relax and enjoy your holidays
Hire a skipper
You decided to Hire a skipper
How We
Can Help
You have decided to hire a skipper for your sailing holidays . You don’t know what to expect and it seems a difficult task in your mind . Especially if its the fist time you do that , even more complicated .
Let us make it simple and enjoyful for you , in order to enjoy your holidays and not have to worry the factor of the skipper .
4 simple things to Remember
When you hire a skipper
Planning a route Together
Of the common issues in a skippered charter is the different opinions between the skipper and the crew about the planning of the trip . Our advise is to try to understand the nature of the sailing yacht and its limitations . For instance the speed of a sailing yacht for charter , using the engine is 6 knots . So you would need 5.5 hrs to leave Gouvia marina and go to Paxos . Imagine , some people asking , to leave Gouvia marina and go to Ithaka , where they need to do 13 hrs . The skipper must make them understand , that they cannot make this trip in a day 13 hrs straigt and they need to split it . This means that in a weekly charter , they will loose two days to just go in a destination . A lot of effort , fuel and time , not to mention the stress to cover all these miles on their way back .
On the other hand , if you listen to the skipper’s proposals , he will tell you the most , realistic route for your trip . Depending on the length of your , sailing holidays , 1 week or 2 weeks . At this point , we would like to point out two examples of an easy going and a more demanding trip on a week of sailing holidays , starting from Corfu , Gouvia marina .
Easygoing
week
1 week - 80 NM - 14 hrs - 40 L of Diesel
- 1st day from Gouvia marina to Lakka , Paxos - 28.6 NM - 4.44 hrs
- 2nd day from Lakka , Paxos - to Gaios , Paxos - 3.6 NM - 35 min
- 3rd day from Gaios , Paxos - to Mogonisi , Paxos - 1.6 NM - 16 min
- 4th day from Mogonisi , Paxos - to Parga in the mainland - 10.5 NM - 1 hr and 45min
- 5th day from Parga to Sivota-Mourtos in the mainland - 12.1 NM - 2 hrs
- 6th day from Sivota-Mourtos in the mainland to Gouvia marina in Corfu - 22 NM - 3.5 hrs
- All stops are night stops . During the day you don’t make more than 5 miles of an average distance in between your stops.
Demanding
week
1 week - 171.5 NM - 1day 4 hrs - 85.4 L of Diesel
- 1st day from Gouvia marina to Gaios , Paxos - 33.4 NM - 5.32 hrs
- 2nd day from Gaios , Paxos - to Vathi / Meganis-Lefkas - 44,4 NM - 7 hrs 33 min
- 3rd day from Vathi , Meganisi/Lefkas - to Sivota , Lefkas - 6.5 NM - 1h 4 min
- 4th day from Sivota , Lefkas to Mogonisi , Paxos - 49.7 NM - 8.5 hr
- 5th day from Mogonisi , Paxos to Sivota-Mourtos in the mainland - 13.5 NM - 2 hrs 13m
- 6th day from Sivota-Mourtos in the mainland to Gouvia marina in Corfu - 22 NM - 3.5 hrs
- All stops are night stops . During the day you don’t make more than 5 miles of an average distance in between your stops , except from day 2 and day 4 where you spend the half day to reach your destination covering an average of 47,05 NM per day which is almost 8 hrs per day.
Have a clear picture of how skippered charters work .
Most of the people who hire a skipper aren’t aware of the responsibilities of the skipper to them and on the other hand , their obligations to the skipper as well . When this happens , some situations can have an unpleasant tone to the whole trip .
The first thing you need to know is that the skipper ought to have its own cabin and his/her meals arranged by the guests . There are many misunderstandings around these factors .
Regarding the cabin , as you understand , after a long day under the hot sun with many different situations to handle , when the time to rest comes , the skipper needs a cosy bed to rest and some privacy .
Regarding its meals you can made the following arrangements:
- Prepare a proper meal on board . Especially if its going to be the main cource of the day . Light snacks are not considered to be , proper meals .
- Invite the skipper to join you in your planned meal , for exampe when you arrive in a port . Ask for their advise where to eat . Usually they know in every place the best spots for every cousine . In this way you earn from their , knowledge and you also create the necessary bonding for the trip.
- Offer him the chance to give him/her money for her daily expenses if you don’t plan , cooking on board or you don’t feel like inviting him to join you in your meals . Something between 20-25 € , will be enough .
Sailing or motoring ?
The common question among the guests that hire a skipper is , when he will open the sails so they can take photos or even participate in sailing. Some they are keen to help and they really enjoy it and some , they sit relaxed in their couch , reading , while the skipper , remains on the helm without really knowing if the guests will eventually , want to sail or not.
Sailing means teamwork and appropriate sailing conditions .
Means that everybody should have a role in the genoa or the main sail winches to get prepared for tacking. The skipper gives all the signals to make people , motivated and co-ordinated . Wind also plays a major role in sailing . If we really need to move with the sails from one destination to the other , we should have at least 12-13 knots of wind . In the Ionian this is not an every day case . Most of the times we need to use the engine .
How we organise our Provisions ?
Organising the provisions , means that we should decide , how many meals are we going to have , every day and which of these meals are we going to have them on board or perhaps in a nice taverna when we have the chance to be in a port or marina .
In our experience as skippers , a breakfast and a lunch usually are on-board meals and the dinner is somewhere , outside . Whether we are in a nice port or a marina or in a nice bay (which means we need to use the inflatable dinghy) we can always choose a nice taverna to have our dinner .
All ports and marinas have super markets , bakeries for our everyday provisioning . We also have a lot of bays that we can anhor and go ashore in a tiny dock , where we can also visit a place that might have a small grocery store or a kiosk (kiosks in Greece have sometimes all the basics that a grocery store has)
Best tips for a relaxed and a well planned sailing holiday
- Distances on board during the day shouldn’t be more than 3 hours per day , on a daily basis
- Ports get very busy during the summer from a very early stage of the day . If we really need to be in a port for provisiongs , Fuel or Water we must sacrifice our noon long swimm to get a place there
- Sailing needs time to experiment , especially if the wind is very low for sailing . Also most of the times , the winds picks by the time , we need to be in a port , early noon . Generally , its a good plan to spend the night in a bay if we want to sail or we must be prepared to sacrifice sailing and motor if we need to get a spot in the port . If we do sacrifice sailing we can still relaxe and have a nice swimm instead .
- The best time to book your holidays is between early June and early October . The weather isn’t hot , not too many yachts around , you can swimm in warm waters and the tavernas are still open to welcome you !
our skippers
Experienced , Motivated , Driven and Positive minded
Let us introduce you our skippers that will make , you have a memorable , sailing holiday !
Potis
Patient and Calm
Potis took his first offshore sailing license back in 2000 , before he gets his driving license . He loves monohull yachts and likes to cover long distances . He is 42 yrs old a non – smokker and he usually skippers for families with kids or couples .
Tasos
Confident and Joyfull
Tasos has a long time , experience around the sea , started from large fish trawlers when they were sailing in the Aegean sea , with his father . Owner of Paxos our Bavaria 46 Cruiser , loves to sail and share this experience with his guests . He is 52 yrs old , a non – smoker and he usually skippers , groups of friends and couples .