Kochi : Kerala backwaters, famous for their scenic beauty, snake boat races and huge houseboats, offer you something more these days – a leisure ride on yachts.

The increasing popularity of leisure boating in the state has opened up new opportunities for tour managers to introduce yachts to attract as many tourists as possible, industry officials say.

 

“Spending a weekend on a boat, with a little fishing and barbeques on board, is slowly becoming an accepted norm these days,” said Mr Mathew Cherian, president of Nautilus Yachts, a Kochi-based yacht-manufacturing company with a boatyard in Thailand.

 

He added that in Kerala, “any boat bigger than 30 feet with cabins would qualify as a yacht”, while the super-yachts in the US and Europe will be more than 50 feet in length and will cost millions.

 

Nautilus is building high-powered air-conditioned single cabin boats of 16 feet that cost Rs 1-2 million as well as ones costing more than Rs 20 million with more cabins and electronic fish-finders.

 

Cherian said the demand for private high-speed boats was going up in Kerala as more and more Keralites were getting attracted to leisure boating. Moreover, the tourism authorities are taking steps to boost backwater tourism in the state.

 

The Kerala tourism development corporation has announced it will set up a ‘marina’ at the Bolghatty isle in Kochi to solve the problem of parking of yachts and boats. A marina is a sheltered harbour where boats and yachts are kept in the water.

 

This will be the first ever marina in the country. Although Mumbai and Goa are the primary spots for yachts, there are no marinas at both places.

 

“With land prices riding high in Mumbai, it is not surprising,” said Mr Joe Nejedly, an expert in yacht manufacturing and owner of praga marine, based in Coimbatore.