What do you do when one of your own builds plans to come for a refit—then moves up the finish date not by a week or so, but by several months? If you run a yard like Perini Navi, you don’t blink, because it happens with some frequency. Such was the case with Helios, which just completed refit work there.
The original plan was for Helios to arrive after the summer 2014 season and remain at Perini Navi’s Viareggio, Italy facility through the full winter. The work list included repainting the mast and replacing rigging. Her captain, Raymond Wroe-Street, says, “True to form, our time line changed, and it became necessary to speed the completion date up by several months.” Helios was keen to bring on charters in the Caribbean to kick off 2015. The altered deadline was met, as was the budget—“with a significant savings to the yacht” for some of the work, he adds.
The 148-foot (45-meter) Helios, delivered in 2007, has been refitted in previous years by Perini Navi. Capt. Wroe-Street comments, “I can honestly say that they are one of the best shipyards that I have had the pleasure of dealing with during a refit project.”
Besides being for charter this winter, Helios is also for sale, so the refit should make her more attractive to potential buyers, too. She has a primarily mahogany interior and has flexible accommodations. For example, the master suite can be divided into two staterooms. The second cabin has its own entrance, of course, though it does end up sharing a head with the twin guest stateroom, just forward. In her standard configuration, Helios welcomes eight guests in four guest staterooms. With the master split, the numbers rise to 10 guests and five staterooms.
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