Featured Yacht MARIA THERESE: Luxury Catamaran Charter in the Virgin Islands Aboard a 2024 Sunreef 68
by Justina Jarrige | Senior Marketing Specialist on 2026-05-15
A luxury catamaran charter in the Virgin Islands rarely looks like this. Maria Therese is a 68-foot Sunreef built in 2024 - one of the most capable and fully equipped charter catamarans sailing these waters today. She accommodates eight guests across four queen cabins, staffed by a crew of four whose collective range spans Michelin-caliber kitchens, 15,000-mile ocean passages, and Mediterranean interior service.
The Virgin Islands are already among the world's most coveted sailing grounds - warm, varied, and consistently beautiful. Aboard Maria Therese, the archipelago becomes something richer: a private playground accessed on your terms, with a crew that has sailed every channel and knows every anchorage worth stopping for.
For guests comparing Virgin Islands catamarans in this size and price range, Maria Therese offers something harder to find than a long toy list or polished interiors. It offers depth - in the crew, the build quality, and the intention behind every detail.
Born to move, built to impress
Delivered in 2024 by Sunreef Yachts, the Polish shipyard that has become the benchmark for modern performance catamarans, she carries the structural confidence and design intelligence that the brand is known for. The 36-foot beam creates interior volumes that feel genuinely spacious, not just cleverly photographed.
What sets her apart in the Virgin Islands charter market is the combination of a fast, modern hull with an all-inclusive fee structure and a crew whose credentials go well beyond the minimum. At 68 feet, she is large enough to feel like a private vessel, compact enough to access the shallower anchorages and tucked-away bays that larger superyachts cannot reach.
The deck Jacuzzi, full air conditioning throughout, Starlink connectivity, and a 70hp Highfield Sport tender position her firmly in the premium segment - not as aspirational additions, but as standard features that guests in this market simply expect. She delivers them without fuss.
Accommodations and onboard living
Below decks, Maria Therese offers four queen-cabin staterooms, each with a private ensuite. The Sunreef 68 layout distributes the cabins evenly across both hulls, giving every couple or travelling pair genuine privacy - no shared corridors, no thin walls, no compromise. Each cabin is finished to the standard you expect from a yard building at this level: clean lines, considered proportions, and enough storage for a week-long charter without living out of a bag.
Full air conditioning runs throughout the vessel - cabins, saloon, and common areas - which matters more than it sounds when you are sleeping in the Caribbean in July. Every cabin carries its own television, and the saloon is equipped with satellite TV and a full stereo system.
The main saloon opens naturally to the cockpit, creating the flowing indoor-outdoor living that makes a well-designed catamaran feel twice its footprint. Natural light moves through the spaces easily. The galley sits close enough to the social areas that the chef remains part of the conversation without being in the middle of it.
Eight guests sleep aboard comfortably. The vessel accommodates children aged 13 and above, and guest pets are welcome - a detail that matters more than it might seem for families travelling with a dog.
Life on deck
Step outside on Maria Therese and the deck becomes your principal address. The cockpit is shaded, generous, and built around a dining table that seats the full guest complement with room to breathe. Meals served here, with an anchorage ahead and the trade winds doing their work, are the ones that guests describe months later.
The deck Jacuzzi sits where it earns its keep: accessible from the saloon, positioned for the view, and ready well before you've dried off from the morning swim. A transom shower and cockpit day head mean you never have to retreat below decks simply because you've been in the water. A beach bimini and sun awning extend the shaded zones across the deck, giving options for both sun-seekers and those who prefer to read in the shade.
Boarding is smooth - two boarding ladders and a dedicated swim platform ensure that getting in and out of the water is effortless regardless of who is aboard. The tender carries ten passengers comfortably, which means the whole group moves together to beaches, restaurants, and anchorages without staging multiple trips.
Meet the crew
The crew of Maria Therese is where this charter genuinely distinguishes itself. Four professionals, four distinct backgrounds, one shared standard of service.
Captain Samuel Marque
Samuel Marque is French, raised in Bali, and shaped by two worlds that both run on water. He came up through competitive surfing before transitioning to professional sailing - a background that gives him an unusually physical relationship with the sea and a genuine understanding of what guests feel when the conditions change. He holds a Yachtmaster Offshore certification, an Approved Engine Course (AEC1), and PADI Open Water credentials.
His charter experience runs specifically through the waters Maria Therese covers - St. Martin, the USVI, and the BVI - over three consecutive seasons. That is local knowledge acquired through repetition, not maps. Fluent in French, English, and Indonesian, Sam reads his guests as attentively as he reads the weather, and builds itineraries that feel custom-designed because they are.
Chef Joseph Wood
Joseph Wood is British, professionally trained, and brings the kind of kitchen discipline that only comes from working at pace under genuine pressure. His background spans charter yachts, live aboard dive vessels, and professional restaurant kitchens - environments where consistency is not optional and improvisation needs to produce something edible.
He handles menu planning, provisioning, and budgeting with the same precision he brings to the galley, and has cooked for up to twelve guests at a stretch without losing the quality that makes a meal memorable. His approach favours fresh, well-executed food over theatrical complexity - the kind of cooking that improves steadily across a week rather than peaking on the first night and fading.
Rico Van Rooyen — Deckhand and First Mate
Rico Van Rooyen is South African, a commercially endorsed Yachtmaster Offshore, and one of those crew members whose credentials only make sense when you understand how they were accumulated. More than 15,000 nautical miles of sea time, including an Atlantic crossing. Experience across monohulls and large catamarans. Roles spanning First Mate, Deck Engineer, and charter operations manager.
He has run extensive operations throughout the Caribbean - the same waters Maria Therese sails - managing maintenance programs, troubleshooting mechanical systems, and keeping vessels charter-ready to commercial standards. A PADI Advanced certified diver, he supports the rendezvous diving program with the confidence of someone who has spent significant time underwater. Fluent in English and Afrikaans, Rico sets the tone on deck: calm, precise, and quietly authoritative.
Elba Diaz — Stewardess
Elba Diaz is Spanish, STCW-certified, and brings a background in high-end Mediterranean yachting that is unusual in the Caribbean market — and valuable precisely because of that difference. She has worked across motor yachts from 52 to 106 feet, including Ferretti Custom Line and Mangusta models, in roles ranging from Sole Stewardess to Chief Stewardess.
Her background in interior design and event styling shapes the way she presents the vessel — the table settings, the turndowns, the small gestures that guests notice without always being able to name. Fluent in English and Spanish, Elba moves between departments without making it visible, keeping the interior polished while supporting deck operations when the itinerary demands it.
A menu worth talking about
Joseph Wood's galley programme reflects the same intelligence that runs through the rest of the vessel: thoughtful, precise, and calibrated to the guest rather than the chef's ego. The all-inclusive charter fee covers all meals, which means the menu conversation starts before you board and adapts as the week unfolds.
Breakfasts lean into the morning - fresh tropical fruits, eggs cooked to order, pastries, and cold-pressed juices that make it easy to linger over the first coffee before anyone decides what the day holds. Lunches are lighter and more spontaneous: salads with good acidity, ceviche on the days the market has cooperated, grilled fish served on the cockpit table with whatever anchorage you've found at noon.
Dinners are where Joseph's professional kitchen training shows. Expect proper plating, dishes built around two or three well-sourced ingredients rather than a long list of components, and a willingness to be told exactly what you want and deliver it. The BBQ comes out on the evenings when the setting earns it — sunset anchorages, stars appearing, the smell of something cooking over fire while someone opens a bottle from the provisioned bar.
Special dietary requirements - including vegetarian, gluten-free, and others - are accommodated with advance notice. The Revive Water filtration system means drinking water is purified and tested onboard, served in reusable bottles rather than single-use plastic.
Adventure, comfort and on-water living
The toy inventory on Maria Therese is one of the most considered in the Virgin Islands charter fleet. It is not simply a long list - it is a range of equipment that covers different guests on different days, from the couple who want to spend a morning foiling in silence to the group that wants to tube behind the tender at speed.
Water toys and equipment:
1 x Lift E-Foil V4
1 x Awake Ravik 3 Electric Surfboard
3 x Sea scooters
3 x Stand-up paddleboards
1 x Deus Aero kayak (1-person)
1 x Airhead inflatable tube (3-person)
Wakeboard
Kiteboard
Adult water skis
10 x Snorkel sets with underwater cameras
2 x 10'×10' inflatable boat docks
3 x Hangout lounges
2 x Hangout chairs
Floating mats
Fishing gear
Beach games (Bote Bag Toss, Smash Ball)
1 x Tender Highfield Sport 460 with 70hp Yamaha outboard (10-person capacity)
Scuba diving is available by rendezvous arrangement - a specialist dive operator meets the yacht at agreed locations, which means you access the best dive sites in the BVI and USVI without carrying tanks and compressors onboard.
Connectivity is handled by Starlink, satellite phone, and cell coverage, so staying in touch with the world - or choosing not to - is entirely on your terms. A gym equipment package and board games round out the quieter hours aboard.
Why MARIA THERESE stands out in the charter market
A 2024 Sunreef 68 is already a compelling proposition - the builder's reputation for structural integrity, performance, and interior finish is well established. What elevates Maria Therese is the alignment between the vessel's capabilities and the crew assembled to sail her. Captain Sam's three seasons of specific BVI and USVI charter experience, Chef Joseph's professional kitchen background, Rico's 15,000-mile credentials, and Elba's Mediterranean service standard represent a crew of unusual depth for a catamaran in this size category.
The all-inclusive rate structure, the deck Jacuzzi, the E-Foil, the Starlink connection, and the four private queen-cabin suites make Maria Therese genuinely competitive with larger, more expensive vessels. For eight guests seeking a luxury catamaran charter in the Virgin Islands that delivers on every dimension - hull, crew, food, and play - this is a yacht that holds its ground at any comparison.
Charter rates and availability
Maria Therese charters at $63,500 to $69,500 per week, All-Inclusive - covering the base charter fee, provisions, fuel, port fees, and standard gratuity considerations. She accommodates up to eight guests across four queen-cabin staterooms with a professional crew of four. The rate structure makes her one of the stronger all-inclusive values in the Virgin Islands charter fleet at this length. She operates in the Virgin Islands and St. Martin / St. Barts / Anguilla year-round, with the Grenadines added to the winter rotation - meaning the calendar fills steadily. Enquire early if your dates fall within peak season.
A luxury catamaran charter in the Virgin Islands at this level of crew depth and vessel specification is not easy to find. Maria Therese is available to book now through Ritzy Yachts. Reach out to our team to check availability and begin planning your dream vacation.
