Charter

So that Alex and I can gain experience with different yachts, we decided to charter. Chartering basically means: we rent a yacht, much like you would rent a car.

Veruda

We want to gain experience with sailboats partly to improve our sailing skills, but almost more importantly: to figure out what kind of boat we and Charly could actually imagine living on for an extended period. Keep in mind: long-term cruisers spend about 80% of their time at anchor or in the marina.

That brings us to Marina Veruda in Croatia, where we chartered two boats: a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 410 and a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 440.

The Agony of Choice

Choosing a yacht is complicated and involves a lot of different factors. The most important parameters are: monohull or multihull, the length of the boat (traditionally given in feet), the area the yacht was designed for, availability on the used market, and of course, most importantly: the price.

But those are just the basics. There are plenty more: construction material, quality, resale value, maintenance costs, existing equipment, availability of spare parts, insurability, and history.

Once you’ve found a possible candidate, you hire a professional to do a survey, because a boat like this can have hidden defects that are very expensive or even impossible to fix. That’s why many insurance companies require a survey.

Mass-Produced Boats

Usually, there’s a big gap between the boat you want and the boat you can actually afford, and that’s true for us too. So we have to compromise. One possible compromise we’re considering is buying what’s called a production boat. These boats are designed for the Mediterranean charter market and built on an assembly line. High-end quality yachts, on the other hand, come from small manufacturers. Since we’re planning to spend our first years in the Mediterranean anyway, this works for us, and right now there are production boats everywhere: after COVID, there was a huge overproduction of these boats. Now they’re hitting the used market and prices are dropping, which is great for us, but tough luck for anyone who paid sky-high prices during the pandemic.

Jeanneau Sun Odyssey

To start, we rented two production boats for a week each: a Sun Odyssey 410 and a Sun Odyssey 440 from the French manufacturer Jeanneau, a brand of Groupe Bénéteau, one of the biggest—if not the biggest—builders of recreational boats in the world. The 410 is 41 feet long (12.5 meters), the 440 is 44 feet (13.5 meters). Check out the video to see the surprising difference that one extra meter makes.

Monohull Conclusion

Conclusion so far: the 410 is too small for us in the long run. Remember, long-term cruisers have to carry way more stuff than charter guests who are just out for a couple of summer weeks. Size-wise, we could definitely see ourselves on the 440. The layout is brilliant, the bathrooms are almost as good as at home, the galley would probably need a bit of an upgrade, and the quality feels a bit like Ikea or a cheap camper, but you have to compromise somewhere. I think these boats are solid and adequate, as long as you don’t push them too hard. We’re not planning to round the Cape, at least not yet.

Next up are two catamarans, a completely different concept. We’re curious to see how that goes.

*This blog post has been automatically translated by a Large Language Model.