The Types of Sailing Charters

There are two types of sailing charters: captained and bareboat. The captained charters have a professional captain on board to navigate and operate the vessel, and usually a chef to oversee provisioning, prepare meals, tidy up the galley, and assist in sailing. Bareboat charters are those without professional assistance; the chartering party is entrusted to manage all phases of boat operation. Charter companies demand proof of the captain’s nautical abilities and experience to be reasonably certain that the boat is in good hands. Unlike rental car companies, in most cases, and even with the larger charter companies, the boats are privately owned by people just like us, and unnecessary wear and damage to the boats does them a great disservice. So please be kind to your boat.

There are various means to prove one’s sailing abilities to the charter companies; 

• sailing certifications from nationally recognized sailing associations
• demonstrating maneuvers under sail to a charter representative,
• local training and documentation in your home base
• and by taking courses like this from NauticEd

All certifications will need to be backed up with a reasonably extensive practical sailing resume listing the size of vessels that you crewed upon and/or captained, dates and locations sailed, types of boats owned, and previous charter experience listing the charter company.

NauticEd Ed offers an online practical experience tracking logbook so that you can list and store your sailing experience. At the home login page, you will find a tab called “Experience”. There you will fill out your sailing and boating experience. At any time after that, you can print out or email to charter companies your experience logbook summary. Alternatively, you can give the charter company your email address and your secret logbook code (which you create in your NauticEd Profile Tab when you log in to NauticEd). Charter Companies can then look you up on NauticEd at https://www.nauticed.org/student_verification. The online logbook is free to all NauticEd students.

We even offer an iPhone app and an Android app so that you can update your sailing experience whilst on the dock instead of trying to remember to add to your experience on the computer when you get home, tired from a great day out sailing.

We are certain that anyone chartering a bareboat on a vacation fully intends to take great care of the vessel; hopefully, the information in this clinic will help you become a safer and more knowledgeable sailor and have a safer and more enjoyable vacation/holiday.

To quote Jim Carey – “Alrighty then – let’s get started!”