Podcast
Ellie Malouf on Running the World’s Number One Digital Platform for Yacht Charterers
Ahoy Club CEO, Ellie Malouf, joins Steve on the latest episode of Give It A Nudge to talk about running the #1 digital platform for yacht charterers.
About the guest
Ellie Malouf
CEO at Ahoy Club
Ellie Malouf is the CEO of Ahoy Club, an online marketplace for yacht charters with more than 4,000 vessels listed across every major sailing destination in the world. She launched the platform in May 2018, drawing on a background that runs from selling bin bags door-to-door in her family’s waste management business, through running her own brokerage, to building a technology platform that brought transparency and digital infrastructure to one of the most glamorous but operationally analogue industries in the world.
Episode overview
Ellie Malouf joined Steve Grace on Give It A Nudge to share the story of Ahoy Club, the online marketplace she built to bring the yacht charter industry into the digital age. The conversation covers her journey from door-to-door bin bag sales to closing the fastest superyacht deal in Monaco Boat Show history, why the yacht charter industry was ripe for disruption, how the company handled COVID avalanche bookings in the Mediterranean, and where Ahoy Club is heading next with offices in Sydney, the south of France, and soon the US.
From bin bags to superyachts
Ellie’s career began in her family’s waste management business, knocking on doors selling household bin bags, which she credits for teaching her the fundamentals of sales and persistence. She later moved into the customer service function and then shadowed her father as managing director. After years on the charter industry as a customer and then as a broker running her own business, the inefficiencies were impossible to ignore.
“Prior to Ahoy Club this didn’t exist. You could go online and find maybe 10 vessels or up to 50 vessels on a website, whereas we have provided another level of access to customers. They can browse a worldwide fleet in any yachting destination around the world.”
Ellie Malouf 1:00
Building a marketplace in an analogue industry
The yacht charter industry ran on pen, paper, and spreadsheets when Ahoy Club launched in 2018. Contracts were still printed documents. Preference sheets for charter provisioning were Word documents emailed back and forth. Ahoy Club built the technology infrastructure that the industry had never had: digital contracts, centralised sourcing, a customer dashboard, and eventually AI-driven matching across its 4,000-vessel inventory.
The 72-hour superyacht sale at Monaco
Ahoy Club achieved the fastest superyacht sale in Monaco Boat Show history, completing the transaction on a 73-metre vessel in 72 hours. Ellie credits the company’s focus on transparency, speed, and digital contract efficiency for making a deal that would typically take weeks happen in three days. She notes that the company generally doesn’t disclose sale prices, keeping to its philosophy of client discretion.
“We did the fastest superyacht sale of all time at the Monaco Boat Show in 2019. A 73-metre yacht sold in 72 hours.”
Ellie Malouf 26:00
COVID and the booking avalanche
When COVID hit in March 2020, the Mediterranean season evaporated. But by July 1st, with European borders reopening, last-minute bookings flooded in. Ahoy Club had developed the sales infrastructure to absorb that surge quickly. The same pattern repeated in Sydney: lockdown, then an avalanche of demand the moment restrictions lifted. The lesson was to always be ready for the rebound, not just the crisis.
“Come July there was so many last-minute bookings. We were kind of like, wow. And then come Sydney summer we were really prepped for that for the avalanche.”
Ellie Malouf 21:00
Key takeaways
Chapters
0:00Introduction and Ahoy Club overview 5:00From bin bags to boats: Ellie’s career story 10:00The brokerage experience and discovering the industry’s inefficiencies 14:00Catering, crewing, and the Sydney charter market 16:00Onboarding 4,000 vessels and dock walking at Monaco 19:00Starting in the UK and moving headquarters back to Australia 21:00COVID bookings surge in the Mediterranean and Sydney 24:00Global expansion: France, the US, and the Caribbean 26:00The 72-hour Monaco superyacht sale 29:00Beliefs, habits, and the book Delivering Happiness 33:00Why join Ahoy Club
Mentioned in this episode
Frequently asked questions
What is Ahoy Club?
Ahoy Club is an online marketplace for yacht charters with more than 4,000 vessels listed across every major sailing destination worldwide. It offers day charters on Sydney Harbour from around $2,000 as well as superyacht charters in the Mediterranean at up to two million euros per week, and offers a discount of up to 30 percent on superyacht bookings compared to traditional brokerages.
How did Ahoy Club get so many vessels listed so quickly?
Rather than approaching individual boat owners one by one, Ahoy Club focused on the roughly 300 major brokerages that typically manage fleets of between one and 100 vessels. That B2B focus allowed them to scale from 2,000 to 4,000-plus vessels without having to negotiate with thousands of individual owners.
What makes Ahoy Club different from existing charter brokerages?
Traditional charter brokerages are fragmented, analogue, and opaque. Ahoy Club brought digital contracts, centralised sourcing from a single platform, full pricing transparency, and a client-facing dashboard that replaced the emailed Word documents and spreadsheets that defined the pre-2018 industry experience.
Where does Ahoy Club operate?
Ahoy Club is headquartered in Sydney’s Double Bay with an office in Golfe-Juan on the French Riviera and expansion into the US underway. The majority of its charter volume comes from the Mediterranean, with the Caribbean and American markets being the next strategic priority.
What happened to Ahoy Club during COVID?
The 2020 Mediterranean season was largely cancelled, but when European borders reopened in July, last-minute bookings flooded in. Ahoy Club had built the operational infrastructure to absorb that surge and repeated the same ready-for-rebound approach ahead of the Sydney summer season.
Topics discussed
Full transcript
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Show full transcript (35 minutes, 8 sections)
0:00 Introduction and Ahoy Club overview
Steve Grace welcomes Ellie Malouf and she introduces Ahoy Club: an online marketplace for yachting with 4,000-plus vessels, a worldwide footprint, and a discount model that saves customers up to 30 percent on superyacht charters compared to traditional brokerage pricing.
5:00 From bin bags to boats
Ellie traces her career from door-to-door bin bag sales in the family waste management business, through the customer service centre and shadowing her father as managing director, to studying a business degree at UTS and eventually launching her own yacht brokerage called Luxury Marine Charters before founding Ahoy Club.
10:00 Discovering the industry’s inefficiencies
Working as a broker gave Ellie a view of the industry from the supply side. She found that even trying to deliver a premium service was hampered by a lack of technology: printed contracts, Word document preference sheets, and no digital infrastructure for the world’s most luxury-facing travel category.
14:00 Catering, crew, and the Sydney market
The pair discuss the food and beverage and crew side of Sydney charters, the 200-person capacity of harbour vessels (unique in the world), and the rapid catch-up underway in Australian waters as more superyachts arrive from the Mediterranean for the local summer season.
16:00 Onboarding 4,000 vessels and dock walking
Ellie explains the onboarding strategy: targeting the roughly 300 major brokerages managing fleets of up to 100 vessels, combined with dock walking at Monaco to build direct relationships. The bulk of the platform’s growth came from B2B relationships with those brokerages rather than vessel-by-vessel owner outreach.
19:00 Starting in the UK and moving home
Ahoy Club originally headquartered in the UK to be close to the Mediterranean market. But culture, alignment, and technology suffered from the geographic split. Ellie moved everything back to Sydney, which gave the business the stable foundation it needed before re-expanding into France and planning US entry.
21:00 COVID and the rebound
COVID cancelled the 2020 Mediterranean season but produced a surge of last-minute bookings the moment borders reopened. Ahoy Club used lockdown periods to build the team and focus on the local market, so that when demand returned they were operationally ready to absorb it.
29:00 Habits, beliefs, and why join Ahoy Club
Ellie discusses reading more during lockdown, her habit of documenting insights in OneNote, and the culture book she created from Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness. She closes by describing Ahoy Club as a business where no day is the same, disruption is ongoing, and the yachting industry’s multiple verticals offer enormous room to grow for the right people.
About the host
Steve Grace is the founder and CEO of The Nudge Group, a technology-focused recruitment and advisory business. He has built and scaled companies across Australia and the US, and hosts Give It A Nudge to spotlight founders and operators building something meaningful.
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