Own a yacht in the Ionian, and let her work for her keep
Most people who want a boat stall at the same two numbers: what she costs to buy, and what she costs to keep. The second one is usually what stops them, because it arrives every year whether you sail or not — berthing, insurance, servicing, lift-out, antifouling, someone to watch her in February.
Putting a yacht into charter changes that arithmetic. She earns through the season you are not using her, and the programme carries the running of her. You can come into it two ways: buy a yacht outright, or buy a share of one and build up from there.
Buy the whole yacht, or buy a share
The boat and the programme are the same either way. What differs is how much of her is yours on day one.
A whole yacht
You buy the boat. She goes into the charter programme, earns through the season, and you take your weeks out of it. The asset is yours from the start and so is any growth or loss in her value.
Suits you if you have the capital, you want the boat in your name from day one, and you would rather the running of her was somebody else's problem.
A share
You buy part of a yacht rather than all of her, at a correspondingly lower entry cost. She charters the same way and you take owner weeks the same way. Over an agreed term your share can increase, so that what began as a part holding ends as the boat.
Suits you if the full purchase price is the obstacle rather than the commitment, and you would rather start now at a fraction than wait five years for the whole.
Which boats are available, what a share costs, and how the term is structured depend on the yacht. The structure is written into the agreement before anyone signs — ownership, shares, what happens if either side wants out, and what she is worth at the end.
How it works
Choose the yacht
From what is available, or one we source for you. Model, age and condition all change what she will earn and therefore what the arrangement looks like.
Agree the terms
Purchase or share, the length of the agreement, the revenue split, your weeks, and the exit. In writing, before money moves.
She joins the programme
Prepared for commercial charter, insured for it, registered properly with the Greek authorities, and berthed at Gouvia.
She charters
Through the season, to crews we vet and brief ourselves. You see what she books and what she earns.
You sail her
Three to eight weeks a season, mainly May and October — the best sailing months in the Ionian — plus up to two weeks elsewhere in the year.
At the end of the term
She comes out of the programme, or the agreement renews, or your share has become the whole boat. Settled the way the agreement says, not the way the market feels that year.
What the programme carries
The costs that otherwise arrive every year whether you sail or not.
Maintenance, summer and winter
Running repairs between charters and the full winter programme.
Winterizing
Engine, systems, water, sails and canvas prepared for the lay-up.
Guardianage
Eyes on her through the months when nothing is happening.
Risk management for charters
Vetting crews, briefing them properly, and handling deposits and damage.
Representation to the Greek authorities
Charter paperwork, crew lists and the filings a chartering yacht must keep in order.
Berthing at Gouvia
Her place in the marina, arranged and held as part of the programme.
This is the same programme we run for owners who already have a boat — see charter management. What sits inside it and what sits outside depends on the yacht, and it is set out in the agreement rather than discovered later.
What charter income does, and what it does not
Charter income offsets the cost of owning a yacht. Depending on the boat, the season and the agreement, it can offset a great deal of it. It is not a guarantee, and we will not write one.
Income moves with the weather, with how early she goes on sale, with what the wider Greek market does to prices, and with a bad August nobody saw coming. A yacht is also a depreciating asset that occasionally needs something expensive and unscheduled. Any company that tells you a boat will pay for itself is either pricing that promise into your terms or relying on you not to check.
What we will do instead is show you what boats in this programme have actually earned — real weeks, real seasons, including the ones that disappointed. Then you can decide with the same numbers we use. Ask, and we will put them in front of you.
Whole yacht or share — see how it looks
Tell it which route interests you and roughly what you have in mind. It comes to us, and we come back with a real proposal for a real boat rather than a brochure.
If the form does not load for you, email base@sailorsbreeze.com with the same detail and you will get the same answer.
Come and see how it actually runs
The most useful hour you can spend on this is at Gouvia, on one of the boats, going through a real set of season figures with the person who maintains her. We would rather you came and looked than took our word for it.