There are two sayings that I think are particularly relevant when considering whether to put a yacht into charter. One is nautical and the other is one that I believe applies to life generally:

“Ships and crew rot in port.”
“If you want something done, ask a busy person.”

Most conversations about chartering an owner’s yacht begin with the obvious subject: money. How much charter revenue can the yacht generate, and how much of the annual running cost can that income offset?

Those are perfectly sensible questions, but for me they miss what may be the greatest benefit of chartering a yacht. A yacht that is regularly used is tested and maintained in a real operating environment. A crew that is regularly serving demanding guests stays sharp, practised and motivated. Both can have a very positive effect on the owner’s own experience when they step on board.

That does not mean every yacht should charter, nor does it mean that more charter is always better. There is a balance to be found. But if an owner is only going to use their yacht for a relatively small number of weeks each year, I think there are compelling reasons to consider keeping both the yacht and crew busy.

Charter Income Should Subsidise Ownership, Not Justify It

Let me deal with the financial point first, because it is usually where the conversation starts.

A yacht owner who wants to use their boat extensively themselves, particularly during peak periods such as July and August in the Mediterranean or Christmas and New Year in the Caribbean, should certainly not expect chartering to turn yacht ownership into a profitable business.

I have occasionally seen yachts generate a profit from charter, but they are generally very heavily focused on charter and the owner uses the yacht rarely, if at all, during the most valuable “peak season” weeks. At the other extreme, I have also seen yachts chartered so hard that maintenance periods become difficult to accommodate and crew eventually burn out. Neither of these outcomes are desirable.

For most owners, I think the sensible financial objective is much simpler: charter revenue can subsidise a meaningful proportion of the yacht’s operating costs, while still allowing an owner to enjoy the yacht themselves.

This is consistent with a point I have made in other articles: a superyacht is an extraordinary luxury, but it should not be approached as a conventional investment from which an owner expects an annual financial return. If that is the starting expectation, yacht ownership will quickly become frustrating, rather than enjoyable.

I explore that question in more detail in Charter vs Ownership: Which Is Right for You?, including why chartering is often the best first step for someone new to yachting.

Ships and Crew Rot in Port

The phrase may sound rather brutal, but the principle behind it is important.

A yacht that sits in port for eleven months of the year, barely moving, is not necessarily being preserved. Machinery and equipment are designed to run. Systems need to operate under load. Tenders need to be launched. Water toys need to be used. Galley equipment, air conditioning, hydraulics, generators and countless other systems need to work in the conditions for which they were designed.

Just as importantly, regular use allows the crew to discover what is not working properly and deal with it before the owner arrives.

It is much like leaving a car in a garage for six months and then deciding to take it out on a sunny day. You should not be completely surprised if it does not start.

The same principle applies on a much larger and more complex scale to a yacht. A boat can look immaculate alongside a dock while problems quietly remain undiscovered because nobody has asked the equipment to perform properly for months.

Why Busy Charter Crews Are Often So Good

More than the machinery, though, the biggest difference I have observed is often the crew.

As a broad generalisation, I have found the service on the busiest and best charter yachts to be among the finest in the business. That is not to say there are not exceptional crews on purely private yachts. There absolutely are, particularly on yachts where the owners use them frequently and the boat is constantly moving. But busy charter yachts give their crews a particular kind of experience that is difficult to replicate.

Every week can bring a completely different group of guests. Different personalities. Different diets. Different ages. Different expectations. Different itineraries and different ideas of what constitutes a perfect day.

The crew become human chameleons, constantly adapting to changing environments and demands.

They may have one family who wants every water toy in the sea from breakfast until sunset, followed by another group who wants elaborate lunches, beach set-ups and evenings ashore. The next charter may require completely different food, entertainment and activities. There is no substitute for that kind of real-life experience and practice.

Charter crews can work extraordinarily long hours for weeks at a time. They are generally ambitious and highly motivated to give guests an exceptional experience. Charter tips can be significant, reflecting the effort involved, and good crews understand that delivering an outstanding charter requires energy, imagination and attention from dawn until late at night.

I have seen crews go to extraordinary lengths with beach set-ups, water-based activities and special experiential evenings. When that level of service is repeated week after week, high standards become habitual. The crew expect those standards from each other in every department.

The owner benefits from that when they come on board themselves.

Even a Yacht Broker Notices the Difference

Even as a lowly yacht salesman like me (!), you notice it when on board these boats.

We are fortunate to be guests on yachts from time to time and, during boat shows, we are often hosted by crews for an entire week while presenting a yacht for sale. The best charter crews seem, almost out of habit, to treat everyone who comes on board like a valued guest, even when there is absolutely no expectation on our part.

It is simply how they operate. The service becomes second nature.

What Can Happen When a Yacht Is Barely Used

I remember one private yacht that was effectively only used by the owner during August each year. For the other eleven months it remained in port.

Understandably, the crew gradually settled into a very different working pattern. Many lived ashore close to the yacht and normal working days became closer to a conventional nine-to-five routine. There are plenty of private yachts that only operate a Mediterranean season, but from May through September or October those yachts may still be working at full tilt. This yacht certainly was not.

On one occasion I visited while the owner and his family were on board as he had made the decision to sell. He was a new client to me, but I immediately noticed that the atmosphere was almost as though their arrival had disrupted the crew’s normal routine. The service was poor and, despite the yacht having effectively been available for maintenance for eleven months, there were all sorts of technical issues during the owner’s first week back on board.

The owner was understandably frustrated. His experience became gradually worse each year and he had therefore eventually come to the decision to sell the yacht.

I remain convinced that if the yacht had been chartered sensibly when the owner was not using her, both the yacht and crew would have operated very differently and the owner’s experience could have been dramatically better. There is nothing more frustrating to me than seeing owners leave yachting because they have had a bad experience.

There Is No Substitute for Practice

I have seen the same point in smaller ways on other yachts.

On one yacht that was very rarely used, the crew struggled to find parts for some of the water toys because they had not been used for a year. Various pieces of equipment did not work properly and the overall service was not particularly slick.

Compare that with a busy yacht arriving at an anchorage. On the best-run boats, the deck crew can have the toys in the water almost immediately. The interior team already knows what needs to happen next. The chef and galley are prepared. Requests that might feel complicated elsewhere are dealt with effortlessly because the crew have done them countless times before.

A well-drilled crew does challenging things without making them look difficult. That is one of the hallmarks of great service.

If You Want Something Done, Ask a Busy Person

This brings me to the second saying.

The best, hard-working and ambitious crew generally want to be busy. Many choose yachting because they are adventurous people who want to travel, learn, develop their skills and experience new places. Sitting in the same port for eleven months of the year is not what attracted such people to the industry.

Keeping a yacht active can therefore help create a more stimulating professional environment for the crew. They are using their skills, learning from different situations and working as a team under genuine operating conditions.

Again, there is a balance. No person or yacht performs well indefinitely without proper rest and maintenance periods, and an owner should not charter a yacht so relentlessly that either the crew or the yacht suffers. But in my experience, a sensible charter programme can help keep a good crew engaged, practised and proud of the operation that they are running.

But I Don’t Want Strangers Sleeping in My Bed

This is perhaps the most understandable objection of all.

For many owners, a yacht is their private home. They have chosen the fabrics, furniture, linen and every small detail. The idea of allowing people they do not know to use it can feel completely alien, and I fully appreciate that.

There are practical ways to make the distinction between owner use and charter use more comfortable. Some owners, for example, keep their own mattress toppers, linen and towels separately for their private use so that the owner experience remains distinctly their own.

More importantly, the quality of charter clients matters. For yachts that we manage for charter, we carry out stringent checks and want to know that the clients coming on board will treat both the yacht and crew properly. We insist on references from captains of yachts they have previously chartered.

No system can remove every concern, and charter will simply never appeal to some owners. That is perfectly reasonable. The decision has to suit the individual owner rather than being driven solely by the possibility of earning revenue.

Finding the Right Balance

The answer, as with so many things in yachting, is not to pursue an extreme.

A yacht that charters every available week may generate impressive revenue, but if maintenance is continually postponed or the crew are exhausted, the owner can eventually pay the price. Equally, a yacht that sits almost permanently unused can develop its own operational and crew problems.

The best programme is one built around the owner’s priorities first. Block out the periods when the owner genuinely wants to use the yacht. Protect sensible maintenance and crew-rest periods. Then decide whether the remaining availability can be used intelligently for charter.

If the programme is structured properly, charter revenue is the obvious financial benefit. But the less obvious benefits may ultimately be more important: a yacht that is permanently tested and reliable, a crew that is practiced and motivated, and an operation that is used to delivering the very highest standards.

Charter Can Make Yacht Ownership Better

For me, that is the real point.

Yes, charter can be a very effective way to subsidise the running costs of a yacht. But if an owner is not going to use their yacht regularly, I think the stronger argument is that a sensible charter programme can help keep a valuable and complex asset operational while helping to attract and retain ambitious, hard-working crew.

Both of those things can significantly improve the owner’s experience when they and their guests are on board.

The objective should never be to turn a yacht into a floating business at the expense of enjoyment. The objective is to make ownership work better for the owner.

For anyone still deciding whether to own a yacht at all, see Charter vs Ownership: Which Is Right for You?. If you are considering purchase, I also discuss how intended use, including whether a yacht will charter, should influence the buying process in How to Buy a Superyacht. And for the positive case for ownership itself, see Why Buy a Superyacht?.