Firstly, what are yacht charters?
Chartering yachts is a custom or a practice of leasing, hiring, or renting a motor yacht or a sailboat that travels to various islands or coastal destinations. It is done basically for a vacation, also for business trips or events occasionally.
Marinas and Yacht clubs are the usual places where the yachts are chartered; where the word ‘marina’ refers to shore or coast, that can be defined as a basin or dock consisting of supplies of ships and boats. Yacht clubs are usually found near the sea, lake, or riverside environments.
Classification of yacht charters:
Yacht charters are classified into two categories as Skippered charters and Bareboat charters.
Bareboat charters:
- Bareboat charters, also known as demise charters, refer to arranging charters for hiring or renting boats or ships with a condition where no crew members are included in the agreement.
- The owners bear the responsibility of handling and looking after the yachts or boats, and thus the act is usually termed bareboating.
- Legally, bareboat charters and time or voyage charters serve different purposes.
Time or voyage charters:
- The charterer decides where the boat should go in the voyage or time charters, but there’s a particular time or period set for each voyage.
- The ship’s owner has the control or proprietorship of the yacht as employing crew and master was his decision.
- Charterer gets the privilege of selecting the vessel speed, port, and fuel too.
- Chartering a time or voyage charter is indeed an extended agreement that needs experience and good practice.
Bareboat charters:
- In a bareboat charter, the owner gives up their ownership and hands over it entirely to the charterer so that they get to decide the employment of crew and master.
- Bareboat charters are also known as ‘disponent owners’ because of the owner’s quality of giving up his possession over the ships and boats.
- The charterer becomes financially and legally responsible for controlling the yacht by paying for crew, fuel, port, P&I, hull insurance, and operating expenses.
- The hiring of bareboat charters has explicitly increased in the early 2000s.
Skippered charters:
- Skippered charters refer to a captain or skipper renting a crew professionally, responsible for guiding the yacht.
- In some situations, the crew members assist the captain or skipper.
- Skippering charters require exceptional training and experience and are usually carried by huge yachts.
- The skipper must be knowledgeable about the weather conditions, local places, and culture; in addition to this, they should make sure that the crew members are safe and sound.
- It might be a disadvantage if the charter and the crew members face a language barrier. However, the responsibility of a captain is to make sure that the crew members would like to visit the yacht once again.