Few would dispute the fact that looks matter in the superyacht industry. It seems to follow that if you spend millions on an aesthetically-stunning boat, you seek the right team to complement it. If crew are being hired on the basis of beauty, a healthy-looking smile will certainly help your cause as well as boost your own confidence and self esteem. But just how easy is it to look after your teeth while at sea?

“It might be because we’re British, or it may be our location within striking distance of Port Adriano, Puerto Portals and Palma, but we have a disproportionally large number of yachties on our client list,” says Howard Forge, owner of Santa Ponsa Dental Practice. “Most of them will disappear over the summer, and then reappear around now to either have a check-up or confess the dental emergencies they’ve had to ignore over peak Med season.”

“What most yachties have in common, aside from preferring to converse in the English language, is a complete absence of regular dental check-ups,” continues Howard. “The nature of their job, long seasons, last-minute changes of plan, varied geography, makes it pretty hard for them to keep a ‘normal’ check-up routine. We therefore need to handle their treatment in a slightly different manner.”

“First we make a careful honest assessment of their teeth, so far so normal, then we highlight potential problems and prioritise what treatment we can do in the short-term, and what treatment can wait until they’re next on the Island. The key word is ‘honest’ – we’ll be clear as to what needs doing now to mitigate dental disasters at sea, and what can form part of a plan for the future.”

Obvious urgents are fixing pain, caused by tooth decay or gum disease, and finding quick solutions for missing or broken teeth. Santa Ponsa Dental Practice has a team of reliable lab technicians who can fashion everything from dentures to bridges with rapid efficiency, while an onsite CEREC machine can create inlays, onlays, crowns and veneers in a single appointment.

It’s even possible to make a quick turnaround on tooth whitening, going from impressions to custom-made trays within a single day – or next day at worst – and then sending the client back to the boat with a supply of gel for safe, fast, efficient ‘home’ whitening. Unsurprisingly tooth whitening is high on the list of crew priorities, especially those who are client facing – or job hunting.

Depending on timescales and budgets, the Practice can tidy up older metal fillings with tooth-coloured composites, improve uneven teeth with contouring or reshaping, use bonding to repair chips or close spaces between teeth, or perhaps add veneers to improve particularly discoloured or misshapen teeth. There are a myriad ways to enhance a smile.

Howard finishes, “We’re well used to handling the varied insurance forms and providing the official invoices that are often needed by the yachting community, so before you shoot off for the Caribbean charter season it might be a good idea to pop in for a check-up. One yacht captain regaled me with a tale of dental treatment in the Caribbean; the surgery floor was literally littered with teeth extracted from previous customers… caveat emptor as they say.”

If you’re worried about finding a dentist ‘as good as the one you have back home’ – do give Santa Ponsa Dental Practice a try. It’s not always clear where ‘home’ is going to be for the long-term, so why not at least get your dentistry ticked off the list in Mallorca.

Contact Santa Ponsa Dental Practice on 00 34 971 694 071, hforge@santaponsadental.com, www.santaponsadental.com, or find us on Facebook.

Sarah Drane