The Australian couple on the joy of yachting Down Under on board Askari

Beautiful, woody Elettra went up for sale and, with her previous connection to yard owner Fabio Perini, for whom she was built, she was quickly snapped up. Changing boating hemispheres, shifting from sail to motor: as in many cases, it turns out there was a new arrival at the root of the couple’s decision. A miniature schnauzer, in fact. “When we decided we wanted a dog, changing to a motor yacht just made sense,” says Kerr.

Watkins elaborates with an air of mischief. “Yachts and dogs don’t really like the heeling-over business, so we had to switch. And Pete liked the move, because he didn’t keep spilling his drink!”

The son of a soldier and biologist, Malcolm Watkins spent his early years in Kenya, where he was introduced to sailing at the tender age of four in a homemade dinghy. The family returned to Perth, where he switched to Hobie Cats, but also began to enjoy the speed of motorboats. In a 5.7-meter, then a Jenks 25, he’d finish classes then head to the nearby island of Rottnest, or “Rotto” as the locals call it. “You’d shoot across there, stick it in the beach, go surfing and overnight comfortably – all in the space of 24 hours. You just can’t do that in sailing yachts.”

Since then, there’s also been a second-hand Princess 60 flybridge in Perth and a Princess 61 based out of Melbourne, for getting afloat at home when the Mediterranean was in the grip of winter. “Probably the first large motor boat I’d ever been on,” says Kerr, who grew up in Melbourne, London and Auckland and initially followed a career in global drinks logistics.

But there was a problem. “In Oz, there are longer distances between ports and cafés, so you need more on-deck space, a much larger galley and more expansive facilities,” explains Watkins.

“We wanted an entertainer’s kitchen rather than a galley – a country kitchen. And because we didn’t run crew, we didn’t want a boat where one of us was left cooking downstairs in a hole.”

“We didn’t leave Australian waters, but we cruised up to North Queensland,” continues Watkins. “It was like a different planet there. Once they’d shut the borders, it was as if Covid didn’t exist. While Boris Johnson was getting into trouble for tea parties, we were going to 500-people beach parties with DJs. We were on ‘Fugitive Jetty’ – it was always happy hour!”

Living the dream it may have been, but it seems unlikely that it was quite as carefree as Watkins suggests. After all, he was still running AFG, the home financing business that he had built from scratch with three friends from university. Now employing more than 200 people, and working with 4,000 brokers, 80 lenders, one in 10 Australian home loans goes through their books. It’s close to becoming a billion-dollar business.

AFG nearly didn’t happen at all, as Watkins trained to be a dentist. “But I decided I didn’t like looking down people’s mouths,” he says. “So me and a friend deferred all that and went travelling around the world. Both of us decided we liked sales, but when I got back I had to work for a year clearing farmland to pay off my debt.”

The two friends tried a series of sales roles: cut flowers, fax machines and, finally, insurance. And this is where something clicked for Watkins. “In 1987, we started building what is today called a general agency. Rather than selling insurance, we started recruiting agents to sell it for us, plugging in leads. We got into new customers buying houses who needed to look at life and home insurance.”

“Horizon went back to the drawing board and came back with a 31-metre. They liked it so much, they’ve used it to launch their biggest-selling boat!”

Recession in the 1990s could have derailed this burgeoning business, as interest rates spiked above 20 per cent, but Watkins and his friend-turned-business-partner performed a neat pivot to stay ahead. “People couldn’t buy houses, so we turned our minds to managing the financing process and affording the house, as well as the lifestyle protection components.”

So, although AFG depends as a business on people being able to go outside and move house, it has weathered economic storms before, and has even come through Covid stronger, according to the balance sheet. Watkins and Kerr, meanwhile, came through the pandemic wanting a new, larger yacht.

There was one other thing that the couple wanted, and that initially proved controversial: Kerr wanted to design the interior himself. “I had just finished designing our last home – a dream house in Melbourne, before Covid hit. There was pushback [from Horizon], but after seeing what I’d done in different houses, they accepted it.”

They needn’t have worried, as Kerr has a string of luxury home designs behind him in Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Airlie Beach, and a booming order book. In fact, he notes wryly: “Ocean Alexander just launched one of their latest yachts using the exact same wood and stone combination that I chose for Askari!”

The result is modern, but relaxed; a beach house where experienced ownership is visible.“I kept the colour neutral because when we’re sailing, there are floor-to-ceiling windows and the sea is the deco,” says Kerr. There are still some surprising touches and bursts of energetic colour. The main saloon has a wool rug with an abstract pattern in navy and sky blues with elements of almost fluorescent lime. Scatter cushions throughout the boat pick up the theme, and there’s a lot of handblown glass in the numerous light fittings. Kerr has also used low-profile Samsung Frame TVs throughout the boat to display changeable art.

“A lot of boats have too much wood, so we found this beautiful linen-look wallpaper for the high-traffic areas, which is actually vinyl, but looks like paper,” Kerr continues. “For the saloon couch, I used indoor-outdoor fabric in a dark colour, so when the dogs are coming off the beach and you don’t catch them quickly enough, it doesn’t show up. We’re not too precious – Askari looks great, but it’s not like you’re living in a dolls house!”

There’s a whimper from one of the dogs, who has been watching the interview from a corner. That’s Rudi, I discover, companion to Heidi. It’s as if they’re agreeing with Kerr, giving their approval to the design of the new boat. With Askari meaning “warrior” in Swahili and the 11-metre chase boat Melinzi evoking a “chaperone”, the dogs and their owners are going to be in very good hands as they criss-cross the Pacific islands.

First published in the July 2023 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.