Casador Caribbean yacht charters & virgin island sailing vacations

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It's one thing to buy a boat, equip it for charter, and then go ply the trade. That's a move that can be accomplished in a matter of months, if not weeks. But to build a boat from scratch in order to earn a living from it is an undertaking of a whole different order. Kristian Sondergaard and Marianne Rasmussen built Casador, their aluminum, 68-foot cutter over a period of six years, meanwhile earning money by restoring and refitting other boats.

In their native Denmark, this industrious couple had previously built Nana, a ferr-cement replica of traditional Baltic trader, and set off in 1983 to the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. As crew, they had their son, Buller, then 10, and a youth assigned to them under a Danish government program.

"I was a registered social worker," says Marianne, "so that's how we qualified to take these kids, essentially as foster parents. We had three for a year each. They came from troubled homes, and we were to help them adjust." For Casador, Kristian made a close study of boats he admired and thought were of the right form.

With a shape in mind, he carved a hull model from a stack of 10 millimeter boards, then dismantled it and used the "lifts" to draw the waterlines. "I had a yacht designer, Rodger Martin, do some calculations-displacement and stuff like that. "The rest we did ourselves," he says. Kristian and Marianne were living in an apartment building in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the time, and they commandeered the parking lot to loft the finished lines full size.

They formed all the frames in the driveway, bending them with tools Kristian made, and when they were complete, they loaded them on a trailer and took them to River Bend Marina, where they had cleared an area to setup up the strong back. "We were losing stuff to thieves", Kristian says, "so we bought a VW camper and lived in the boatyard, next to the boat." Later, after she was plated, turned over, and decked, they moved aboard and built the interior around them. Eventually, they took the near-complete Casador to Marsh Harbor, Abacos, to finish her.

In 1992, they started chartering Casador out of Fort Lauderdale and the Bahamas. “Business wasn't wonderful, it's not a very good season there,” says Kristian, "so we moved to the Virgin Islands. We like it here and have good seasons. Much of our business is repeats. Some people will come back every two years. We have some relationships going back a long time."

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Casador is roomy, especially for a four pack. She has two spacious cabins, each with private head and shower, and separate quarters for the crew. The interior decor is typically Scandinavian, in light-colored wood with rattan cabin-door panels. Between the saloon, the pilothouse, the bridge deck, the cockpit, and the cast, flush foredeck with its hammock, she has lots of places to find personal space. Acres of canvas, all sewn by Marianne, keep sun, rain, and wind in their proper station. "we knew we'd need a lot of canvas", Marianne says, "so I apprenticed for a year at a canvas shop in Florida. Then we put a machine aboard and I made everything fro Casador, awnings and upholstery." In the off season, she also does work for other boats.

Between Marianne's accomplishments as a seamstress and weld grinder (folks at River Bend dubbed her the "Aluminum Queen" because of her silvery sheen), she adds zest to her recipes with touches of herbs from her little garden in the pilothouse. "They stay there most of the time," she says. "Maybe one falls if it's rough. I brought them from my garden in Denmark, so you have Danish oregano there."

Cassador has a new 15-foot RIB with a 90-horsepower outboard, so shuttling from boat to beach is comfortable and rapid. She also carries a variety of water toys as well as a compressor and diving equipment, and for the less active (or the worn out, she has a library of movies and CDs,. Probably, guests will spend many evenings being fascinated by tales from the crew's colorful past.