About Boatbookings.com Yacht Charter

The Boatbookings.com Advantage

Boatbookings.com was founded in 2005 to combine a worldwide network of charter experts with leading technology to deliver the best possible yacht charter experience. By several measures (number of boats available, amount of content, Alexa traffic rank, etc.) we are the largest charter-only site on the web. We have put thousands of clients on charter yachts, in virtually every major charter destination in the world. Here are some of the key reasons to charter with us:

We only do yacht charter.
We do not buy, sell, manage or equip yachts. We are fully dedicated to our client's charter needs. This formula has made us the world's largest yacht charter site.

We are in business to provide you with the best possible experience on a boat
Yacht charters are about the magic that happens when you're on the water with your family, friends, colleagues or guests. We believe that boats provide this experience better than anything else, which is why we have such a passion for our work.

When you book a charter through us we will ask you about the experience you are trying to achieve, and then provide recommendations about the boat, crew, itinerary and process to assure that we meet and exceed your expectations. It's not just about the boat!

A worldwide network of Charter Experts located near the boats. In order to deliver the best charter experience, you need someone who knows the yachts, crew, cruising areas, weather, local attractions, customs - the list is long. We have offices around the world with charter experts who know their regions first hand and travel to boat and charter shows so that they can guide you from personal experience.

Free, unbiased advice to get you on the right boat. We want to put you on the right boat so that you will come back year after year, as opposed to operators who want only to put you on their boat! It's virtually impossible to tell from pictures and specs what the boat or crew is really like, which is where we come in. In consultation with you we will recommend suitable yachts from among our multiple owner/operators to assure the boat you choose is right for you.

Someone on your side if something goes wrong. While the vast majority of charters go flawlessly, if something does happen, you need someone on your side to help solve the issue. This is especially true if you're chartering in a foreign country where you may not know local customs or even be able to speak the local language. We work with our operators on a daily basis, and because of our size and relationships we can push hard for a satisfactory result.

The same or better price if you book through us. The price you are charged is normally the same as the Owners/Operators charge their direct clients, and propose on their websites. So you get the best of all worlds by going through us: one-stop-shopping, best price, impartial advice, quality, and someone on your side!

The best content in the business. We have literally hundreds of articles available to you on the site, all written to to facilitate the process of chartering a boat. Destination Guides, Blogs, How to's, etc. We believe that the more you know, the higher likelihood you have of having a successful charter. See our content articles.

The widest selection of high quality yachts. At last count, we had over 8000 yachts available, worldwide. So if you need a yacht of any type, we probably know about it and normally have been on it. Being able to choose your boat from a larger list means you have a better chance of finding the best boat for your needs. That said, there are plenty of yachts we don't put on our site or recommend, because they don't meet our strict quality standards. See our charter yachts.

Honest feedback of others who have chartered to help you choose. We ask every client to provide us with feedback on their charter, and we publish this on the site. You have a whole world of experts who have been on the boats or chartered in your destination to help you understand the yacht and experience you're purchasing. We use social media to help communicate this feedback and have very popular Twitter and Facebook pages if you want to follow what our clients are saying. See our highest rated yachts.

And, most importantly, 97% customer satisfaction (and the remaining 3% are normally because of weather) . We want you to come back year after year so we do whatever we can to make your charter great. Testimonials.

The Advantages of Chartering through a Broker

We are charter brokers, which means that we work with all of the relevant central charter agents, fleet managers, and owner operators to find you the right boat. We have no vested interest in any specific yacht - our vested interest is your satisfaction.

Please note: The charter price does not change if you work directly with the manager or through us, acting as a broker. Any commissions are already calculated in the price, so nothing is added on for you, the client. This is industry standard, making it the same price to any broker, including the central agent who manages the yacht. And when you get to know us, we're sure you'll enjoy working with us!

See more about the advantages of using a charter yacht broker.

Chartering through Boatbookings.com

We know that chartering a yacht can be time consuming. You want to find the perfect yacht, with a fantastic crew, at a reasonable price in the most efficient way possible. And you want to know that the boat you select is in great repair and that there will be no surprises or hidden extras. You may not even speak the language of the country where you'll by chartering!

When you contact us, you get both expertise and a "one stop shop" to find you the best yacht for your needs and budget.

All you need to do is fill out a "no obligation" charter request and we'll propose the yachts that are available and best meet your criteria. It's as simple as that.

If you'd rather browse through the boats yourself, we offer information, pictures and specifications on thousands of quality yachts and a the world's largest online library of chartering information. You can go to our bareboat, crewed yacht, catamaran or Super Yacht sections, search for your specific criteria and regions or check out some of our specials. Or you can start with the destination to search for the boats available in the area you want to charter in. If you're looking for a boat for a specific personal or corporate event, we have information and specific yachts for you as well.

Once you find the boat you want, you just let us know, either through the booking form on every yacht page, through a charter request, or just by contacting us. We will confirm availability, specifications and price and get directly back to you. This is a risk-free way of securing your boat - there is no obligation until you sign a contract.

Important note - we do not charge you any fees or commissions. We receive our fees directly from the charter operators that we work with, and our price is the same as they would offer you.

Our People

Boatbookings.com is run by people who have a passion for yachts, e-commerce and customer satisfaction. Recognizing that it's often a very difficult, time consuming, and trying process to find the boat you require, we've combined our extensive contacts in the Charter industry with expertise in e-commerce, search, and database management to bring you the best possible site to book your boat - and one that you'll come back to time and time again.

Tom Virden, Director, Founder

Tom is a seasoned executive in leisure, travel and technology business, and has sailed extensively in the BVI, Thailand, Turkey and the Mediterranean. As the original International Director at lastminute.com, he brings a wealth of knowledge of e-commerce best practices to boatbookings.com.

Tom also worked at Apple Computer and Netscape which has provided a broad understanding of how technology can be used to improve the customer experience. Tom is a graduate of Stanford University and has written for the Harvard Business Review. He is currently a non-Exec Director of Atari, Inc. and Micro Focus PLC. Contact Tom.

Capucine de Vallee - General Manager

Capucine grew up sailing Hobie Cats and J24s on Long Island, NY, and has always had a passion for the sea. She came to Boatbookings.com to follow this passion, after a successful career as Director at The Chemistry Club & The Climate Change Forum and several international banking jobs.

Capucine manages charters primarily in the Mediterranean region, with specialty in events and luxury charters in the South of France. She also manages many of the company's Partnerships and Business Development activities. She speaks fluent English, French and Spanish. More on Linked in. Contact Capucine.

Sharon Bahmer, Charter Director - Caribbean, Bahamas, US and French Riviera

Sharon is our Senior Charter Director focusing on crewed yacht charters for the Caribbean, Bahamas, US and French Riviera. Since arriving stateside from South Africa, Sharon has firmly established herself in the Fort Lauderdale yachting industry for over a decade.

Sharon is passionate about finding the perfect yacht for every client. She attends international industry events, personally inspects charter vessels, and interacts with Captains and crews. This assures her ability to recommend a yacht and crew that will exceed the needs of even the most highly specialized agenda. More on Linked in.

Sharon is an active member in Yacht Industry Groups:

Board of Directors of the Charter Yacht Brokers Association
Chair of Education Subcommittee - with the goal to educate Brokers about issues and trends in areas that include marine law and environmental responsibility.

She is a true believer that full service and customer satisfaction is the only way to charter yachts! Contact Sharon.

Mimi Andain, Charter Director - French and Italian Riviera

Mimi spent many summers cruising the Mediterranean with her family on their yacht, which gave her a love for yachting from an early age. After growing up in England she moved to the South of France in the mid 80's. She was involved in the family's yachting business for many years covering most aspects of the yachting industry from management, sales to charter, where she has been an established broker for over 15 years.

Mimi specialises in high profile clients and brings a wealth of experience in event charters like the Monaco Grand Prix and the Cannes Film Festival. Mimi personally knows many of the yachts, captains and crew and has attended most of the major yacht shows over the years giving her an invaluable knowledge of chartering and an amazing attention to detail, making every charter unique and special. Contact Mimi.

Kevin Moir, Charter Director - Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean

Kevin, a Scot living in Singapore, has extensive experience in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Tahiti, Seychelles, the Maldives and other Asian and Indian Ocean yachting areas. Kevin has been in the region for many years and can find you the right yacht in all of the new and exciting charter areas of the Asia Pacific region.

Kevin launched our Asia/Pacific Business in 2007 and has developed probably the best selection of yachts and online guides in Southeast Asia, with a specialty in Thailand/Phuket and the fast growing Indian Ocean destinations. Contact Kevin.

Kevin is also a keen golfer and scuba diver, so he can offer advice on these activities if you want to add them to your sailing holiday or yacht cruise.

Nieves Morales, Charter Manager - Spain, Portugal, Greece, Caribbean Bareboats

Nieves has extensive experience in the Maritime business and makes it her practice to know the boats first hand. She is a Spanish native, but has lived for 3 years in Greece as well. She concentrates primarily on bareboats and day charters in Spain, Portugal and Greece for Summer Charters, and the BVI and Grenadines in the Caribbean for Winter Charters.

Besides her passion for yachting, she is also a qualified lawyer, so you can be assured her contracts will be professional! She speaks Spanish and English and conversational French. Contact Nieves.

Advisory Board Members

Boatbookings.com has set up an advisory board of key yachting, business and technology leaders who help us through the thousands of decisions required to grow the company into a world yachting leader. Members include:

- Rob Hersov, Chair - Chairman of Net Jets Europe and Private Equity Investor
- Nick Pearch - Founding CEO of Dyson & Company and Private Equity Investor
- Brent Hoberman - Founder of lastminute.com
- Brian May - Managing Director, Berthon Yachts

Testimonials!

We receive hundreds of unsolicited testimonials from happy customers, many of which are added to the boat page itself so you get the feedback from people who have actually used the yachts. Here are just a few of the testimonials we've received.

The Company

This web site is owned and operated by Enitiative.biz Limited, a company incorporated in England whose registered address is Dukes Court, 32 Duke Street, St James's, SW1Y 6DF London and whose company number is 05326363. Our UK VAT number is 970 8802 94.

Details of our business addresses and how you can contact us can be found on the Contact Us page.

Boatbookings.com has offices in London, Cannes, Athens, Ft Lauderdale, Newport and Singapore. We work worldwide, primarily through the Internet, to match boats to our customer's requests. We do not own or operate boats ourselves - your contract will be with one of our charter partners. That way we can be unbiased in finding you the right boat. For additional information on this, see our Terms and Conditions.

Press

If you are a member of the press and would like to contact us, see our Press contact page. Our Press releases can also be found there. You may also want to follow our blog for key yacht charter news stories. Our Founder can also be contacted via ProfNet.

Technology and Yacht Charter

Effective use of technology can greatly improve the process of chartering a yacht, and we continue to add new technologies and features on a daily basis. The website is just the tip of our technology iceberg - behind the scenes we link electronically to our suppliers and partners, keep track of all the tasks necessary to get you on the boat as efficiently as possible, and automate reminders, contracts and forms wherever possible.

We reach out to you and keep you informed via our specials feeds, twitter, boating news blog and newsletters. You can charter on your smart phone with our mobile yacht charter and boat rental site or directly on Facebook through our Facebook Yacht Charter App. We allow users to add comments directly to the site, so that you get real customer feedback to help you decide which boat to select. And we create unique tools such as our map-based trip planner (calculate distance, time, fuel cost for your charter) and our CO2 calculator (estimate your carbon emissions and cost to offset).

Here are just a few of the innovations and industry firsts from Boatbookings.com: first worldwide Specials RSS Feed, first charter agent to provide an iPhone app, first to provide a free map-based itinerary planner that calculates distance, time and fuel cost, first to automatically calculate estimated CO2 emissions on its yachts, first to offer Carbon Offsets for charter yachts, first to run a promotion so that all yachts were chartered with a Zero Carbon footprint. We are also the first to have a complete mobile yacht charter site - usable on any smart phone, and a fully functional yacht charter application on Facebook. As technology evolves, we will be there whenever it improves our ability to deliver a great yacht charter experience.

Chartering via the Internet with Safety and Security

We believe that the internet provides the best way of finding your charter yacht, short of actually seeing the boat first hand. It can deliver images, videos, descriptions, crew profiles, background information and testimonials instantly, worldwide.

We know many of you worry about booking over the internet - there are too many stories of scams and other unscrupulous behavior. We are an internet agent because it lowers our costs, and therefore allows us to be more responsive to your needs and more customer service oriented. To give you comfort and confidence in us, however, you should know the following:

We are members of industry organisations such as the Charter Yacht Brokers Association (CYBA)

We can provide references from top Brokers

We pass your money on immediately to the boat owner or operator, and they can confirm this for you

We only work with the best charter operators and boat owners, worldwide

We can be reached literally 24 hours per day to deal with any issues you may have

We bank with reputable international banks - HSBC in London and Bank of America (BofA) in the US. We process credit cards through a merchant agreement with HSBC Bank or PayPal, and use industry standard secure encryption technology if you're sending us credit card data. If you use the secure site, no one has access to your data, and it is not stored in our system.

We normally work with industry standard contracts such as CYBA (Charter Yacht Brokers Association) or MYBA (Mediterranean Yacht Brokers Association). These contracts clearly specify owner, agent and charterer responsibilities and protect you in many ways.

We have thousands of happy customers - please read the testimonials section on our site or see a list of our highest rated yachts! We contact every customer after the charter, and last year had 97%+ customer satisfaction!

The above notwithstanding, we do realise that unforeseen problems can happen on charters such as plane cancellations, bad weather or illness, and recommend that you always purchase travel insurance for your peace of mind.

Legal Info

Please note the terms of use of this site, our copyrights and trademarks, privacy policy and other legal matters as fully detailed on our Legal Pages.

Thanks!

To all of our partners, especially the Central Charter Agents, Fleet Operators, Skippers, Captains, Crew and Boat Owners who take such great care of the boats and our clients. And to the manufacturers who create such fine products and generously provide us with beautiful photos and boat descriptions.

In memory of Bjorn G, who's love of sailing, and life, continues to inspire us.