Day Charter in the South of France

[TimFromLI]

We have a family trip to France coming up at the end of May and I'm thinking of chartering a boat for a day. We are going to have 2 families, 10 people in all so it will probably need to be a cat. My 3 son's and my wife will be more than enough crew, and I spent a week on a 50 ' cat in the BVI last year as first mate, skippered for a day or 2 so I think we'll be fine handling the boat. Has anyone been to the Sanary-Sur-Mer area, east of Marseille? Any recommendations on places to go. Recommendations on websites for charters? I have been browsing ClickandBoat.com

 

[Captain Larry-DH]

Look for a crewed charter. I doubt you’ll get someone to hand over their €1mm+ 50ft bareboat cat to someone who has no license, lite experience and no local knowledge. Even if they would - cleanup and turnaround prep costs and checkout briefing eat up time and the overhead would make it prohibitive for just a day of use.

 

[TimFromLI]

Actually, someone offered their 42' cat for the day - no skipper. It's about 700-1000 euro per day. I'll be splitting it with another family. I am thinking of going with a skipper since they know the area and with just a day to go exploring, I can get the most out of it.

 

[Captain Larry-DH]

Actually, someone offered their 42' cat for the day - no skipper. It's about 700-1000 euro per day. I'll be splitting it with another family. I am thinking of going with a skipper since they know the area and with just a day to go exploring, I can get the most out of it.

Would the owner of the boat (or agent) provide the skipper? IMHO you need someone familiar with that boat. The way they do close spacing of med-moors at docks in Europe there is no room for error, and you don’t want to be responsible for damages. Read the fine print.
Edit- you also need crew training and good communication to execute med-mooring successfully. Something to consider.

 

[TimFromLI]

Yeah the med mooring could be a marriage ender, especially if there's wind and an audience. In the BVI a pilot dinghied out to the boat to back the cat into the slip at the end of our trip, although the captain was capable. The more I think about it, the more I think we'll get a captain. The boat that I like, a 54' Hanse requires it. The 42' Cat does not. We can still have a lot of fun sailing without the stress.

 

[PaulK]

French posters on websites like Hisse-et-Oh do not seem to like ClickandBoat much, for a range of different reasons. Be wary. Online photos have a way of hiding things that can turn out to be major issues. It appears that ClickandBoat arranges the scheduling but may have little or no control of maintenance and standards. Perhaps a bit like AirBnb, but not quite.
Having a captain aboard is an excellent idea. He will know the different harbors, what the weather is going to do, and likely have good ideas about restaurants the crew will want to check out. Besides being familiar with required docking techniques he may also be familiar with the boat itself. Not having to deal with harried marinas on the Riviera, (even if you speak French fluently, the accent can be difficult to understand) will help lead to a much more relaxing time for everyone.

 

[TimFromLI]

Thanks, I've have seen some nasty looking boats on ClickandBoat, I think we will go with the captain. I'll try some other sites or book when we get there and have some visibility on the weather and the boat.