Charter · Where in the world
Charter destinations
The yacht matters less than the water you put it in. Sixteen bases, each with the season that works, the wind that does not, and the honest reason to choose it over the one next door.
- Bases covered
- 16
- Peak season
- May – October
- Winter grounds
- Caribbean, Gulf, Asia
- Typical week
- 7 nights
Sixteen places worth the flight
Monaco
Seven hundred berths against the deepest concentration of yachting money in Europe. A starting line, not a cruising ground.
Athens
The deepest charter fleet in the Mediterranean, and the meltemi that decides which way you point it.
Fort Lauderdale & Miami
Where the yachts are. Not, for the most part, where you charter them — and the reason is a piece of American shipping law.
Cannes & Antibes
The Riviera with berths that actually exist, and the crew infrastructure of the entire Mediterranean.
Dubai
The Mediterranean’s calendar, inverted. Best in January, unusable in July, and built around hours rather than weeks.
Palma & Ibiza
The best-served charter base in the Mediterranean, and a seagrass protection regime that decides where you may anchor.
Split
The largest charter fleet on earth, an island every ten miles, and a whole country that changes over on a Saturday.
Nassau & the Exumas
Three hundred and sixty-five islands over water you can read the bottom of. Draft decides everything here.
Naples & Amalfi
The best food and the worst berthing in the Mediterranean. Here the harbour list writes the itinerary.
Bodrum
The gulet was invented here. It remains the most boat per euro anywhere in the Mediterranean.
Göcek
Twelve islands inside one sheltered gulf. The answer when somebody in the party is nervous about the sea.
Dubrovnik
The famous part is the worst part. The Elafiti, Mljet and the run down to Kotor are the reason to come.
Hong Kong
Two hundred and sixty islands, a junk-boat culture with no equivalent anywhere, and a typhoon signal system that runs the calendar.
Singapore
A departure lounge, not a destination. What matters is Indonesia, an hour and a half away.
Sydney
Summer at Christmas, one of the great natural harbours, and a race that starts on Boxing Day.
Istanbul
A strait with a city round it. Spectacular for an evening, and not a week.
How to choose, in the right order
Almost everybody chooses the yacht first and the destination second. It is the wrong way round. The water determines what kind of boat is comfortable, what the week can realistically contain and what it costs; the yacht is a consequence of that, not an input to it.
The order we work in is dates, then ground, then hull, then boat. Dates come first because they eliminate more options than anything else — a week fixed in mid-August rules out roughly half of what would otherwise be sensible, and a week that can move by a fortnight often halves the price. Ground comes second because the wind and the distances decide the hull. Only then does it become a conversation about individual yachts.
The most useful question we can ask a new client is not which yacht they like. It is what they want the middle of the afternoon on the Wednesday to look like. Answers to that separate the Saronic from the Cyclades, and Antibes from the Exumas, far more reliably than a brochure does.
Two seasons, and the gap between them
The Mediterranean runs May to October and is effectively closed outside it. The Caribbean and the Bahamas run December to April and are shut by hurricane season. The Arabian Gulf inverts the Mediterranean entirely — Dubai is at its best in January and uninhabitable afloat in July. Southeast Asia works most of the year with monsoon caveats, and Australia is on the opposite calendar to all of it.
The gaps are real and worth knowing. Late October to early December, and again in May, are the transition periods when a great deal of the fleet is crossing an ocean rather than working. Availability in those windows is thinner than the calendar suggests, and yachts advertised for them are sometimes being offered on the assumption the crossing gets cancelled.
The corollary is that the shoulder weeks immediately either side of peak are the best value in yachting. The first week of June and the last week of September in the Mediterranean are, in our view, better weeks than anything in August, and they cost twenty to thirty per cent less.
What moves the price
Four things, in descending order of impact: the week you pick, the length of the yacht, the ground, and the standard of the boat within its category. Most clients believe the order is the reverse.
- Timing. The same yacht in the first week of August and the last week of September can differ by a third.
- Length. Cost rises faster than size — crew numbers, berthing bands and fuel all step up rather than scale smoothly.
- Ground. An equivalent yacht is materially cheaper in Greece, Turkey or Croatia than on the French Riviera. The difference is berthing, crew salaries and shore costs, not the boat.
- Everything else. Refit year, crew quality and tender inventory matter enormously to the week and comparatively little to the headline rate.
Beyond the charter fee sit the Advance Provisioning Allowance — typically twenty-five to thirty-five per cent, your money, reconciled against receipts — VAT, which varies by flag and itinerary, and a customary crew gratuity of five to fifteen per cent.
Questions
Croatia, Turkey or the Saronic Gulf in Greece. All three give you sheltered water, short passages, a good restaurant most evenings and a substantially larger yacht for the money than the French Riviera. Save Monaco and the Amalfi coast for the second week, when you know what you actually want.
For July and August in the Mediterranean, six to nine months. For a specific yacht in a specific week, longer. For shoulder season, eight to twelve weeks is usually enough and sometimes less. For Monaco Grand Prix week, eighteen months to two years, and that is not an exaggeration.
Often yes, and sometimes it is a mistake. Greece to Turkey, Croatia to Montenegro and France to Italy are all routine, but each involves clearing in and out, which costs half a day and requires the yacht to hold the right paperwork. On a seven-night charter we would usually rather spend that half-day at anchor.
A crewed yacht comes with a captain and crew and the week is arranged around you. A bareboat is chartered without crew to someone who holds the appropriate qualifications and takes command themselves. The second is far cheaper and far more work, and it is the right answer only when someone aboard genuinely has the experience for the ground.
The season at a glance
| Base | Season | The constraint | Our pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monaco | May – Sep | Berth scarcity | June |
| Athens | Apr – Oct | Meltemi, Jul–Aug | September |
| Fort Lauderdale & Miami | Dec – Apr | Hurricane season Jun–Nov | February |
| Cannes & Antibes | May – Sep | August congestion | June |
| Dubai | Oct – Apr | Summer heat | January |
| Palma & Ibiza | May – Oct | Posidonia anchoring rules | June |
| Split | May – Oct | Bura, spring | September |
| Nassau & the Exumas | Dec – Apr | Shallow banks | March |
| Naples & Amalfi | May – Oct | Berth scarcity | September |
| Bodrum | May – Oct | Meltemi | June |
| Göcek | Apr – Nov | Sheltered throughout | May |
| Dubrovnik | May – Oct | Cruise-ship congestion | September |
| Hong Kong | Year round | Typhoons Jun–Oct | November |
| Singapore | Year round | Monsoon shifts | March |
| Sydney | Nov – Mar | Southern summer | January |
| Istanbul | Jun – Sep | Bosphorus current | July |