The Berthon Sales Group remains open, working within the market place and observing COVID-19 best practices for the safety of our clients and our staff. In some cases, we are working remotely but we are all here and look forward to hearing from you during this difficult time – in all five international offices.
As an international brokerage sales group, offering a truly local and personal service in all our locations, below is a short description of the restrictions in operation in each of our offices. We will be updating this information regularly.
In locations where yacht viewings are permitted – these are carried out following these protocols –
The UK enters a month’s lockdown on November 5th, normally better known as Guy Fawkes’ Night. During this period, the UK Sales team will be working, and the office will be manned although not open to clients. More of the team will be working from home than normal during this period. Our friends at Berthon Boat Company and Berthon Lymington Marina will also be working. As travel is not permitted in the UK over this period, except when essential, we will not be seeing clients on site or aboard yachts, but are of course always on hand for FaceTime viewings and also to do what we love best – chatting about yachts by phone, email, WhatsApp, Skype or Microsoft Teams etc.
Non-essential shops reopening – meaning we can have customers coming in the office; with a restriction of 1 person per 8 square meters (3 people max are allowed inside our office). We are not sure yet if we are allowed to make visits on-board boats. We can’t wait to know the new rules! Bars and restaurants remain closed. A further update should happen on December 15th.
Västra Götaland, the area in Sweden that includes the island of Orust and surrounding cities such as Göteborg, Uddevalla and Trollhättan, has increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases now and is therefore under special restriction, valid until at least the 19th of November. At Berthon Scandinavia, we continue to work as we have done since the early spring. We avoid unnecessary meetings with others, thus, we are working remotely and our office is manned by one person. We are delighted to carry out video-based viewings instead of in person viewings which are not so practical at the moment.
We can do live viewings if the client is Covid negative. When we do real viewings, we do not shake hands, we keep our distance and we do not accompany our clients down below.
Life in the lovely Balearics continues without too much disruption. We have all got very used to wearing masks of course, ours have Berthon branding on, keeping our safe distances and working behind Perspex screens in the office. Clients continue to invest in their yachts as we all keep our fingers crossed for a stronger season next year. Whilst mainland Spain suffers a little more than we do, we feel confident in the government’s current approach to only restrict movement of municipalities where the virus is worse.
For yacht sales, our biggest issue is of course the inability of clients generally to travel freely. The summer was quite busy and successful – largely because clients could come here (and other locations) to see yachts. That is harder now. However, some clients have been willing to buy without seeing first hand – only by video, Zoom, survey, third party inspection, and we are delighted to help with any of these mediums.
Rhode Island is currently going through a surge in COVID-19 positive cases and as a result is entering a two week ‘pause’ from next Monday 30th. Here are the state guidelines for the next 2 weeks: https://reopeningri.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ReopeningRI-Pause-guidelines-v-F-1.pdf.
This means our office may not be continually manned for the next 2 weeks – per Rhode Islands rules. Customers should call ahead to confirm. Our phones will be routed to the brokers individually, of course. We can still show boats virtually, and while non-state residents may have a harder time traveling to Rhode Island due to quarantine restrictions, we are still available to show boats in a safe manner.
With fair winds from the whole Berthon Team – who are keeping calm and carrying on! Please stay safe and well.
