New England

Newport, Rhode Island, hosted the America's Cup defence for 53 consecutive years between 1930 and 1983, the longest streak any single venue has had. The New York Yacht Club lost the cup in Newport that year, to the Australian challenger Australia II, after holding it for 132 years. Newport remains the centre of American yacht racing, and a New England charter usually starts there before working north into the more remote and beautiful half of the region.

That northern half is Maine. Penobscot Bay, halfway up the coast, is one of the great cruising grounds in the United States, with around 200 islands packed into a thirty-mile-wide bay. The harbour towns along it (Camden, Rockland, Castine) keep their working-fishing-village identity even as they have become summer homes for the East Coast yachting families, and Acadia National Park, on Mount Desert Island just north of Penobscot, is the only place on the eastern seaboard where the mountains drop directly into the sea. Lobster shacks line the coast, and the typical New England charter dinner is grilled lobster eaten on the beach with corn on the cob.

The season is short and concentrated, late June to early September, before the fog and the chill set in. Most charters pick up in Newport for a week-long Newport-to-Mount-Desert run, or pick up in Boston for the more inclusive ten-day version. New England works as the summer alternative for clients who have done the Mediterranean repeatedly and want something quieter, and it is a particular favourite with North American families looking to charter without crossing an ocean.