Felicita West is a 64m three-masted Perini Navi launched in 2003 with a sail area north of 2,000 square metres and an aluminium hull drawn by Ron Holland. She is one of the rarer pieces in the Perini Navi catalogue: the yard built five three-masted schooners over its history, and Felicita West is the second-largest of them. Asking which week she is available is harder than asking what the rate is. She has changed hands at least twice since her launch, and her charter calendar has been quiet, then loud, then quiet again. As of May 2026 she is not centrally listed for charter, and the last broadly published asking rate sat in the €280K to €340K per week band, low season to peak,.
This is not a yacht to enquire about as a first-time charter client. It is a yacht to enquire about as the third or fourth Perini you have been aboard, when you already know whether you want a ketch, a sloop, or a schooner, and when you know what the trade-off is between a three-masted rig and the alternative.
What Felicita West actually is
Felicita West sits in the line of large Perini Navi schooners that began with Felicita (the 64m predecessor that gave her name) and continued through Maltese Falcon, the Falcon Temple-built Perini DynaRig that broke the format. Felicita West is conventional rigged: three masts, in-mast furling on each, a fixed-keel configuration, and the gentle deck profile that has been the Perini house style since the mid-1990s.
The numbers, where they are publicly verifiable:
| Spec | Value |
|---|---|
| LOA | 64.78m |
| Beam | |
| Draft | |
| GT | |
| Year built | 2003 |
| Builder | Perini Navi, Viareggio |
| Naval architect | Ron Holland |
| Interior | Christian Liaigre |
| Rig | 3-masted schooner, in-mast furling |
| Sail area | |
| Engines | 2 x [VERIFY MTU model] |
| Guest cabins | 6 (standard charter layout) |
| Guests | 12 sleeping |
| Crew | 12 to 13 |
| Refit |
The gap between what Perini Navi published at launch and what current owners disclose is wider on Felicita West than on most yachts in her cohort. We mark the unknowns rather than smooth them over. Anyone underwriting a charter week or a sale on this yacht should expect to be shown a current general arrangement and a survey from the last cycle, not the launch press kit.
Where she has been
Felicita West has been a Mediterranean yacht for her entire life. Her usual rotation has been the western Med in June and July (Balearics and Corsica-Sardinia) and the central or eastern Med in August and September (Sicily, the Aeolians, and occasionally as far east as the Cyclades). She has done at least one transatlantic season in the Caribbean, but the Caribbean is not her natural water. A 64m sailing yacht with a 5m-plus draft is happier where the bottom drops away cleanly, which is much of the Mediterranean and very little of the BVI.
The owner-use profile shows in the calendar. Felicita West has not been the high-utilisation charter machine that Sea Eagle II or Aquarius are. She has been chartered in some seasons, withdrawn in others, and made available informally through a small set of brokers in others. That is owner-discretion charter, which is a polite way of saying "if the central agent likes you, the owner will hear about it."
What a week aboard actually looks like
Six cabins, twelve guests sleeping, a full-beam owner suite forward and five guest cabins aft (one VIP, two doubles, two twins in the standard layout, configurations have shifted over refits). The deck flow is what makes the difference: the Perini three-master gives you a long aft-deck dining area sheltered from the cockpit, a forward sunpad section, and a usable foredeck that the two-masted ketches do not have. With three masts the boom geometry is gentler at the entertaining end of the yacht. You can serve dinner at the aft cockpit at a 15-knot upwind reach without the mizzen boom across your wineglass.
Toys are competent but not extravagant. Standard fleet on past charter brochures: one 8m custom Pascoe tender, one secondary RIB, two SeaBobs, two stand-up paddleboards, two kayaks, snorkelling gear, and a small set of sailing dinghies. Not a yacht with jet-ski-and-helicopter ambitions. If your week needs a 10m chase tender or a deep water-toy fleet, you are looking at the wrong yacht.
The galley produces above its weight. Perinis of this generation have small commercial galleys relative to motor yachts of equivalent LOA, and a chef who knows the constraint can produce well inside it. Ask for the chef's CV before booking. A good Perini chef cooks the way a good restaurant chef cooks at sea: tighter menu, fewer guests, deeper care. A bad Perini chef is the worst kind of compromise and you will know within the first dinner.
What sailing aboard actually feels like
A 64m Perini will not point as high as a one-off Royal Huisman or a Baltic 142. She is built for trade-wind reaches and Mediterranean cruising, not for hard windward work. In 12 to 18 knots true she will do 9 to 11 knots over the ground on a beam reach without the captain having to negotiate with the hull. In light air below 8 knots true she becomes a motor-sailer or a motor yacht, which is fine for the short Med passages where you are likely to be running the mains anyway because the dinner reservation was at 21:00 in Bonifacio.
The in-mast furling rig is the right call for a 12-guest charter yacht and the wrong call for an offshore record. This is the trade-off Perini built into the line. You will not be reefing in a hurry, you will not be carrying loose battens around the cockpit, and you will not be putting a guest's hand near a winch under load. If you want a sailing experience where the guests participate, you are looking at a Baltic or a Wally, not a Perini.
The friction before signing
Three things to negotiate before signing the MYBA:
The first is electronics and AV. Felicita West has been refitted multiple times across owners, and the AV stack has been refreshed at least twice, but on a 23-year-old yacht the cabin AV is the line item that ages worst. Ask for the most recent inventory of cabin AV by stateroom, with model numbers, and ask whether the master suite has been brought up to current spec or is running the previous owner's leftovers. A good central agent will know. A central agent who does not know is telling you something about how the yacht is being managed.
The second is at-rest stabilisation. Felicita West has fin stabilisers underway and the at-anchor performance of a sailing yacht of this size is dependent on rig and water state, not on at-anchor stabilisers in the sense a motor yacht has them. If you are anchoring out for the week, this is a meaningful comfort variable. Ask the captain candidly how she lies at anchor in a 1.5m residual swell. The honest answer is "she rolls more than a stabilised motor yacht of equivalent LOA but less than an unstabilised one, and the master cabin is the worst seat for it." If your guests include anyone marginal on motion, plan around it.
The third is the rate card and what it actually includes. The headline rate on a Perini of this vintage will exclude the things that matter most: tender fuel, jet-ski fuel where applicable, communications above a basic data cap, and any port fee at the more demanding marinas. The 30 to 35 percent APA is supposed to cover those line items but on a yacht with this kind of utilisation pattern the APA can come in over. Build a 40 percent contingency on top of the headline rate and ask the broker to itemise what is and is not in the bottom-line number. This is normal due diligence on any charter at this size and it is non-negotiable on a yacht with a complicated ownership history.
What does not make the cut
We would pass on Felicita West for a transatlantic delivery as a charter. She is built for the Mediterranean and her best version of herself is in a 7 to 10-day western or central Med week with a competent captain and a guest list that knows what they want from a sailing yacht. We would also pass on a winter Caribbean booking unless the central agent can show a current crew roster (the same one that worked the previous Med season) and a current technical condition statement.
We would pass on her as a first-time sailing-yacht charter for a guest list that has only been on motor yachts. The motion is different, the rhythm is different, and the cabin-to-deck flow is different. A first sailing-yacht charter is better done on a smaller yacht (a 50m Perini, for example) where the learning is less expensive if it does not land.
And we would pass on her at any rate above the upper end of the 60m to 65m Perini range. Felicita West is a fine yacht, but she is not a one-off. She is a production three-master from a builder that has produced many three-masters. Pay accordingly.
How she compares
Inside the 60m to 65m Perini Navi sailing-yacht class, the comparable charter options are:
- Perseus Three (60m, 2014). Newer, two-masted ketch,.
- Felicita West (64m, 2003). Three-masted schooner, longer aft deck, older platform.
- Aquarius (56m, 2017) [VERIFY availability]. Newer, sloop-rigged, more contemporary interior.
- Burrasca (60m, 2017) [VERIFY availability]. Newer Perini, ketch.
Felicita West's case for selection over Perseus Three or Aquarius is the deck flow and the three-mast aesthetic. Her case against is the age of the platform and the variability of the post-refit condition. If you have a guest list that wants the Perini three-master look (and there is a guest list for that), Felicita West is the right yacht. If you are price-sensitive on a 60m+ sailing week and want the lowest-friction option, the newer Perinis are easier.
How to enquire
Felicita West is not a yacht where you call the broker hotline and get a quote in 20 minutes. The right approach is a broker who has central-agent access to the current Perini Navi sailing fleet and who can confirm whether she is even open this season before discussing rates. Burgess, Camper & Nicholsons, Edmiston, and Northrop & Johnson have at various points held the central agency on Perini sailing yachts of this size [VERIFY current central agent]. Ask any retail broker who quotes you a number for Felicita West to confirm with the central agent before they quote, not after. Anyone quoting from a stale 2023 brochure is wasting your time.
A good broker will tell you, in this order: (1) whether she is centrally listed this season, (2) the current rate band, (3) the current refit status, (4) the current crew (captain, chief officer, chief stew, head chef), and (5) whether the owner is willing to charter in your preferred window. If they cannot answer any one of those five inside a week, find a different broker.