has recently chartered boats for rapper Drake and A-list actor Will Smith. Yet her apprentice, Vika Avramchuk, says celebrities aren’t always the favoured clients.
She says: “I’d rather have billionaire businessmen as my clients because most mega yacht owners don’t charter to celebrities.
“People that have really beautiful, big boats want people to respect them and celebrities tend to be maybe a little bit less careful, so I would much rather just have some under-the-radar billionaire that will consistently charter every year for a family holiday.”
Former model Vika, 31, is no stranger to star-studded yacht parties herself — having hung out with Leonardo DiCaprio and his pals in the South of France and Malibu, California
The Wolf Of Wall Street actor Leo, who was yachting in the French Riviera with Spiderman star Tobey Maguire just last week, rarely charters himself, but is often the guest of a billionaire owner such as Amazon chief Jeff Bezos.
Vika says she was invited to an intimate party with Leo on Roman Abramovich’s £1.2billion Eclipse, before the oligarch’s fall from grace over the war in Ukraine.
She says: “It was more like a cruise ship. Everything was fantastic. To be on a dinghy, then pull up to a vessel that makes that look like the size of a shoelace to a shoe, is a beautiful feeling.”
Vika says she never dated Leo, despite his reputation as a ladies man. She says: “I’m able to call them my friends and I guess I get more respect than the other women in the long run but at the time, I would really have loved a snog from Leo.”
Vika adds: “I really thought that I was going to walk away with Leo or one of his pals as my boyfriend.”
Charter broker Fotis Gernzanios, who is based in Greece, has a huge list of A-list clients, although non-disclosure agreements mean he can’t name names. Though he says: “I had a charter a couple of years ago with a very famous singer who was on board with her personal trainer, make-up artists, two dogs, hair stylists and nutritionist. No friends, no family.
“We had a big crisis because the yacht was docked in Porto Cervo Marina in Italy and there was a lot of paparazzi so she complained. We had to fly out with the owner to talk with her, because she was threatening to sue over leaked images.
“Another Latin American singer chartered a yacht from a colleague with her family. She wanted to go to Mykonos in Greece but there was a strong tropical wind which makes it impossible for the yachts to cruise the Greek islands.
“She was very disappointed and the captain wanted her to be happy so when he was passing Salamina, the closest island to Athens, he said, ‘Look, this is Mykonos. You saw Mykonos’. It’s a bit naughty but it made her happy.” With rich clients to keep sweet, nothing is too much trouble for the brokers, who will happily hire a plane to deliver a loaf of bread.
Fotis says: “You’d think they would want caviar and Cristal Champagne and all the glamorous things but a lot of times people go on million-dollar charters and ask for hot dogs and pigs-in-blankets.
“Or they want to fly cheap supermarket bread to their charter in the Caribbean, rather than have their onboard chef bake a loaf, so we get a £8,000 flight to send a 99p loaf.
“I have a client who has to have a peanut butter and jelly (jam) sandwich every day and it has to be the most basic bread and the cheapest brand of peanut butter.”
Fotis — whose rentals cost between £25,000 and £350,000 a week — says the client usually respects the boat they paid for but unruly guests can be disrespectful to the crew and sometimes cause thousands of pounds worth of damage.
“The guests who don’t pay don’t give a s*** and can be very demanding,” he says.
“You are not allowed to smoke on the yacht but we had one party where people were smoking, there were burns in the carpet, a lot of stains, even puke.
“There was broken glasses everywhere, a broken chair. I had to bring a professional cleaning team on board and also a special team to get rid of the smell of the smoke.”
The huge commissions in the business mean competition is fierce and some agents play dirty.
Broker Kaile certainly doesn’t shy away from competition in the series, who tells her rival Vika: “You make yourself look like some hooker on a boat, bringing her mother. Is she your madame?” The two get into a huge clash on the show after Vika finds a potential buyer left alone on an £8million yacht and attempts to poach his business.
Remaining unrepentant, Vika says: “Every industry where your income is based solely on commission is very cut-throat because everyone knows that if they want to eat, if they want to pay their rent, they’re gonna have to make sure the client is theirs.
“But also, if you are unprofessional enough to leave a client readily available to be scooped up by someone else, then I’m not the bad guy. You’re the bad guy.”
The first episode of the series focuses on the annual Boat Show in Miami, where the brokers party on Coral Ocean and have five-star waterside lunches between showing clients their luxury wares.
But it’s not all fun and glamour. Katya, who has an 18-year-old daughter Elena and shares Zane, who is almost two, with husband Issa, says it’s tough to be away from the family. Fotis says the constant travel and being on call to clients 24/7 can also be exhausting.
He adds: “Everybody thinks that during the boat shows we are partying and drinking and having fun and yes, we are doing that, but in a business way. If you’re not in the industry it’s hard to understand but it’s very tiring.
“I’m with clients on the yachts all day and during the night, I have to do the same at the clubs and restaurants, so during a boat show I only sleep for two hours a night.
“If I’m having dinner with a date, and I receive a call I have to take it, otherwise I don’t make money and the client will go to the next broker.
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“It’s not just a job, it’s a whole life. I enjoy it and it’s amazing, but if you were the type to get stressed about long working hours it’s not for you.”
- Hot Yachts is on Paramount+ from Thursday this week.
![Katya Hall, known as the Queen of Yachts among her colleagues, won’t get out of bed for less than a £10million, 150-footer](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/d03e92b2-9ecf-4fc9-b27c-1d71290bf8a4-1.jpg)
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![Leonardo DiCaprio, right, and Tobey Maguire on a yacht in St Tropez](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/d7dccb98-dedc-43ce-a3f2-0b6bf1e0dd36.jpg)
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![Charter broker Fotis Gernzanios, who is based in Greece, has a huge list of A-list clients](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/38eb77a1-d615-4f2c-9048-fdd3789be085.jpg)
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![In the show, Nick 'Mr Yachts' Cardoza, shows off the 175ft Mizu, worth £12million, in the hope of earning a £1.2million](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/bfa38804-6874-427c-a266-16a561f71d12.jpg)
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