Porto Cervo · Marina

Chartering from Porto Cervo: a day, or days

Around Porto Cervo, 'charter' covers two products that only look alike: a day on the water, or days on it. Almost everything about the booking follows from that choice — the boat, the crew's role, the format the price arrives in, and how early the conversation needs to start.

A day and days are different boats

One Porto Cervo fleet makes the difference concrete. Star Yacht Group, the yacht agency on Via del Porto Vecchio working these waters since 2007, lists motor yachts from 32 to 88 feet that carry up to twelve guests on a day charter and sleep between two and eight overnight. Add nights and the boat is measured in berths rather than deck space, and everything around it changes scale: the crew lives aboard, the galley is stocked for the length of the trip, the shore side runs day and night. It is no accident that an agency of this kind lists 24/7 provisioning next to charter among its services.

The numbers, where they are published

Day pricing is the visible half. Star Yacht Group publishes sample day rates — EUR 5,060 for a Jaguar 76, EUR 5,500 for a Princess V78 — with most of its fleet on request. BW Charter, which has run a directly managed fleet from Porto Cervo since 2014, indicates roughly EUR 1,700 to 5,000 per day across 30 to 90 feet, departing from Porto Cervo, Porto Rotondo, Poltu Quatu, Cannigione, Palau or La Maddalena. According to the rates published by Sardinia Yacht Charter, whose bases all sit within forty minutes of Olbia airport by its own account, a motor-yacht day runs EUR 1,500-4,000, a sailing week EUR 2,000-5,000, a catamaran week EUR 4,000-9,000 — July and August at peak, June and September some 20-30% lower. At the top of the multi-day segment, the searchable fleet tool published by Sea & Sea Charters in Porto Rotondo shows crewed weekly rates from EUR 22,750 to beyond EUR 270,000, on yachts of roughly 24 to 50 metres.

Everything between those brackets is quote on request, and that is the norm here, not a warning sign. Spectra Yacht, a Porto Cervo brokerage of more than 25 years with its office on Via Aga Khan and access to a network described as 1,200-plus motor and sailing yachts across the Mediterranean, prices through its charter advisors and leads with multi-day crewed charter. Y&S Exclusive Charter, more than thirty years in Porto Cervo, quotes through a charter manager. Yacht Charter Porto Cervo, which describes access to more than fifty motor yachts and catamarans, works on inquiry. Hull, dates, crew and route all move the figure; the quote is where the product actually gets defined.

The map, including the water-taxi lane

Porto Cervo concentrates the desks; the boats spread wider. Porto Rotondo's marina takes around 650 boats. Portisco and Cannigione work as departure bases: Free Charter's bases stretch from there down to Cagliari, Carloforte and Villasimius, and Cagliari Sailing Charter operates five bases from Cagliari to Alghero. In Cagliari itself, Sailing Center Marina Piccola sails half and full days for up to eight guests from the small port beside Poetto beach. The south is an option, not a footnote. One niche is worth knowing before it is needed: Star Yacht Group runs a dedicated taxi-boat between Cala di Volpe, Porto Cervo, Porto Rotondo, Portisco and Palau, and from Olbia to the Costa Smeralda ports; on land, Blue Car Service of Porto Cervo covers the legs between airport, marinas and villas year-round. Getting to and from the boat is its own product. As for the choice itself: a day needs a hull, a skipper and a forecast. Days need berths, provisioning and a crew that lives aboard — and in a market that quotes on request, the earlier the request goes out, the better the answer comes back.