Michelle Pritts Sells Yachts by Selling Trust First
A Royal Yacht International broker who taught herself to sail in San Francisco Bay and once ran her own boat in Puerto Rico argues the hardest part of the job was never the technical side.
A woman in a green dress standing on a Cranchi motor yacht as it speeds across a lake beneath mountains · Photo: Ivan Genasi
Michelle Pritts came to yacht brokerage sideways — through fashion modeling, software, nonprofit work, and a run of entrepreneurial ventures — before landing at Royal Yacht International (RYI), the Monaco-based brokerage where she now connects US clients with yacht markets and destinations across RYI's offices in Monaco, Miami, Dubai and St. Barth.
Her feel for boats predates the career pivot. She learned to sail in San Francisco Bay, a body of water known for punishing rather than forgiving new sailors, and later ran her own boat in Puerto Rico, which meant handling crew, finances and vessel operations firsthand rather than through a broker's remove. She also rebuilt her career from scratch in her mid-20s, after a traumatic life event, which shows up in how she talks about the work now.
Her pitch to clients is less about specs than about confidence under pressure: technical knowledge gets a broker in the room, but resilience and quick decision-making are what actually close a sale that's ultimately, in her framing, “an experience, a lifestyle, and a relationship” built on trust rather than a transaction. Practically, that means pairing digital sales tools with the kind of hands-on, certified expertise that software alone can't replace.
She's also become something of a reference point for women weighing a similar leap into an industry that skews heavily male. “Once you stop listening to the voices telling you what you cannot do,” she says, “you will realize the doors were never really locked.”
