Charter in Greece

[twosail]

Hi,

We are about to charter a Yacht from Corfu in July from a company called Easy Sail, not to be confused with Easy Sailing! Their website is Easysail.gr and state the company is called Omiros Yachts Ltd. Has any one had any experience with this company?

Thanks for your help.

[DoubleWhisky]

It is just one of hundreds charter agents in Greece.
As far as I know they (as 99.99 % of the others) have not own boats or even exclusive contracts for any boats. When You put the inquiry they are starting to phone around looking for a boat for You. It is quite common to have a lot of agents, sub-agents and sub-sub-agents involved in single charter there )) You see only final contract, but the owner of the boat is paying quite absurd commissions - in final effect You are often getting not what You are paying for, but what an owner was effectively paid for...
Before buying my own boat I chartered a lot there and found that generally the best way to charter in Greece is to contact directly the companies owning the boats. They are quite easy to recognise, as they normally use the names like "XXXX M.C.P.Y." or "XXXX N.E.P.A." instead of "XXXX Ltd". M.C.P.Y. (N.E.P.A. in Greek) is special kind of a company, used only for ownership of charter boats.
What kind of boat do You want to charter - if I can ask?

[twosail]

We have now done the deal so hope all goes well! Its the second time we have charted in Greece, last year we charted from a Company called Sailing in Blue the yacht was a Oceanis 461 its was an older yacht but was in good order and we had no problems and a great holiday.

This time we have charted a Cyclades 50.5 as we have some friends coming and needed a bigger yacht. We would happily gone with Sailing in Blue but we got such a good offer from Easysail we thought we would give them a go. I hope we don't regret it!

[DoubleWhisky]

Have a nice sailing!
By the way - be aware that Oceanis 461 is much nicer boat than Cyclades. The latter is rather bare plastic inside. Nevertheless You will spend most of the time on deck or on the shore - inside of the boat is for sleeping only in Greece

[careka]

We have used Easy Sailing Greece :: Bareboat Sailing Greece, Yacht charter in the Greek islands
did a B.O. 393 in 2005, 2weeks
and a Lavezzi 40 in 2009 2 weeks
and i can do them again, they had nice boats and cheaper then the others

Careka

[lyosha73]

Anyone can name charter companies in Greece that own the boats not a brokers? I would like to deal with them directly. Thank you.

[hejapofa]

My charter experience in the mediterranean has been in Greece and Turkey. I've used Sunsail and Neilson. Neilson own their own boats, Sunsail represent owners who charter exclusively through them. I have good experiences with both though not without the usual small and fixable problems.

[ParisP]

@DoubleWhiskey

You are absolutely right. Most brokers operate exactly as you described; However as things changed recently in the country yacht chartering landscape has changed. VAT and fuel were increased, many boats left the country and went to Turkey and Croatia as Greek goverment plays a hard game that effects both professional and non professional yacht owners.

The reason for my reply is actually a new online real-time yacht charter application established and implemented recently in the Greek market by my company, based on the "Owner & Broker Direct" model, where yacht professionals get paid directly by the charterer. You may call it a yacht charter super market and competition between the registered users appears to be hard so far.

As we are not brokers, all conflicts are waived. The application will be soon presented to other yacht destinations as well. Listings are not yet available to view as we have many yacht pros registering everyday.

[himnher]

Originally Posted by lyosha73

Anyone can name charter companies in Greece that own the boats not a brokers? I would like to deal with them directly. Thank you.

For the past 5 years we have been back to Greek Sails. They are a family-run company and do own their own boats, although you'll also find agents selling Greek Sails boats as their own. So if you ever see anyone talking about 'their' base in Poros, they're actually talking about Greek Sails as they are the only charter company based there!

So we have gone back time and again because:

1. The area is quiet, particularly is you sail SW of Poros into the Argolic
2. There are some stunning places to visit. Ermioni and Hydra are mentioned above here and both are only a few hours SW of Poros. But there are other wonderful places...Monemvasia is a 'must see', Navplion, Yerakas is lovely. There some details and photos on the Greek Sails website.
3. They are a small company, so the service is direct and very personal and you start and end your holiday from a small quay of about 25 yachts in Poros (which is itself a lovely spot), rather than from some vast noisy marina
4. We have sailed the Saronic to the north, Argolic and eastern Peloponnese to the SW and out through the Cyclades to the east, this year crossing as far as Patmas and back
5. The boats are always spotlessly clean and in good repair unlike some other boats we see

So that woudl be my recommendation