J Craft Owners' Tales: Anya Brunander

Anyone who comes to our house will see a pretty big clue as to how much our J Craft has become part of the family. We are not the sort of people to routinely have artworks done of ourselves, but after my husband sat next to the artist Lars Physant at a dinner, who was commissioned by the Danish National Museum to paint the portrait of Margrethe II, he decided to get a family portrait done. A couple of years later, our third daughter arrived and when she was old enough to notice she started to ask where she was in the painting.

So my husband got back in touch with Lars and said we needed a picture of all of us together. We decided the best setting would be on our J Craft. Poor Lars had to balance on a dinghy behind the boat, no mean feat, and the result, with the three girls on the yellow-and-white sun deck, hangs in our entrance hall.

Our Torpedo is called BABEBI after our three daughters – an acronym using their initials. They are now six, nine and 11 years old, and the importance of our J Craft to them can be seen in the way they relate to it. It’s definitely part of our family – the children really identify with their summers on the boat. My little one will even talk about things that are for all three of them as being “BABEBI”. Like, ‘Mommy, it’s a BABEBI muffin.’ And now we are opening a hotel, she recently asked: ‘Oh, Mommy, can we make a flavour of ice-cream for the hotel called the “BABEBI” ice-cream, which is going to be our favourite flavour?’

For the kids the boat has been a revelation, and we’ve shared wonderful experiences as a family on our Torpedo. Radenko Milakovic, who owns the Swedish company that makes J Craft, talks about how he is in the business of making memories, and I completely agree. In fact, the way he uses his boat with his family has been something of an example to us.

One of the peculiarities of a J Craft is that it is so easy to use. Often the kids will take over. I’ve got so many photos where the kids are sailing the boat – so when we go out, often my 11-year-old will happily sail half the way, no problem. And even the six-year-old will have a go – with us right there with her, of course. It’s unlike other boats; it’s very easy, partly because you’re steering with a steering wheel and it feels a bit like being in a car.

And it always feels so safe. Even when we’re travelling at speed, BABEBI feels safe. That feeling comes from how stably it sits in the water. You can lie on the back while sailing quite choppy seas and you don’t fly about because it sits so steadily. I know the technology is there to keep us all safe, which of course is the most important thing. So we can enjoy the thrill of travelling together with full confidence.

But the charm of BABEBI is that as a family, it really feels like it is ours. My husband and I have had many boats, including larger boats demanding crew. I hated that because you felt that every time you came on your boat you had to deal with HR! You couldn’t go into the galley and make your own meal because the chef would get offended. I didn’t feel you could ever just be alone.

So when you hop onto a J Craft like BABEBI for the first time, you realise you’re so close to the water, with your close family. I think that’s what we missed on bigger boats. If, like my husband and I, you travel a lot and maybe don’t see your kids all the time, you really value just being with your family. So to be on board, just us and no crew, that was magical. We even had the shipyard install an induction plate on the deck so I can make the kids pasta with ketchup at 6pm – so that we can stay out on the water later; because that’s the best time of the day. We often stay out until sunset, but they get hungry, so our tradition is to make pasta and ketchup on board.

We keep BABEBI in the South of France. A typical family day would be where we take the boat from where it is docked to a bay nearby – Paloma Beach has long been a favourite, and was actually where we saw our first J Craft. We’ll anchor, swim, go on shore to a restaurant, maybe invite friends to be with us. It’s not a huge boat, but there always seems to be plenty of room, even for some toys like an underwater scooter. But children don’t need much.

Ours started using the passerelle as a diving board, which was fun. But I’m afraid they were a little too enthusiastic and must have jumped on it 1,000 times. So they broke it! We got it fixed and they are more careful now. They just play around and are happy in and out of the water. And if I want to escape, I’ll go downstairs into the cabin; I think it’s super cosy down there. The kids keep little things in those cupboards, too, which is cute.

We have often slept overnight on BABEBI, too. I love that idea. Either we just go out and then come back and up to the house for the day, or we’ll do a little trip. So we’ll get the duvets from the house and some snacks, and we’ll head off and go to St Tropez and have one night there on the boat. BABEBI can accommodate all five of us. There’s the cabin at the front and then where the table is on the deck, that can transform into a bed. My husband and I sleep there and the kids are underneath the prow. We just have our duvets and it’s cosy.

We’re not campers, but we love that feeling of freedom. We did a great trip last summer, which is probably my best memory of time on the boat. The sea was calm, and we took the duvets just in case, not knowing what the weather would bring, and we headed off. I think I had one pair of underwear each for the kids and that was it. We ended up getting a spot in Cannes Harbour, and because you’re on the Côte d’Azur, wherever you’re going to go you can get a restaurant. And you can buy things in the pharmacy like toothbrushes, and you can buy clothes. The kids loved it, because everywhere we went we got new clothes as we were running out!

It was fantastic. We did Cannes, and we did St Tropez for a few nights, and we went on to the Île de Porquerolles, where they have this beautiful contemporary art museum, the Fondation Carmignac. It was a complete adventure. We had no plan, and we just went. We discovered lots of places further afield that we hadn’t been to. With children and a family things can become quite regimented. You know, you don’t like to head off on a holiday without having a hotel booked when you have kids. But this time, for the kids it was great because when they said, ‘Mom, what’s the plan?’ I could say, ‘There is none. We’re just going to go; we’re going to sail!’

My husband loves the boat too, of course, and a mark of this is that he hasn’t sold it. What attracted him to the J Craft was the craftsmanship and technical proficiency. Any hiccups and he can be found in the engine room enjoying tweaking it while on the phone to Johan, J Craft’s master builder. In fact, we’ve just bought a second one for the hotel we are opening this summer in Denmark, for the use of the guests. I say this because although I run my own business, my husband’s the one who is the real dealmaker. He tends to buy and sell a lot of things. He’ll typically buy a boat, and the next day it’ll be sold and he’s got something else. Or he’ll buy a car and then say, ‘Oh, no, I’ve sold that one, it’s gone; I’ve got another one…’ So I would never have normally done this, but with our J Craft I really feel this is a boat we want to have forever. So I dared to name it after our girls.

I knew straight away that any other boat would have been in danger of being sold at some point, but this is the kind of boat which will still look great in 20 years. I think it’s such a brilliant concept. Because any modern-looking boat, in 20 years’ time no kid is going to want to go sail that one, because that’s just going to look awful. Whereas a J Craft can be maintained and renewed inside and out and won’t date.

That’s important for our kids; I truly think – I wish, I hope – that our kids will have BABEBI in the future and they’ll take it out for a spin with their friends.

But BABEBI’s aesthetic is also important for them now. Because the J Craft is a kind of quiet luxury; it’s understated. If you’re on a big, fancy yacht, chances are no one talks to you – when you’re in a harbour on a big boat, the owners don’t really talk to each other. But when you’re in a Torpedo, people will come up to you and they’ll give you a thumbs up. They pass you in their dinghy, or even in their mega yachts, and they’ll give you a thumbs up. They’re friendly. They’re not intimidated. They admire it – they’re admiring the shape, the looks and the craftsmanship. Also, in the harbours, you’re in the smaller part, with the smaller sailing yachts. And yacht people are friendly. They talk to you. And for our children, I want them to see that.

In the end, I suppose the real value to us as a family is that BABEBI not only helps us make memories together, but also offers some very important continuity. We are people who are likely to live in different places, so the kids are not going to have that forever home. And we certainly might sell a summer house, buy a new one or not have one at all. So we’re never going to have that one place. But we’ll always have our J Craft. It’s our one thing as a family that they can count on being there. And that’s invaluable.