Yacht Charters
Yacht chartering is an extremely popular way for many people to
take a vacation and cruise a destination, such as the Caribbean, for a week to ten days. The
basics are: fly into the destination, head to the charter base to pick up your yacht for the
week, cruise from harbor to harbor (or island bar to island bar), and then return the yacht to
the charter base so you can get back to your regular life.
Yacht Charters are
offered in both bareboat as well as captained/crewed charters which can be added on for
inexperienced charterers or those chartering larger yachts that are not bareboat
friendly. In general, charter yachts are fairly standard spec yachts. This lends itself
well to the charter management company who needs to be able to turn the boat around in a
couple of hours for the next charter guests. Typically, the boats are up to 7 years old
and see up to 30 different charter groups per year.
If you are interested in sailing for one to two weeks per year,
chartering a yacht may be the right fit for your style of boating. The drawback to chartering
is that if you want to go for more than two weeks you will find other options, such as
fractional boating, start to make much more sense.
Fractional
Boating
If you are a person who likes to boat more than one to two weeks
per year or would like those weeks to be spread out over day-cruises instead of a solid week of
boating, fractional boating is probably a solution for you. Fractional boating, specifically
fractional memberships such as SailTime, offer the ability for you to use a yacht multiple
times per month (3 to 7 times per month with SailTime depending on the membership program
selected). This ultimately means more time on the water, which is the overall goal
right!?!
Similar to chartering you show up at the fractional membership
base and get on your boat, you enjoy your time out on the water, and then return back to the
base. But this is where the similarities end. When fractional boating with SailTime, you are
one of a few highly qualified members (typically a maximum of eight members) using the boat you
joined. This means that the boat will be well looked after. Rather than a turn and burn style
of maintenance, which is common with yacht charter boats, you can rest assured that your boat
will be in pristine condition. In addition, SailTime boats are well optioned which means you
can expect your SailTime boat to have better and higher-grade options than would be found on
most typical charter boats.
So, you might be thinking, “SailTime sounds nice, but I would
like to use a yacht in other locations than just my local boating area”. This is where
SailTime gets exciting! With SailTime PLUS you can use SailTime yachts in ever increasing
locations around the world. Imagine, using a boat in warm southern waters in the winter or for
our southern boaters, enjoying boating with cool summer breezes offered at our northern
bases!
So Which is Right For
Me?
Both yacht charters and fractional boating are excellent options
for getting out on the water! But to answer the question, you need to ask yourself, “do I want
to boat one to two weeks per year or do I want the ability to boat multiple times per month
locally and have the option of exploring other locations with the same membership?” At the end
of the day, you must make that decision for yourself, but at SailTime we firmly believe more
time on the water is a good thing for everyone!
