Nick almost crapped his pants when I suggested it for the first time.
“We can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
Why not indeed. And so we did it. In November 2023, we announced on our YouTube channel that anyone who booked their bareboat with us was going to get their boat charter FOR FREE… What the hell were we thinking?!
Let’s go back a few years….
Where 45D started
We started with Premium Sailing Holidays. Focusing on hosting, zoning in on each experience and doing everything ourselves. There was no tidy, well laid-out plan. We made everything up as we went along and boy was it a steep learning curve! This was the life that Nick and Māhina loved and it was looking to be something we could all be genuinely proud of.
Then COVID hit and the everything changed.
Our world was turned upside down. Here we were, four foreigners in an industry based on tourists that weren’t allowed to travel in a country that wasn’t our own. We couldn’t even get back to our own country if we had wanted to.
So we pivoted. “Business mode” became “survival mode” and we got creative. We tried new things, some stuck and some we left back in 2020/21. Again, the learning curves were STEEP. It was becoming a defining feature of 45D. We didn’t have the luxury of being precious about what we thought our business was supposed to be because we just had to keep moving and pivoting.
2022: Travelling brought people back to Croatia
With the opening of 2022, we started to get interest in our Premium Tours again. And it wasn’t just our Premium Tours people were interested in. People began coming to us asking us about chartering yachts.
Now, this was something we never set out to do. Our experience in the charter industry was as bareboat charter clients, chartering boats from charter companies and running the trips ourselves. We didn’t want to function like other agencies, cold selling yachts they knew nothing about for commission. And yet it began to dawn upon us that this put us in a very unique position.
We could use our experience to help people find yachts with companies that we had come to know and trust. We knew the pressure points and jargon involved in the chartering process and we figured out that we could provide great support and advice, because we had been there. In fact, we were here the whole time: before COVID, during and now post-COVID.
Sailing the Adriatic, learning the weather patterns, chartering different yachts, dealing with different charter companies and building relationships with some amazing people running high-quality operations. We were on the ground IN Croatia, not clicking tick boxes on a computer in another country or continent!
2023: The comment that changed everything
“If we knew you organised charters, we would have come to you!”
So, we started talking about this new direction in our marketing. In emails, in our social media and in Youtube videos. And as typical Kiwi’s, it wasn’t loud enough.
Over and over again, clients were coming to us AFTER they had booked their boat because they had no clue they could book it through us. Our YouTube channel said “Premium Tours”, not “Let us book your charter!”.
If this was the direction we were headed in, we needed to stop being shy about it and figure out how to shout it from the rooftops!
So we brainstormed. And brainstormed. AND BRAINSTORMED.
The WILD idea
The brainstorming sessions were, in true 45D style, a family affair.
We started off cautious… and nothing ‘safe’ was going to cut it.
The charter market is LOUD and BRIGHT. Everyone says the same things: That they’re the best. That they have the greatest deals. It’s hard for prospective clients to know who’s real, who is local and who will be there for them when the wind changes or something breaks.
Conversations like these had us coming back to our core 45D values: Transparency. Trust. Generosity. Boldness. Values that we think are impossible to fake. So, we “put our money where our mouth is”. Literally.
We wanted to reward those who booked with us, the ones who put their trust in us, the new kids on the block. They believed in us and we wanted to give back. So, we started putting it out there.
We jumped online and made videos about it. The more we talked about it, the more real it became. Anyone who would listen to us would hear us talk about this wild idea we had:
Let’s have a draw and give away a charter FOR FREE!
The LIVE draw
Nick was nervous as hell. There was no turning back after the LIVE video draw. Bold was the name of the game and so we made an event of it.
Giveaways of flags, merch and other freebies made it more fun and less nerve-wracking. And you know what helped hugely? Our 45D community who showed up, watched from the start to the end, and interacted in a big way!
The first winners that year were caught totally unaware. He said he thought he had won a t-shirt and was totally blown away at what the prize actually was. Even after we told him he didn’t believe it until the money was in the bank. Only then did the penny drop!
For us too, that’s the moment the whole thing clicked: this wasn’t just “marketing”. It became a shared community event. Something people looked forward to. Something they told friends about. Something that made the upcoming season feel a bit more exciting for all of us.
And it officially became a 45D tradition.
So we’re doing it again!
2026 marks the third year we have run this draw. The same 45D values apply. And the criteria has changed… For the better!
This year, we’re committed to giving up to €5,000 back to one charterer who has booked through us. And the best part is, it’s not limited to just bareboat charterers anymore.
Whether you’re:
– a confident sailor going bareboat,
– a crew who wants the ease of a skippered charter,
– or you’re going all-in on a fully hosted crewed charter,
if you have booked through the team@45D BEFORE the 31st of February, then you automatically go into the draw to win!
We’ll be running the draw the same way we always do it: LIVE, PUBLIC, and candid. Everyone who charters with us during the entry window is in(details below). Winners will be drawn at random live on the 45D YouTube channel in 2026 with the date/time TBA on our channels and emailed to eligible entrants. And of course, the replay as well as a list of the winners will be published afterwards to keep everything transparent.
So, there is only one question left – ARE YOU IN TO WIN?!
YES – Fantastic see you at the LIVE DRAW
NO – Click here and let’s start planning your charter today!
