The programme
Charter as an offset, and what it does to your boat
Eight to twelve weeks a year can cover half the running costs. It also changes what the boat is, and the owners who are happiest are clear about that trade from the start.
A fifty metre motor yacht in the Mediterranean charters for somewhere between one hundred and eighty and three hundred and fifty thousand euros a week in high season. Take off the broker commission, the additional crew costs, the extra wear, the consumables and the management share, and eight to twelve weeks a year covers roughly half of a well run boat's annual budget. That is a serious number, and it is why most yachts above forty metres are at least nominally available.
What the gross rate is not
What a €250,000 charter week actually leaves the owner
Sixty per cent of the headline is a realistic net for a well managed boat, and it is the number to plan with. Owners who budget on the gross discover the difference in October.
The costs nobody puts in the model
- The boat must be immaculate to a standard higher than an owner would keep her, all season.
- Extra crew in high season, because a full charter programme with twelve guests needs more hands than a family week.
- Consumables: linen, glassware, water toys, tender hours, and an interior that is refreshed every two or three years instead of every five.
- Availability: the best charter weeks are the weeks you want the boat, and every one you take back is revenue foregone.
- Commercial registration, its survey regime and the crew certification that comes with it.
What it does to the boat
Charter guests are not careless, but they are not owners. Twelve people who have paid a quarter of a million euros use everything: every toy, every tender hour, every bottle, every system, every day. A charter boat does in one season what a private boat does in three, and the maintenance schedule has to be written accordingly.
It also changes the crew. A charter crew is a service team working to a standard, turning the boat around between charters in a day, and living at a pitch that private boats do not require. Some crew love it and are paid accordingly in tips. Others leave for a quiet private programme, and a boat that switches from private to charter should expect to lose some of its interior team.
A charter boat is a hotel that moves. If the owner still wants it to be a home, somebody is going to be disappointed.
A central agent, to an owner considering a first seasonThe half measure that works
Many owners land on a programme of four to six weeks: the two weeks either side of their own use, and a Christmas or New Year charter in the Caribbean at premium rates. It covers a quarter to a third of the running costs, keeps the boat in charter condition without exhausting the crew, and preserves the summer the family actually wants.
The owners who regret a charter programme are almost always the ones who were sold it as free money. The owners who are content treated it as a business decision, wrote the numbers down first, and accepted that for those weeks the boat belongs to somebody else.
Use it now
Charter Yield
What a charter programme really nets, and how much of the year it covers.
