Beach Clubs
Lunch is the itinerary
Ask a charter captain where the week is going and the honest answer is a list of tables. The beach club is the structure the Mediterranean day is built on.
Ashore by tender
Beach Clubs
The beach club is where a yacht meets the shore. Beach Clubs looks at the ones the fleet actually uses, from Pampelonne to Formentera to the Cyclades, how to book a table for twelve from a tender, and the etiquette that separates guests from tourists.
Beach Clubs
Beach Clubs
How a yacht books a table
It is not an app. It is a chief stewardess with a telephone, a relationship, and the boat's name, in roughly that order of importance.
Beach Clubs
The clubs worth the tender ride
A hundred places on the Mediterranean call themselves beach clubs. The dozen the fleet returns to have four things in common, and a DJ is not one of them.
The short version
The lunch is the itinerary
Ask a charter captain where the week is going and he will tell you where the guests are eating. The classic Mediterranean itinerary is a chain of beach clubs: Pampelonne at St Tropez, the coves of Formentera, the Costa Smeralda, Capri, and the Cycladic beaches of Mykonos and Paros. The boat anchors off, the tender goes in, and the afternoon happens at a table with sand under it.
A beach club is a restaurant, a stretch of beach with beds, a bar and a tender dock, in about that order of importance. The famous ones take bookings by name months ahead in August and hold tables for yachts they know. The crew book, the crew land the guests, and the crew know which club will send the bill to the boat.
The etiquette is simple and widely broken. Book, arrive at the time booked, land at the dock rather than the beach, keep the tender out of the swimming area, and understand that the table is expected to spend what the beds cost. A club that has been ignored by a yacht remembers the yacht.
Worth knowing
Lunch for a table of 12 at a known Pampelonne club
commonly €2,500 to €6,000 depending on the wine and the rosé
Bed and umbrella for two at a serious club in August
€100 to €400 a day, waived or credited against lunch at some
Tender size that lands comfortably at most club docks
up to about 10 m; larger tenders stand off and use the club's own boat
Booking lead time in August
weeks for a name table at lunch; the crew agent or the captain books, not the guest
The deck vote
The beach club you would return to has
Use it now
Beach Club Matcher
Twenty four clubs, filtered by coast, month, mood and the size of your tender.
Questions people ask
The chief stewardess or the charter broker calls the club, gives the boat's name, the party size and the tender arrival time, and confirms whether the bill goes to the boat or to the guests. Well-known boats have standing relationships; new boats book early and tip.
Only where the club has a marked swimming area and the tender lands outside it. Most clubs and most harbourmasters forbid tenders inside the buoyed zone, and the fine is the least of the consequences.
Most Mediterranean clubs open from May to early October, the Balearic ones sometimes to the end of October, and the best of St Barths and the Caribbean from November to April. Booking a charter around a club that is closed is a common and expensive error.
Nothing, is the honest answer; the crew bring towels, sunscreen and a card. Guests bring a dry shirt for lunch and their own good manners. Cash for the tender driver of the club is a courtesy that is remembered.
The Log
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