Caribbean Bareboat Charter

Bareboat Charter in the Caribbean

A Caribbean bareboat experience, the ultimate freedom of the waves...

As master of your own vessel, the freedom of bareboating is hard to beat. Here you are your own skipper and cook and you are free to create your own itinerary. There are some requirements. You will need to prove to the yacht charter company that you can sail and have the relevant cruising skills, and that you can read a chart and navigate. Some companies insist that you have a skipper’s qualification. It is worth noting that bareboat charter is not usually a luxury option. The boats are generally designed to be functional rather than stylish. But they are freedom afloat. The charter company will brief you, they can provision the yacht for you and they will provide an emergency back-up service while you are out sailing.

There is a good variety of Caribbean bareboat yachts on offer whether monohulls and catamarans – from 30ft to 65ft – and there is also an increasing number of bareboat motor yachts on offer. The procedure for chartering motor yachts is exactly the same as for a chartered sailing yacht. All charter companies will want to see reasonable experience, history of ownership or skippering in similar sized yachts or lots of experience in smaller yachts. Some companies will ask for formal qualifications but many don’t need this unless you are relatively new to boating.