Yachts & Voyages · Mediterranean · Caribbean · Worldwide
Private Yacht & Sailing Charter
Your ship, your itinerary · Bespoke
A crewed charter is the whole vessel — hull, crew and calendar — taken by one party for a contracted period, almost always counted in weeks. There is no cabin number, no published departure date to fit around and nobody else aboard. What you are buying is a staffed private house that moves, in a market where the best hulls in the best weeks are spoken for a year ahead.
The first question is motor or sail, and it narrows the field faster than anything else. Motor yachts carry more interior volume for their length, often run zero-speed stabilisers that hold the boat flat at anchor, cover distance quickly, and have the deck space and garages for the motorised toys — jet skis, waterslides, a serious tender. Sailing yachts and classic schooners heel under way and rarely carry any of that. What they give back is the sailing itself, quieter passages, and anchorages a large motor yacht will not enter.
Two rules shape every shortlist. A yacht may only charter if it is commercially registered and coded under its flag state; a privately flagged boat cannot legally take paying guests, whatever its owner suggests. And under SOLAS, a vessel carrying more than twelve passengers overnight is a passenger ship, and has to be built and certified to a passenger-ship standard such as the Passenger Yacht Code — which is why so many charter yachts, at every size, sleep exactly twelve.
Set against the hotel-brand yachts and the all-inclusive lines, charter trades structure for control. There is no published itinerary, no restaurant to book and no fare that quietly covers the running costs. The charter fee buys the yacht, the crew and the insurance; fuel, food, wine, berths and port dues are funded separately through an advance provisioning allowance the captain holds, spends and accounts for. It suits one family, or two or three couples travelling as a single party.
What the fare includes
The question every enquiry opens with. What follows is what the line itself publishes as included — we confirm it against your exact sailing before you commit.
- The yacht itself for the contracted period, taken whole. No other guests aboard, and the route written around your party rather than published in advance.
- The full crew — captain, chef, interior and deck — including their wages, their own provisions, their uniforms and their certification.
- Insurance: hull and machinery, third-party liability, and cover for the crew.
- Permanently installed equipment: navigation and safety systems, the yacht's tender, and the non-motorised water toys carried as standard on that hull.
- Ship's linen and towels, and the laundering of them.
- Engine-room and deck consumables and cleaning supplies.
- Not included, and this is the structural difference from a cruise fare: fuel, your food and drink, berthing, port and harbour dues, tourist taxes and communications. These are funded through an advance provisioning allowance paid before boarding, which the captain holds, spends and accounts for line by line, with the unused balance returned at the end of the week.
- Also outside the fee: VAT where the cruising country levies it, any delivery or repositioning charge if the yacht has to move to meet you, and the crew gratuity — customary rather than contractual, and handed to the captain as one amount to distribute.
On board
A note on what follows
There is no single operator behind this page and no one hull, so nothing here is a named venue the way a ship's restaurant is. These are the spaces to check for on a given yacht — the presence or absence of each one changes the week more than the length on the brochure does.
The beach club
The platform at the stern that folds down to the water, sometimes with a gym, a sauna or a bar behind it. On the yachts that have one it becomes the room everybody actually uses; on the ones that do not, swimming means a ladder.
The tender garage and toy store
What is stowed here decides the days. Most charter yachts carry a tender and the non-motorised gear as standard; jet skis, seabobs, a waterslide, a dive compressor and a second chase boat are hull-by-hull, and are exactly what to ask for by name before shortlisting.
The sundeck
Usually the top deck: shaded dining, loungers, often a spa pool. On a motor yacht it is generally the largest single social space aboard, which is part of why motor and sail feel so different at anchor.
The galley and the preference sheet
The chef cooks for your party alone and to your list, not to a menu printed for a dining room. The preference sheet — food, drink, allergies, celebrations, the ages of any children — is filled in a few weeks out and is the single document that most determines how the week feels.
Where it sails
The Mediterranean
May to September
The bulk of the charter fleet moves here for the northern summer — the French and Italian Rivieras, Sardinia and Corsica, the Amalfi coast, the Greek islands, the Croatian coast and the Turkish Aegean. Full weeks with a fixed changeover day are the norm in high season; shorter charters are easier to find either side of it.
The Caribbean
December to April
Where much of the same fleet crosses for the northern winter — the British and US Virgin Islands, St Barths, the Grenadines and Antigua. Christmas and New Year are contracted separately from the rest of the season and are the first weeks in the year to go.
The Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia
November to April
A far smaller resident fleet: the Maldives, Thailand and Indonesia in the dry months, with the Seychelles workable across a longer window. Fewer hulls means the shortlist is short, and it is worth opening the search earlier here than in the Mediterranean.
Northern Europe and the high latitudes
June to August
Norway, the Baltic and Scotland in a brief, bright season, and the ice-class explorer yachts that reach further. This is expedition-style chartering — the vessel has to be equipped for it, and the shortlist is a handful of boats rather than a fleet.
Booking this line
Book the Mediterranean high summer and the Caribbean holiday weeks around a year ahead; those two windows go first, and the strongest hulls rarely reach a public list. Tell us the party size, the water toys that actually matter to you, and whether anyone needs the boat flat at anchor — that trio narrows the fleet faster than any other brief. We shortlist against it, read the charter agreement and the provisioning terms with you before anything is signed, and handle the preference sheet with the captain and chef.
Questions, answered
What does the charter fee include, and what is the APA?
The fee covers the yacht for the contracted period, the full crew, the insurance, the permanently installed equipment and the ship's linen. It does not cover the running costs of your particular week — fuel, your food and drink, berthing, port dues, taxes and communications. Those are funded by an advance provisioning allowance paid before you board. The captain holds it, spends against it, keeps the receipts and returns the unused balance at the end. If the week runs over, the balance is settled before you disembark.
Motor yacht or sailing yacht?
Motor, if you want maximum interior volume, a boat that stays flat at anchor on stabilisers, quick passages between islands and the full motorised toy list. Sail, if the point is the sailing — the quiet under way, the heel, the shallower anchorages a big motor yacht will not take. Classic schooners sit in the second camp and add the look of the thing. It is the first question we ask, because it splits the field before anything else is discussed.
How many guests can we bring?
Twelve is the practical ceiling on most charter yachts, whatever their size. Under SOLAS, a vessel carrying more than twelve passengers overnight becomes a passenger ship and must be built and certified to a passenger-ship standard such as the Passenger Yacht Code, which most owners choose not to do. Some larger yachts are certified for more; day guests at anchor are a separate question and depend on the yacht's flag and its insurance.
How far ahead should we book?
A year for the Mediterranean in July and August or the Caribbean over Christmas and New Year, and the very best boats go earlier than that. Shoulder months — May and early June, late September, the Caribbean in January — open up much later, and the strongest boats are still free in them. Charter is contracted in weeks; asking for four nights in August is usually asking for the wrong boat rather than a shorter week.
Why arrange a charter through you rather than direct?
Because the yacht you want is not on a website. Charter runs through central agents who hold each hull, and the shortlist that matters is assembled by asking them, not by browsing. We work the brief into a shortlist, put the questions that decide the week — stabilisers, toys, tender size, the chef's range, whether the crew is right for children — and read the charter agreement and the provisioning terms with you before you sign. Everything is quoted live at enquiry; we publish no rates.
Enquire
Sail Private Yacht & Sailing Charter
Tell us roughly when and which region appeals. We check live availability, secure the suite category worth having, and add the amenities that come with booking through us — at the fare you would pay direct.
Start Planning