Travel Features
Chartering a yacht in the Mediterranean
By Arnd Petry
Jun 6, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Hamburg/Luebeck ­ The Mediterranean offers a great variety of places for recreational sailors to visit and rent boats.

About 8,000 charter yachts are available from Gibraltar to Istanbul and you don\'t need a lot of experience to become captain of your own ship.

\'The Mediterranean has more to offer than Thailand, the Caribbean and the South Sea in terms of geography, wind and culture,\' says Fridtjof Gunkel, deputy editor-in-chief of the Hamburg magazine, Yacht.

France has the famous Cote d\'Azur and Corsica, but berthing charges are expensive.

\'Greece and the Ionian Islands provide the perfect waters for families and for those want to experience more extreme sailing as around the islands of the Cyclades,\' says Michael Wulff, editor of Segler Zeitung, a Luebeck based sailing magazine.

Also worth remembering are the waters around Malta, Cyprus and Turkey. \'Turkey is a wonderful place to sail,\' says Wulff. The infrastructure and port facilities are improving all the time.

Italy offers both the Ligurian Sea and the Tyrrhenian Sea which is bounded by Sardinia, mainland Italy and Sicily. Other Italian highlights are the coastlines of Elba, Ischia, Capri and the Aeolian Islands.

Croatia is currently promoting its coastline along Istria and many islands along the Dalmatian archipelago. Fridtjof Gunkel says Croatia is a good place to go for beginner sailors.

Spain is always popular and the Balearic Islands in particular. \'Mainly because they are easy to reach,\' says Wulff.

The legal hurdles to chartering a boat in the Mediterranean are not very high, though potential sailors must have a recreational boat license.

Depending on the country, a coastal-water license, radio certificate or a second crew member with basic sailing knowledge may be required before being allowed to charter your own boat.

Apart from that, it is very easy to rent a yacht ­ just like booking a package holiday. \'Chartering a boat is best done over an agency at home,\' says Gunkel.

A 36-foot yacht for a maximum of eight persons costs in the high- season of July and August up to 2,500 euros (3,206 dollars) a week, according to Jochen Echenburg who rents yachts to the public.

Additional costs include transport to the port, food and berthing charges in the marinas.

\'A berth with water and electricity costs in the high-season 80 euros in Majorca,\' says Wulff.

As a general rule, the western Mediterranean is more expensive than the east.

A good way to get to know the ropes is the flotilla charter where you sail in the company of other people and other boats. One boat has a skipper.