Chartering the type of yacht you are thinking well-nigh ownership may be the perfect way to test a yacht works for you surpassing you make the leap.

As you would always test drive a second-hand car before buying it, so too should you test drive your potential new boat. Sea trials are used to ensure that all onboard systems are in working order and many of these systems cannot be tested accurately on land.

A typical first lease holiday, perhaps on a production wend in Greece or Turkey, holds a special place in most sailors’ memories, plane if they go on to own their own yacht and sail remoter afield. A lease gives a taste of the responsibility, self-rule and possibilities that owning a yacht might unlock.

The yacht you hire, though, is rarely what you’d segregate to own. Lease yachts are often built with mass request in mind, packing in berths and cabins, and rarely geared for performance or living aboard full time. However, chartering the model of yacht you are seriously considering ownership is very worthwhile, and something many don’t plane realise is possible.

Swan is one visitor which offers lease as a ‘taste’ of ownership. Nicolò Telese, lease manager, says: “Chartering a Swan allows the vendee to explore a variety of destinations, but moreover is a way to start the sailing journey. Some of our owners start by chartering a Swan to then build their dream yacht.

Spending a week or increasingly on workbench can help you evaluate whether a yacht will fit your needs in the long term, and help specify it to suit. Nautor Swan offers lease of yachts from 45-130ft wideness a range of models, both racing and cruising, in locations including the Mediterranean and Caribbean.

Changing customers

Victor Jeunemaitre, Outremer’s commercial director, notes that in a waffly market inexperienced customers are putting less time into their decisions when commissioning builds. “As a visitor towers high performance catamarans, it’s important to us that customers understand what they are ordering,” he says. “It is not purely transactional at all.

“Ultimately, our relationship extends well vastitude delivery, so we want it to be a good relationship, and that ways ensuring an Outremer is right for them, both when they sign the cheque and when they are halfway virtually the world. In some cases, customers have ordered on the understructure of chartering flipside trademark of catamaran a couple of times, but the venture they have planned is much bigger.

“We find that plane a good test sail highlights unmistakably how we are variegated to most catamaran builders on the market, but moreover what we are not. For example, we urgently encourage a relatively simple specification, while others are keen for owners to specify many options. Our hulls are narrower than most. They are preferences not only leaning towards performance, but moreover considering we know that a good bluewater venture is often underpinned by a wend that is relatively easy to maintain far from home.”

“We don’t have yachts permanently misogynist for charter, instead we uncontrived customers to existing owners who perhaps lease for a few weeks a year. We have a wonderful family of owners who love their yachts.

“A little unusually, charters on an Outremer are unchangingly with a skipper on board, partly due to the performance they offer, but that’s a unconfined opportunity to learn and immerse yourself in the wend and how it all works. Particularly, it’s an opportunity to get the wend going fast and to really see what it is capable of.

Charter can moreover be invaluable once the contract has been signed to help with final specifications and to get you used to the wend surpassing you plane own your own.

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Thorough evaluation

A similar specimen is made by Stuart Abernethy, X-Yachts GB’s unstipulated manager, based in Hamble. He explains they go to unconfined lengths to encourage a charter:

“We say to serious prospective buyers that we can take them out for a few hours on the Solent, but to understand what an X-Yacht is about, a lease makes for a comprehensive endangerment to see if it is what they are looking for.

“Our offer of stuff worldly-wise to lease at the yard in Denmark ways a consumer can see yachts in build and then wits a week aboard. It’s moreover invaluable for shaping the specification later. Also, a lease in Denmark does not unchangingly get perfect conditions, which is unquestionably good; you get to see the yacht in the real world.”

X-Yachts Denmark’s lease operation is geared towards prospective buyers rather than the unstipulated lease market, meaning that the latest models are available.

The visitor moreover offers charters in Greece, which gives current owners the endangerment to sail somewhere different, or to wits a variegated model as larger X-Yachts are available.

“In general, the platonic would be to lease prior to purchase and then once the order is placed in order to help specify the yacht. In each specimen it’s going to make the consumer so much increasingly informed well-nigh what they are buying.”

Fiona McCarthy spent several years as a unstipulated lease broker, but now heads up the Oyster Yachts lease operation. Those considering ownership an Oyster often lease first.

Clients who lease with us that are thinking well-nigh ownership are often at two variegated stages. Either they are thinking widely well-nigh ownership a yacht, or they are well-nigh to sign –or have perhaps just signed – a build contract with us,” she says.

A lease presents an opportunity to evaluate the reality and what they might like to do with the yacht, as well as get a week or increasingly of insights from a professional captain.

“I had a vendee quite recently that was considering ownership an Oyster with a view to doing the Oyster World Rally. However, their sailing wits was limited to sheltered waters, so they chartered for two weeks in the Caribbean. It gave them the endangerment to sail in stronger winds, with some offshore conditions, while learning a lot from the hairdo well-nigh the size and model of yacht they were planning to order.

“They left worldly-wise to make a much increasingly informed decision,” says McCarthy.

For other clients it’s an opportunity to sail a larger yacht than they have before, and prove to themselves they’re up to handling a worthier yacht. “One vendee chartered a 575. They spent the whole week urgently sailing,
improving their wend handling skills and by the end of the week were sailing her on and off anchor; helping them make the step up to a worthier yacht,” she adds.

“Also, when it comes to stepping up to a fully crewed Oyster like the 885, lease can demonstrate how a yacht with entirely separate hairdo walk-up provides the privacy they seek, giving an wits of what the dynamic will be like on board.”

Those chartering with a view to ownership are aiming to get a lot out of their time; it is not just a holiday. McCarthy says that getting the most out of it is lanugo to sharing as much information as possible.

“The increasingly you tell us, the increasingly we can plan a lease that’s right for you. We’re well versed in matching the right boat, the right hairdo and the right itinerary to a prospective purchaser. One real wholesomeness is that our hairdo know the yachts they run very well, so they have lots to pass on and are passionate well-nigh what they do and are happy to share it.”

A try surpassing you buy specimen study

Magnus Tallqvist recently took wordage of the first Outremer 52, but his journey to signing the build contract involved a lot of chartering to learn exactly what he wanted.

“We were originally monohull sailors, with a 40ft Saare here in Sweden – a unconfined boat. But with a plan to sail remoter in warmer climes, and sooner to circumnavigate, we started to squint increasingly broadly. That included chartering catamarans.

“What really opened our minds to the idea was an vendible well-nigh the Outremer concept, though it would in fact be a while surpassing we sailed one. We started by chartering through Navigare Yachting, who owned quite a lot of variegated types.”

Tallqvist set up charters in a variety of locations for one to two weeks. “We sailed Lagoons, Nautitechs and Catanas, each for a week or more, often off season. As soon as you are living aboard you start to really learn and icon out if you can see yourself aboard long term. Some of them simply wouldn’t go well to windward.

The Nautitech Open 40 however was a good compromise of space and performance.

“Some had stowage upper up in each cabin, which isn’t up to holding the volume or weight you would have when on workbench long term and hands breaks as the wend gets into heavier weather. On one we found that when it rained the cockpit got soaked considering of the way the roof was moulded. These are all things we wouldn’t have learned from a day sail.”

Tallqvist and his wife were weary of hearing existing owners’ views of why their nomination was the right option. “Very few people, having spent so much money, are likely to undeniability themselves out for making the wrong decision, or to highlight faults with what they have chosen. There is no perfect yacht and so much well-nigh what you segregate is lanugo to you personally.

“The Outremer is geared to performance, not internal volume, nor is it as luxurious as many other catamarans in terms of kit on board, so it too is probably not the right yacht for everyone. While the Outremer we ordered was in fact hull No1, we made sure to sail the 45 and 51, finding a builder that made something that was right for us. We had conviction the 52 would be as good or better.

“For anyone thinking well-nigh buying, I’d really encourage them to lease as it’s a lot of fun and you learn so much withal the way. See it as part of the process. The range of what’s misogynist on the market is huge and it’s nonflexible to differentiate and icon that out without putting the time in to get it right.

“A wend show is a somewhat strained environment in that sense and, having now sailed quite a few catamarans, there are some I wouldn’t take wideness the Atlantic. A lease gives you an idea of the range of the market in terms of quality and the level of conviction they do or don’t inspire.