Messing about in boats. On deck, it�s cold and wet even when its warm and sunny. Below, is a landscape of contrived discomfort and endless opportunities for banging your head.

Messing about in boats. On deck, it's cold and wet even when its warm and sunny. Below, is a landscape of contrived discomfort and endless opportunities for banging your head. A cramped and tossing womb suffused with an olfactory extravaganza redolent of fuel oil, cooking gas, wet wool and lavvy-san.

Marvellous. Poetic, even.

In fact, for the cool sum of £2000 a day, you can soak it up at any anchorage ... from the quarterdeck of the Louise of Granton, as you look down on the bobbing yachts and their stoic crews ... while sipping your Krug from crystal flutes, and contemplating a buffet of fresh salmon, cold cuts and Mediterranean salad with couscous.

Of course, watching how the poor people sail is just one of the many diversions to be sampled on a trip aboard the lovely Louise.

As already mentioned, there's the obvious dining and drinking, or a good night's sleep in a choice of double beds. What about a hot shower, or watching a movie on a flatscreen television, wide enough to double as a heli-deck? (The screen in the master bedroom is much more modest.) You can even go bombing up and down the Firth of Clyde at 33 knots as the scenery whips by behind a cloud of spray from your own majestic bow wave.

Louise of Granton is a 50-foot Sealine T50 Flybridge motor yacht - the flagship of LA Marine.

Between photo shoots for British Airways High Life inflight magazine, and Condé Nast Traveller, Louise's owners, Justin and Louise Adams, are out for a spin with one of their clients, Stephanie Newitt, who owns DR Newitt & Associates, the Edinburgh-based recruitment consultancy that specialises in the food manufacturing and product development industry.

Newitt's agency is a regular customer. It hires the Louise once a month, not just for a day's fun and frolics, but as an important HR tool in incentivising her consultants team and ensuring the good ones stay.

Other clients are more in it for the pure pleasure principle - for example, golfers arriving on private jets at Prestwick, wanting to get to Stonefield Castle, or do a spot of whisky tasting on Islay.

But today, as far as Newitt is concerned, it is not so much for professional purposes, more the pleasure principle. Up the firth to the Holy Loch, then down via the Kyles of Bute and back to Largs with a spot of bubbly and a light lunch on the way.

For the Adams, it is more customer care. After all Newitt fills their boat.

She said: "This is perfect. I employ over two dozen consultants, all commission-based. We've always worked to incentives. It's custom and practice in the business. Its how we get the work done.

"Until recently though, the incentives were big ticket rewards. Once a year there'd be holidays on offer, like trips to anywhere from the Antarctic to the Caribbean. But as an incentive, that wasn't as inclusive as we needed.

"It is very difficult to get good people these days, and even more difficult to keep them. My team work on about £15,000 basic, but commission can take them over £35,000. It's a good deal, but others offer good deals too. So we need to be always thinking of new ways to keep them happy and keep them here.

"That's what got us thinking on a more frequent structure. A monthly incentive. And this is perfect. You beat your target, and you're here. It has been a huge hit with my people. The shout now is not, I've beat my target!', it's I'm on the boat!' That's what they yell."

As many as 10 of her consultants have punched through their monthly targets at a time, and they all get to go.

"We looked at paintball days, golf outings and off-road driving", said Newitt. "That suited the boys. Spa trips suited the girls. This? They all love this. It is luxury they would otherwise never experience. Couldn't stop it now if I wanted. The motivation it's brought to the business is unbelievable."

Indeed, the Louise is designed to the highest specification and is equipped with every conceivable device to ensure the ultimate yacht charter experience.

From the teak decks and cream leather banquettes to the satellite phones connecting you to the cabins as well as the rest of the world.

Leather seating and dining areas look out through double glass doors aft to the quarter deck. There's a heating system to take care of the colder days and air conditioning on the off chance it might get hot.

Additional seating and sunning areas are laid out on the fly bridge and on the fore and aft decks. There are three fridges and an ice maker to ensure you do not run out of chilled champagne.

The kitchen area is equipped with a double gas hob and oven, and there is also the option of a BBQ, discreetly tucked away against the aft bulkhead.

Both the master cabin and the double cabin have en suite bathrooms with power showers. There is a waste tank which has two advantages: firstly it means facilities are always functioning and secondly it means it is eco-friendly and does not dump at sea.

There are even practical devices such as the washer/drier machine, discreetly hidden so the suggestion of housework does not intrude. And if you want to forget practical, there's a powerful jet rib for a downright silly way to head ashore for a picnic.

And business is good. Indeed, better than Justin and Louise Adams envisaged when boating forced its way into their lives, first as fun and then as an additional career. Justin had been a producer and director with BBC Scotland, and responsible for programmes from game shows to Songs of Praise.

"Then one day all they wanted was reality TV', and you can just take so much dumbing down", said Justin. He struck out on his own, starting LA Media, a corporate programme maker with a client list across the financial services market.

Then, "We were filming in the Lake District, out on this boat, and I thought wow! We need to get this in our life. So we set about looking into it. Looked up all the courses; all the regulations we'd need to meet if we wanted to set it up as a separate company and do the odd charter. It took us a year to get the legal coding. You have to comply if you are taking out fare-paying passengers. It's everything from knowing how to fit a life jacket to getting your Day Skipper ticket."

Their first boat was a 42-footer, then last year they went to Southampton Boat Show to trade up.

"The Louise retails at a cool half a million," said Justin, "So we extended the financing from 10 years to 15 years, and we had ourselves a 50-footer."

Now he and Louise, who takes time off from her career at the Scottish Bar, are big into marketing the concept. The crew descended on the last Visit Scotland Expo with a team of girls and walked away with a lot of leads. Serving the golfing industry is big; they've had lots of contacts from executive jet outfits looking for ever more stunning destinations, and even more stunning ways of getting their passengers that last lap of the journey.

They are already looking to the new £30m Machrihanish golf resort to be a milch cow. "Put it this way" says Justin, "Getting there all the way down Kintyre ... we can save them a long drive."

They've even had inquiries from enthusiasts keen on an alternative way to seeing the TT races on the Isle of Man. "We can do it in four-and-a-half hours from Largs", said Justin. "And give them a nice place to kip when they get there. Who needs to be scrabbling for a hotel room."

The custom is coming from the rich, from Russia, the Middle East and US. But also from more modest punters, closer to home who only want a one-hour amble round the Cumbraes.

LA Marine supplies the hats, and dvds of the day out, and the soft drinks and nibbles. Customers pay for booze and the sit-down meals, supplied by the Glasgow specialist caterer, Nosh.

It costs £60,000 a year to run the Louise, and the season usually runs from April to the end of October, but can be extended, weather permitting. Just 30 days charter money covers that cost. The rest of the season is profit.

And for those who want to contribute to that profit, the return can be breathtaking. Luxury apart, the sheer feeling of power standing at the helm, with one of LA Marine's Yacht Master-qualified skippers watching you, as you push the throttles to the gate, rise on that step and take off like John Wayne in "They Were Expendable", is hard to cost.

"And the other thing about a boat", says Justin, "The minute you clear Largs yacht haven, there isn't really anywhere you can't go."