Yacht charter Fort Lauderdale

The rule that shapes everything

United States coastwise law reserves the carriage of paying passengers between American points to vessels that are US-flagged and appropriately certificated. The overwhelming majority of large crewed charter yachts lying in Fort Lauderdale are flagged in the Cayman Islands, the Marshall Islands or Malta. They are therefore not able to run a commercial charter from Miami to Key West with you aboard.

This is not a technicality that everybody quietly ignores. It is enforced, the penalties fall on the vessel and her owner, and a captain who is asked to breach it will refuse — correctly. Any broker offering you a foreign-flagged yacht for a week of Florida cruising is either uninformed or hoping you are.

There are two legitimate ways round it, and both are ordinary practice. The first is to charter a genuinely US-flagged yacht with the right certification, of which there are a reasonable number, concentrated at the smaller end. The second — far more common — is to take a foreign-flagged yacht and embark in the Bahamas, which has no such restriction and is fifty miles away.

Where the week actually happens

Assume the Bahamas, because that is where nearly everybody ends up and because it is, on any honest assessment, the better cruising ground. Florida’s coast is a working waterway lined with development; the Exumas are three hundred and sixty-five islands of clear shallow water, most of them uninhabited.

The standard shape is a crossing to Bimini or straight to Nassau, then south-east down the Exuma chain: Highbourne Cay, Normans, Warderick Wells inside the Exuma Land and Sea Park, Staniel Cay for Thunderball Grotto and the swimming pigs, Compass Cay, Great Exuma at the bottom. Seven nights covers it comfortably; ten is better.

Draft is the constraint that decides the boat. Large parts of the Bahama Banks carry two to three metres at low water, and a conventional forty-metre motor yacht drawing two and a half will be shut out of a meaningful share of the good anchorages. This is the one ground where we will consistently put a catamaran in front of a client who came asking for a motor yacht, and explain why.

Season, and the hurricane question

The season is the inverse of the Mediterranean: December through April, with February and March the best of it. Water temperatures are comfortable, the trade winds are steady, and the Christmas and New Year fortnight is the single most expensive period in the region.

Atlantic hurricane season runs from June to the end of November, and the fleet largely leaves. Yachts cross to the Mediterranean in April and May and return in November, which is why availability in those two shoulder windows is far thinner than a calendar suggests. A yacht advertised for early May in Florida is frequently a yacht whose crossing has not yet been confirmed.

Chartering inside hurricane season is possible and cheap and we generally advise against it, not because a storm is likely in any given week but because the contract will contain a weather clause that can end your holiday with very little notice.

The marinas, and what they are for

Marina	Where	Best for
Bahia Mar	Fort Lauderdale beach	Large yachts; the boat show site
Pier Sixty-Six	Intracoastal, 17th St	Superyachts, recently rebuilt
Las Olas Marina	Fort Lauderdale	Convenient for town and airport
Miami Beach Marina	South Beach	Miami embarkation, city access
Island Gardens	Watson Island, Miami	Deep harbour, the largest hulls

Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, at the end of October, is the largest in-water show in the world and takes over Bahia Mar and several neighbouring basins for a week. Berthing anywhere near the beach in that window is difficult and expensive. The Miami International Boat Show does something similar in February.

Fort Lauderdale International Airport is fifteen minutes from most of the Fort Lauderdale berths, which is unusually convenient. If the yacht is embarking in Nassau, budget a separate short flight or a crossing day — and confirm which, in writing, before you book the transatlantic leg.

What it costs

Rates are quoted in US dollars and the structure differs from the Mediterranean in one significant respect: many Caribbean and Bahamian charters are offered all-inclusive or semi-inclusive rather than on the plus-expenses basis that is standard in Europe.

Read the inclusion basis carefully, because the two models are not comparable at face value. An all-inclusive rate typically covers fuel within a reasonable cruising range, food, standard drinks and dockage; a plus-expenses rate adds an Advance Provisioning Allowance of twenty-five to thirty-five per cent on top of the headline. A “cheaper” plus-expenses yacht is often the dearer week.

Bahamian cruising and charter permits, and the associated fees, apply to charters operating in Bahamian waters and should appear as a stated line rather than a surprise. There is no VAT in the American sense. Crew gratuity is customary at fifteen to twenty per cent in this region — noticeably higher than the Mediterranean norm.

What to look for in a Bahamas boat

The specification that matters here is different from the Mediterranean list, and getting it wrong costs you anchorages rather than comfort.

Draft, first and last

Ask for the figure at full load, not the brochure number, and treat anything over two metres as a meaningful constraint. Under 1.5 metres opens up the Exuma banks almost entirely; between 1.5 and 2.2 you will reach most of the well-known stops and miss some of the better ones; above 2.5 the itinerary is written for you by the chart rather than by your preferences.

Water-making and generator capacity

There is very little shore power and no convenient water supply through most of the Exuma chain. A yacht that must return to Nassau or Staniel Cay to make water and take on fuel is a yacht spending days of your week travelling backwards. Ask what the daily water production is against the guest complement, and what the tankage allows between fills.

Tenders and toys, plural

A great deal of the Bahamas happens away from the mothership — sandbars, cuts, reefs, the pigs. One tender serving ten guests means somebody is always waiting on the swim platform. Two tenders, or one large one plus a pair of paddleboards and a kayak, changes the character of the week more than an extra three metres of hull.

Shade that survives the trade winds

Fixed hardtops rather than folding biminis. The winter trades blow steadily at fifteen to twenty knots for days at a time, and canvas that has to be struck each afternoon is canvas that ends up struck permanently by Wednesday.

Questions