Motorboat Charter: The Complete Guide

Why charter a motorboat

A motorboat trades the romance of sail for three practical things: speed, space on deck, and almost no learning curve. You point it where you want to go and you get there, usually in a third of the time a sailing yacht would take. For a long weekend, a family with restless kids, or anyone who cares more about the destination than the journey, that trade is often the right one.

There are really two kinds of motorboat charter, and they barely overlap.

Day boats

A day boat is what most people picture: a 6–10 metre open boat with a big outboard, hired by the hour or the day, usually with fuel and sometimes a skipper. You take it out from a resort in the morning, find a bay for lunch and a swim, and bring it back before dinner.

Licence: In much of the Mediterranean you can hire a small day boat (typically under 30–40hp) with no licence at all. Above that, most countries want a recognised powerboat certificate such as the ICC.
Cost: Expect €150–€400 for a day, plus fuel. A skipper adds roughly €120–€200.
Best for: A single good day out — Ibiza's coves, the Amalfi grottoes, the Exumas sandbars.

Weekly cruisers

The other end is a proper motor yacht you live aboard for a week: 12–20 metres, two to four cabins, a flybridge, and the range to island-hop in comfort. This is closer to a floating apartment that happens to do 20 knots.

Licence: For a bareboat cruiser of this size, charter companies want a powerboat licence and demonstrable handling experience, or you take a professional skipper. Most people take the skipper.
Cost: A crewed weekly motor yacht starts around €8,000–€15,000 a week in the Med and climbs steeply with size and crew.
Best for: Covering ground. If your wishlist spans islands a sailing yacht couldn't reach in a week, a motor cruiser closes the gap.

The one number that matters: fuel

This is where motorboats and sailboats part ways. A sailing yacht runs its engine for an hour or two a day and fills up once a week. A planing motorboat can burn 60–150 litres an hour at cruising speed. On a fast boat, fuel can quietly become your largest single cost.

Two ways to keep it sane:

Slow down. Most cruisers are far more efficient at displacement speed (8–10 knots) than up on the plane. Dropping from 22 to 9 knots can cut consumption by two-thirds.
Plan shorter hops. Motorboats reward a tight itinerary of nearby anchorages, not long open-water dashes.

Where motorboats make the most sense

Sheltered, island-dense water with short distances between good anchorages: the Balearics, the Bay of Naples and the Amalfi Coast, Croatia's Dalmatian islands, the Bahamas banks, and the Florida Keys. Anywhere the appeal is a string of separate stops rather than one long passage, a motorboat lets you see more of them.

If you are choosing between motor and sail and cost is the deciding factor, price the fuel first. If it is comfort and speed, the motorboat wins easily.