About Sailorsbreeze
Four yachts, two founders, one corner of the Ionian
Our Journey
Founded by a skipper and one of his guests
Sailorsbreeze started the way most good partnerships do — slowly, and more or less by accident.
Potis had been sailing since before he could properly reach the winches. He spent twenty years as a charter and base manager, running other people's fleets out of Corfu — two decades of learning which parts of this business go wrong, and why.
David was one of his customers. An American banker who sailed for the love of it, he chartered season after season from the base Potis ran. Over enough weeks in the Ionian you learn exactly what someone is made of — how they handle a boat, and how they handle a problem at eight in the evening with the wind across the quay. By the time the two of them sat down to talk about starting something, the due diligence had already been done, on the water, over several years.
David backed it with his own money and bought Amfitriti and Ariadne outright. Potis built the operation around those two boats and brought Alfa and Asjemenou into the fleet under management for their owners.
That is still the whole company. Four yachts at D-Marin Gouvia Marina, two founders, and technical cover at Preveza and Gaios for when you are further south.
We have never wanted forty boats. With four, we know each one — which locker the spare impeller lives in, which winch was stripped in February, which keel suits which anchorage. That is not something a large fleet can honestly claim, and it is the whole reason to charter from us instead of them.
We sail the northern Ionian. We don't claim to know the Aegean, because we don't sail there.
The two of us
Who you're sailing with
Potis Theofilakos
Co-founder · Charter manager
An IT professional by trade and a sailor by inclination, Potis spent twenty years as a charter and base manager before co-founding Sailorsbreeze. Two decades of running other people's fleets is how he knows precisely which parts of this business go wrong, and how far in advance you can see it coming. He answers the enquiries, runs the winter maintenance programme with our technical team, and skippers through the summer. If you write to Sailorsbreeze, he is the one who writes back.
David McRae
Co-founder
David came to Sailorsbreeze as a customer. He chartered from Potis for years before the two of them started anything together — a longer and more honest look at a business than most partners ever get. A banker by career and American by passport, he backed the company by buying Amfitriti and Ariadne outright. He is over from the States for three or four weeks each season, sailing with guests or with his own family, on whichever boat is free.