A New Way to Experience the Very Best of Hilton Head
When Hilton Head Yacht Charter’s founder Jim Gilpin had his 55-footer at Shelter Cove, people always approached him with the same question:
do you charter cruises with this boat? It got him thinking. “There are so many wonderful ways to engage with the waters around Hilton Head, and so many luxury experiences on the Island itself,” he says. “But no one had brought that top-shelf, five-star quality out onto the water.” So he decided to be the one to do it. But Jim understood intuitively that there would be much more to it than just cruising on a big, beautiful boat. The experience would have to be like owning a yacht—minus the hassle, of course.
Jim’s idea has manifested as something entirely new to Hilton Head:
a one hundred percent customizable choose-your-own-adventure floating resort, of sorts. The Top Shelf is an eighty-foot luxury motor yacht that accommodates every kind of indulgent yachting experience. Want to water ski or wakeboard and then test out 007-style underwater Sea-Bobs and 215-horsepower Sea-Doo Speedsters? Maybe your ideal cruise includes a sundeck, ice-cold craft cocktails and mouthwatering meals served by an Executive Chef. Or perhaps keeping watch for dolphins, sea turtles and manatees from the Top Shelf’s trailing Swim Platform, immersed in nature, but never more than ten feet away from a delightful array of creature comforts. If your yachting fantasy is some combination of the above, you’re in luck. From May to October, Hilton Head Yacht Charters is doing it all: daytime and sunset cruises, action-packed afternoons filled with exotic water sports, luxury leisure time and the swankiest sea going around.
To hear TripAdvisor reviewers tell it, this “experience of a lifetime” is “perfection” from beginning to end.
Especially high praise goes to the “extremely accommodating” crew, whose attentiveness had guests feeling like kings and queens. Jim, who has helmed a number of successful businesses, nods in agreement. “In this day and age, people just aren’t used to the level of service that we are providing,” he says. “It’s thrilling! And I’ve found that if you take care of your customers, everything else falls into place.”
Okay, maybe not everything, as this tightly run ship does have a lot of moving parts.
There’s the concierge, who approaches the cruises as an event planner would, ensuring that the Top Shelf is ready to host each custom-designed experience. Then there is a rotating cast of uber-talented executive chefs, ready to be plugged into the cruise based on the requested flavor profile. While the Captain sets a course for the Island’s most dramatic vistas, one dedicated crew member attends solely to the customer experience: managing the sea toys, refreshing the drinks and ensuring that everyone on board is having a blast. In other words, you do you, and Hilton Head Yacht Charter does the rest.
Hilton Head Yacht Charter
1 Shelter Cove Lane
Shelter Cove Harbor Shops
843-842-7002
hiltonheadyachtcharter.com