As with many of life’s great adventure stories, it all started with backpacking.
Kevin Corcoran first fell in love with Asia in 1984, following 18 months backpacking from Japan to India. Fast forward a few decades to 2017, and, after a successful international business career where he specialised in medical device product development, Kevin retired at 50 and founded Coral Triangle Safaris, based in Indonesia.
Now celebrating its eighth year in operation, the flagship of the fleet is S/Y Sequoia, a traditional, two-masted wooden sailing vessel (‘phinisi’), from which Kevin and his business partner and wife, Yessi Sari, run sea safari charter experiences. On board any Sequioa yacht charter, guests can enjoy the incredible 5,000km of the Indonesian archipelago – an area so rich in biodiversity that this particular 1.6% of the ocean is home to 80% of all of the world’s reef fish.
Here, Kevin tells us all about life on board this beautifully curated wooden vessel, the value of keeping it authentic, and that, if the food’s not getting standing ovations from his guests, it’s simply not up to scratch.
What do your guests most enjoy about their Sequoia yacht charter?
Aside from the beautiful onboard environment we have created, where guests frequently tell us, ‘I never knew a wooden boat could be this comfortable and sophisticated’, nothing beats the scuba diving we offer. It is better than any psychological therapy you’re going to have – you go down there, and you are surrounded by all these brilliant schools of reef fish. Your senses are so over-saturated with all the colours, and it is beyond anything I can explain.
We had a recent client who went out paddleboarding and would go out for five or six hours at a time. Obviously, our crew was following him the whole time for safety, but he just couldn’t believe it, being the only person in the water for millions of acres. I don’t think there is anything else in the world to match those two experiences.
Why is it important to you to employ Indonesian crew?
Let’s be honest, no one who is travelling all this way for a charter, spending their precious time off with their family and going to an exotic country wants to be met by an American. They want a cultural experience that matches where they are going, so that’s a major factor in us employing Indonesian crew for our Sequoia yacht charter.
It’s also great because of the opportunities we can offer to local crew, and the salaries are unmatched by any other boats in the area. Most of them are from the island of Sulawesi and are usually Bugis because they are skilled sailors. We’ve found some fantastic employees – we’ve got one co-captain who started working for us when he was very young. He was sweeping up sawdust as we built up the boat, and he’s now piloting it and being paid 50 times what he was before.
In your opinion, what makes a charter holiday different to a typical luxury hotel stay?
It is the means of transport. Basically, you’re on a life-sustaining platform that’s giving you flotation, housing, food, hygiene, and everything you could possibly need, and taking you to some of the most stunning and remote places in the world. Effectively, your Sequoia yacht charter takes place on board an ultra-luxurious, floating Swiss chalet.
It also provides an environment where all of the normal stresses go away, so people can be more themselves with their family and spend quality time with them. There’s no constant social media, there aren’t boyfriends constantly calling, there are none of those distractions. They are all sitting around the dinner table and talking about the amazing experiences they’ve had, like being back in the 1950s – it’s a bit of a time warp! Of course, they’re families, so they will have little arguments but I know that this experience is so valuable to guests because they get to enjoy more quality time on this sea safari than they’re going to have for the rest of their lives, say for example, if their kids are about to go to college.
What are some of the best experiences your guests have enjoyed on their Sequoia yacht charters?
The sheer number of things to experience in this region is just incredible. People particularly love being able to see animals in their natural environment, whether it’s watching the Wilson’s bird of paradise, swimming with 40-tonne whale sharks, hanging out with manta rays or seeing the walking shark at the bottom of the ocean – a shark which actually walks to propel itself. I could go on and on, but there is just so much and so many beautiful creatures to see.
Finally, tell us about the food on board S/Y Sequoia
The food has to be six-star, out of this world. It can’t just be good, it needs to be: ‘Oh my God, I never knew this even existed. This is insane.’ I want them to think, ‘I am in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on this beautiful wooden boat in 12 million hectares of marine park, and I am somehow drinking the best wine and eating the best food’. Let’s be honest, for a holiday, does it get any better than this?
Built on experience
What comes through most clearly, speaking to Kevin, is that Sequoia is not a concept designed to fit a market, but something built from a life already lived. From backpacking across Asia in the 1980s to creating a yacht that now moves slowly through the Indonesian archipelago, a Sequoia yacht charter is a project shaped by time, experience and a very clear point of view. One that prioritises authenticity, detail and a kind of quiet ambition to do things properly, or not at all.
That’s what makes a Sequoia yacht charter feel different. Not just the setting, or the diving, or even the food that clearly matters so much, but the fact that everything has been considered, refined and held to a standard that isn’t driven by scale.
In a region as vast and varied as Indonesia, that kind of approach stands out. And for those looking for a more immersive kind of luxury yacht charter in Indonesia, it offers something increasingly rare: a sense that you are experiencing a place through someone who genuinely knows and cares about it.
S/Y Sequoia is currently available for charter with Pelorus Yachting.
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