Bareboat in the Mediterranean

[Bullshooter]

Thank you chuckr. I was about to ask what months are best to avoid such winds but that site you provided has Wind Statistics that is very informative.

[Bullshooter]

Another question for anyone who cares to indulge me:

In the Caribbean, charters typically forbid sailing after dark. Is this also true in the Med? It seems that the typical recommended itineraries in the Med often call for some fairly long sailing days. Some days call for over 40 nm. This could of course be accomplished during daylight hours but it made me wonder about sailing after dark...

[meirriba]

AFAIK this is true with charter companies in the Med as well.
There is no problem to cover 50-60 nm in daylight hours.
Most of the charter itineraries are built around shorter distances per leg anyway.

[Bullshooter]

OK thank you meirriba

[Bullshooter]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Greece and Croatia are also great, but Croatia is more complicated and more expensive and would not be my choice for a first Med charter cruise. Greece is very good, but a bit harder to access, because most of the good places are out in the islands. With limited time, Turkey is better -- fly straight in and get on the boat and sail away.

If you don't mind I have a question. Croatia is sounding fairly enticing to my crew, but your words are holding me back. Would you mind elaborating a bit on why it is more complicated? Any insight you may have is appreciated.

Thank you,

BS'er

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Bullshooter

If you don't mind I have a question. Croatia is sounding fairly enticing to my crew, but your words are holding me back. Would you mind elaborating a bit on why it is more complicated? Any insight you may have is appreciated.

Thank you,

BS'er

You might want to ask Kenomac, whose experience is more recent than mine.

When I was there, it was hard to get to, harder to get around in (on land), much worse infrastructure of all kinds. And expensive. But I loved it nonetheless!

[terah]

We did a flotilla holiday out of Dubrovnik last year, and a bareboat holiday out of Corfu this year.

We took a bus from ACI Marina into Dubrovnik on our first day, then stopped at a taverna near Broce and got a lift from the chef into Ston. Other than that we didn't try to get anywhere on land. Found the infrastructure good at all stops, quays with lazy lines, power and water most places, and never too busy - this was early July.

Whilst not cheap, prices were still good by UK standards. This was with Dream Yacht Charter and had no problems at all with them.

This year from Corfu we went down to Sivota on the mainland, then to Paxos and Anti Paxos.

Town quays were always busy, lucky if you get in after 3pm. Limited power / water. Most nights we anchored out.

Sun Charter (German company) and again no issues.

[Bullshooter]

Thank you Dockhead and terah. (Kenomac, what say you?)

Terah, are you saying that the Croatia trip was less problematic than the Greece trip?

And (to all posters) regarding the town quays with lazy lines, what are typical costs for an overnight at such places?

I really appreciate all the advice.

[terah]

Maybe 'more convenient' rather than 'less problematic'. Shore power most nights in Croatia meant a nice cold fridge and everything charged up.

Overall we preferred the Greece week but that was more down to bareboat vs flotilla. Flotilla was great for our first trip but we really enjoyed being able to do our own thing this time round.

Med mooring is certainly easier with lazy lines but we pretty much had the hang of it with anchor in a few days.

In Croatia I think we were ~30 euros for a 38' boat at the town quay. A lot of the quays though are owned by tavernas and the general deal there is mooring (and power) are free if you eat at the taverna.

[Bullshooter]

That is awesome! I am not above eating at a taverna!

[CHS_JDE]

We are rookie bareboaters. Have crewed for a couple weeks out of Athens and done courses (ASA through 105)/charters in the US, but nothing in the Med. Interested to know if there are locations in the Med that are within our reach and which ones are better. Competent sailors but haven't done much bareboating with inexperienced crew. Thanks.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, CHS_JDE.

[RobTS]

As I just got back from a charter on the Cyclades (starting in Athens), here are my numbers:

The yacht was 1790 € (2012 Elan 394), though I had an offer for a 2004 Bavaria 38 for 1350 € as well (but it wasn't certified for 7 people, so it was not an option). Cleaning is extra (90 €), outboard for the dinghy is extra (80 €).

Look for boats with good solar power, ours was lacking in this department and we had to run the engine regularly to recharge the batteries. On a previous charter, we had the fridges running day and night without any electricity problems for a week without land power (as recommended by the charter company).

[Kristoff21]

I charter regulatory in the med and have done since passing my RYA qualification 5 years ago, (you will need this, or equivalent, for Croatia) in fact I've never chartered anywhere else (other places have tides!)

I've done most of the popular places, and I've just come back from Croatia. We charted with Waypoint Yacht charter out of Trogir (Split). There is a big charter fleet in Trogir, multiple operators and I would guess hundreds of charter boats. The whole town is basically geared around chartering.

This means its got some positives and some negatives.

Positives are, it has a big-ish supermarket right by the marina, nice old town full of yachties to chat to, and well established chartering community (stuff like topping up at the fuel and water docks is well managed on changeover days even if it looks like total chaos). Its also cheap, much cheaper than Greece/Spain/Italy for food and drink I found, about 30% cheaper.

Downsides are the weather is a law unto itself, you can be in 9 knots of wind and loping along nicely when you round one of the many small islands and you get his with 40 knots from nowhere. It happened to us pretty much every day. It's more fun than dangerous though if you like that sort of thing. Theres never much fetch so the water is almost always calm, its just light wind or lots of wind on an ever changing cycle.

Holding is generally poor in most of the anchorages, its rocky hard bottom with about 1cm of sand on top. We used long (or not so long actually) lines ashore every night. Plus side is the topography is steep, so you can get close enough to the shoreline in most anchorages to literally step off onto the rocks if you are brave enough.

Changeover day is total chaos and would terrify me if I didn't have a 20 or so charters under my belt. You absolutely have to be able to handle a sailboat under close quarter conditions ore you will come a cropper. There are boats everywhere and he wind is usually blowing 15-20 knots mid afternoon so you have that to contend with too. We saw 4 collisions between charter boats whist we were waiting our turn to fill up with fuel. Its also the main route for the numerous tourist day cruise type power boats and they plough the channel not slowing down for anyone.

There's nowhere near as many dock side med-style mooring opportunities as you get in Greece, that's perfect for me as once I leave the dock I anchor out every night, but if you want to go ashore for meals in the evening Croatia isn't the place for you.

All in all I loved it, a bit more requirement to actually know how to sail a boat than in some of the other med locations I've been and Waypoint themselves were great to deal with. The boat was spot on and had a powerful rig in good condition with an overlapping genoa etc... which meant you could really cover some distance. Many times charter boats have sails so small and so worn the the boat is basically motor sailor in less than 25 knots of breeze.

I used £14 of diesel all week and that was most just to charge the house bank. Sailed everywhere.


Hope that helps.

[ReneJK]

Originally Posted by Kristoff21

There's nowhere near as many dock side med-style mooring opportunities as you get in Greece, that's perfect for me as once I leave the dock I anchor out every night, but if you want to go ashore for meals in the evening Croatia isn't the place for you.

great post as I agree with mostly everything you wrote , except the above ?
Ive sailed Croatia for many years and there are loads and loads of places you can moor , anchor or hit a marina / town quay and go out to dinner every evening ?

Many places around Trogir as well on the islands that are close by ?