The term luxury yacht refers to a very expensive privately owned yacht which is professionally crewed. Also known as a super-yacht, a luxury yacht may be either a sailing or motor yacht.

This term began to appear at the beginning of the 20th century when wealthy individuals constructed large private yachts for personal pleasure. Examples of early luxury motor yachts include M/Y (motor yacht) Christina O and M/Y Savarona. Early luxury sailing yachts include Americas Cup classic J class racers like S/Y (sailing yacht) Endeavour and Sir Thomas Lipton’s S/Y Shamrock. The New York Yacht Club hosted many early luxury sailing yacht events at Newport, Rhode Island, during the Gilded Age.

More recently, over the last decade or two, there has been an increase in the number and popularity of large private luxury yachts. Luxury yachts are particularly bountiful in the Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas,

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Here are some brief points to consider:

Crew overboard.

Common sense is important here. Is your charter yacht sailing in a cold area or was the crew who fell overboard injured whilst falling. If the answer is yes to one of these questions you have less time to get back to the crew overboard because of the heightened risk of hypothermia and drowning. People who cannot swim should wear life jackets or floatation devices and/or remain in the cockpit while underway.

The five general steps to a man overboard rescue are: stop the boat as fast as possible (crash tack if your not going to injure anyone else doing it), remember to get someone to keep their eye on the crew overboard at all times (this can be more difficult than expected and should be taken very seriously); second, provide buoyancy, such as a life ring, to the crew overboard (as close as possible, throw up wind); third, put the boat alongside (take note of which way the wind is blowing to help you wit this task); fourth, connect the crew overboard to the boat; and last, get them onboard.

It is a good idea and can be a fun exercise to practice a man overboard drill on your first day (don’t use a real person). This is good maneuvering/helming practice too if you are a bit out of touch or on an unfamiliar yacht. Remember the old adage for you and your crew: "keep one hand for yourself and one for the boat".

Before you take your first cruise sailing vacation Take a look at few Cruising Vacation Destinations

Cruise ship is more popular for travelling, and also affordable, you can not only go to those sunny destinations but also to more unusual ports like Hong Kong, Alaska, Norway and the Amazon River.

The caribbean sailing cruise is one of the most popular places for first-time cruisers to go. Among the places to choose from are the Bahamas, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. There is also the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Usually, cruise ships heading for the Caribbean set sail from ports along the Eastern United States coast as well as Florida. The same applies to beautiful Bermuda.

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Bareboat, flotilla, crewed or gulet charter

A bareboat charter - without hired captain or crew - will give you total privacy and independence, yet besides you as skipper, a second member of your group should be able to sail. With more than 12 persons it is best to rent a second yacht.
If you feel rusty, you can always hire an instructor for just the first day, and study the first 5 chapters of my navigation course.
If you need more guidance a flotilla still offers a lot of privacy, while safely sailing along in a fleet of yachts towards the next port. You will skipper your own yacht, but a flotilla leader will keep a close eye on you. An added bonus for children is the possibility to make friends on the other yachts.
However, if you find a flotilla too restrictive, yet a regular bareboat too much responsibility, you should consider the assisted bareboat charters, the golden mean.

You will get full assistance with a crewed charter. Options are a skipper, hostess, cook as well as an instructor from a RYA sailing school.
A gulet cruise is perhaps one of the most luxurious crewed charters around.

Type of yacht
Only a small fraction of yachts in the east Mediterranean are motor yachts. Moreover, a lot of these motor yachts and motor sailers come fully crewed. For bareboat chartering you can choose between smaller motor yachts (~10%), catamarans (~10%) and a huge fleet of sailing monohulls

Finding a reputable company
Many members of the sailing community have shared their charter experiences with me. Advice on reliable yacht charter companies or reputable gulet companies.

luxury yacht sailing catamarans, showing the typical Hobie raised platform joining the two hulls, and tall mast.

Stars & Stripes, a racing crewed catamarans
Although the principles of sailing are the same for both catamarans and monohulls, there are some 'peculiarities' to sailing catamarans. For example:
Catamarans can be harder to tack (turn through the wind). Because they are lighter in proportion to their sail size, they have less momentum to carry them through the turn when they are head to wind. Correct use of the jib sail is often essential in successfully completing a tack without ending up stuck in irons (pointing dead into the wind and sailing backwards).

They have a higher average speed.
All boats sail faster when travelling in certain directions relative to the wind with the best speeds typically being achieved when heading away from the wind at about 135 degrees. This effect is much more noticeable with catamarans, even to the extent that it can be more efficient to jibe ('tack' downwind) in zig zags, rather than heading directly away from the wind as a monohull would.

Catamarans are less likely to capsize in the classic 'beam-wise' manner but often have a tendency to 'pole-axe' (or 'pitchpole') instead - where the leeward (downwind) bow sinks into the water and the boat 'trips' over forward, leading to a capsize.

Teaching for new sailors is usually carried out in monohulls as they are thought easier to learn to sail, a mixture of all the differences mentioned probably contributes to this.

Catamarans, and multihulls in general, are normally faster than single-hull boats for four reasons:
each hull of a catamaran is (typically) thinner in cross section than those of monohulls;
catamarans are lighter due to the fact there is no keel counterweight.
catamarans have a wider beam (the distance from one side of the boat to the other), which makes them more stable and therefore able to carry more sail area per unit of length than an equivalent monohull.
the greater stability means that the sail is more likely to stay upright in a gust, drawing more power than a monohull's sail which is more likely to lean over.
Catamarans are especially favourable in coastal waters, where the open spaces permit the boat to reach and maintain its maximum speed. Catamarans make good cruising and long distance boats.

Anticipating your sailing vacation is great fun, yet choosing the right charter yacht might almost be as difficult as finding a reliable charter company.

To select that perfect boat you will need to look at the following criteria:

The number of cabins or berths needed, including the hostess or skipper. Some yachts come in different designs: an owners version which usually combines two cabins into one large stateroom or a holiday version which holds as many cabins as possible. You should also consider the number of heads and showers.

The standing height or head room below deck can be quite a limiting factor. If you or one of your crew is taller than 1.85 m (6' 1") my advice would be to choose a yacht that has a standing room of at least 1.90 m (6' 3"). Note that this standing height is often the maximum height below deck, and especially in yachts smaller than 35 feet this means that most of the saloon will be much lower.

There is a minimum yacht size of 30 feet due to the Aegean winds and waves, so it is no luxury to charter at least a 32 feet yacht in the (southern) Cyclades and Dodecanese. Yet, in the Ionian and the Argolic and Saronic Gulfs - which are less demanding areas - a 30 feet yacht should be sufficient.

The age of the yacht: The consensus is that all yachts built in 2004 or later are usually new enough, but those built in 2001 - 2003 should preferably only be chartered through reliable charter businesses. Yachts build before 2001 are considered very old. Yet, good and professional maintenance is the key here: A three year old yacht could well be in better shape than a one year old sister ship.
A longer yacht has a larger maximum speed. For instance a 50 foot yacht has 30% more speed than its 30 feet version, which allows you to travel greater distances, adding more freedom to your itinerary.

By keeping in mind these few things you can have a better control over your voyage.

When you charter a bareboat - a yacht without hired crew (captain, cook or hostess) - you yourself will act as skipper and be responsible for both your crew members and yacht.
Officially, since 2004, the harbour authorities/port police require that 1 crew member (it used to be 2) has at least a RYA day skipper, International Certificate of Competence (ICC) or national equivalent.
If your sailing license is issued by a country outside the European Union, it must be accompanied by a translation English. The port police also recognizes any official paper from a sailing school, a yacht club or any relative organization, that has tested and can verify your ability to handle a sailing yacht.

Since these “official papers” can be anything, a lot of yacht charter companies follow their own rules. Yet, often the start is the only time when you have to overlay the documents. Together with the boat's documents the local port police needs a sailing license to give you permission to leave port. When entering a new port, the Port Police may check your sailing licenses but in most, if not all, cases they will only check the ship's papers.

If it is impossible to get an official paper from - for instance - your club, there is a waiver you can sign which accepts that you are responsible for the well-being of the crew, and it is at the owner's discretion whether he will allow you to sail his yacht alone.

To help you choose the right yacht for your holiday we made a list of advantages of catamarans compared to monohulls.

Advantages of catamarans

The small draft of a catamaran allows you to anchor in shallow bays or very close to the beach, which leads to more privacy and more options to drop anchor.

Minimum heeling and more stability can help to avoid seasickness, see my page on how to prevent seasickness.

A catamaran has about the volume of a 10' longer monohull i.e. a 42' catamaran has about the space of a 52' monohull. So, more room on deck and inside with wrap around windows. The right party boat but especially the elderly will benefit of the stable and spacious deck with no steps between inside and outside.

The autopilot steers very well, because the hulls as well as the two rudders give good tracking.
Somewhat faster as long as you are not overloaded, not sailing close hauled, and when sailing with enough wind.
More privacy, since the sleeping accommodations, heads and showers are totally separate, located in each hull and in opposite corners.
Handy storage of the dinghy pulled into the davits aft between the hulls.

A Cruising Catamarans is a type of boat (or occasionally ship) consisting of two hulls joined by a frame. Catamarans can be sail- or motor-powered. The word catamaran comes from the Tamil language, in which the word kattumaram means "logs bound together". The catamaran was the invention of the paravas, an aristocratic fishing community in the southern coast of Tamilnadu, India. Catamarans were used by the ancient Tamil Chola dynasty as early as 5th century AD for moving their fleets to conquer such south-east Asian regions as Burma, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Catamarans are a relatively recent design of boat for both leisure and sport sailing, although they have been used for millennia in Oceania, where Polynesian catamarans allowed seafaring Polynesians to settle the world's most far-flung islands. Catamarans have been met by a degree of scepticism from some sailors accustomed to more "traditional" designs.

However the best and advanced catamarans are build keeping in mind the safety, luxury, technology in mind by best catamarans builders

Bare-boat charter refers to a particular lease arrangement involving a ship. The lease of a ship is generally contained in a legal document called a "charter party" or "charter" for short. There are various types of charters. The more common are "voyage charter", "time charter" and "bare-boat charter" (also called "demise charter"). In a voyage or time charter the charterer charters the ship (or part of it)for a particular voyage or for a set period of time. In these charters the charterer can direct where the ship will go but the owner of the ship retains possession of the ship through its employment of the master and crew. In a bare-boat or demise charter, on the other hand, the owner gives possession of the ship to the charterer and the charterer hires its own master and crew. The bare-boat charterer is sometimes called a "desponent owner". The giving up of possession of the ship by the owner is the defining characteristic of a bare-boat or demise charter. (For landlubbers the comparison would be between hiring a taxi for a trip (voyage charter) or for a day (time charter) and renting a bare-boat charter (car)