Sailboat charter in Barcelona

Skippered sailing yachts in Barcelona start at €125 an hour for 11–12 guests on a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey, day charters run from €150 on a classic ketch, and a week starts at €1,100 on a 9.5-metre Oceanis 30.1. Below: per-guest maths for hourly, daily and weekly rates, the licence rule, the busy months, the marinas and other boats.

How a skippered sailing trip is arranged

A sailing charter here means taking the whole boat for a fixed block of time — an hour, a day or a week — with or without a skipper. Three choices shape every offer: who sails the boat, how long you keep it and how many people share the price.

Captain included, or sailing it yourself

Sailing yachts in the city are let in five working formats: with a captain, on your own, by the hour, by the day and by the week or month. On the hourly yachts, a professional captain comes as part of the charter package, so the client needs no qualification at all. Sailing the boat yourself is one of the formats on offer, and the licence rule below decides whether it is open to you. For a sailboat charter in Barcelona the practical first step is simple: settle who will be at the helm, then compare prices only between offers in the same format. An hourly rate with a captain and a bareboat day rate are not the same product, even on the same model of yacht.

The licence rule for rented boats

Spain's licence-free exemption — sailing boats up to 6 metres, motorboats up to 5 metres with no more than 15 CV — now covers only private and sports use, not rentals. When such a boat is rented, the person steering it must hold a boating qualification. Every sailing yacht on this page is longer than 6 metres anyway, so the exemption would not have applied to them; the change closes the last licence-free route for small rented craft as well. A charter with a professional skipper does not require a licence from the client. If nobody in your group holds a recognised qualification, book with a skipper and treat any bareboat price as out of reach.

How much choice there is

This page lists 45 sailing yachts. Seven carry an hourly rate with a captain, 33 a day rate and five a week rate. Most take 6 to 12 guests: 12 boats take the full twelve, 11 take eleven, and only the 33.5-metre Yarrow & Co Ketch 110 goes beyond that, with room for 65. Lengths run from 9.5 to 33.5 metres and build years from 1962 to 2022, so the range covers family cruisers, a racing IMOCA Open 60, a gulet and two classic ketches. That spread is why one "average" figure says little: across the market, a sailboat costs about €300 a day on average, but the day rates here run from €150 to €7,020.

Hourly rates, from a full yacht to a single seat

Seven yachts of 11 to 21 metres carry an hourly rate with a captain, and two short one-hour trips are sold by the boat or by the seat. The figures below are the starting point for any trip of a few hours.

Seven sailing yachts priced by the hour

What an hour costs per guest

Divide each rate by its guest limit and the order changes. A full Sun Odyssey 469 works out at €10.42 per guest per hour, the Sun Odyssey 409 at €11.36, the Cyclades 43.4 at €16.40 and the Bavaria 40 at €17.22. The smaller Bavarias cost more per head: €20.50 on the Bavaria 38 and €21.43 on the Bavaria 37. For sailboat rental in Barcelona with a group of seven or more, the two Sun Odysseys are the cheapest hours on the list per person. A couple pays the same €125 as a group of twelve, so for small parties the per-guest gap disappears and the yacht itself becomes the choice.

Length does not set the rate

The 14-metre Sun Odyssey 469 costs €125 an hour; the 11.5-metre Bavaria 38 costs €164. That is €39 less for a boat 2.5 metres longer that takes four more guests. At the top, the 21-metre Maxi Dolphin 65 costs €475 — 3.8 times the Sun Odyssey 469 for the same twelve guests. What you pay for on the maxi is the boat and the sailing, not the seats. Compare hourly yachts by guests and hours first, length second.

How the hours add up

Hourly rates multiply quickly. Two hours on a Sun Odyssey 469 cost €250, three hours €375 and four hours €500. The same four hours cost €600 on the Bavaria 37, €656 on the Bavaria 38 or Cyclades 43.4 and €1,900 on the Maxi Dolphin 65. Above three hours, check a day rate on a comparable boat before booking by the hour: the Oceanis 43 costs €450 for a whole day and takes the same twelve guests as the Sun Odyssey 469.

€240 for the boat or €30 a seat

For a one-hour sail from Port Olímpic, a private boat for up to 12 people costs €240, while a seat on a shared trip costs €30. Eight seats at €30 add up to €240, the price of the whole boat, and a full group of twelve pays €20 each on a private trip. A shared seat suits a couple or a small group; from eight people the private boat costs the same or less per head and keeps the deck to yourselves. Groups above twelve will not fit on one of these boats, and for anything longer than an hour the hourly catalogue above or a day rate is the comparison to make.

Day rates across 33 cruisers

Thirty-three yachts carry a day rate, from €150 to €7,020. The middle of the range sits at €550: half the boats cost that or less. The table groups them by price so you can see where a given budget lands.

Day rates by price band

Same day rate, different headcount

Three boats cost €450 a day and seat very different groups: the Beneteau Oceanis 43 takes 12, the Bavaria 46 Cruiser 10 and the 10-metre Mascot 33 six. Per guest that is €37.50, €45 and €75. The Bavaria 45 Cruiser costs €90 more than the Oceanis 43 for the same twelve people. At the cheap end, the 1980 Ta Chiao CT 41 takes 11 guests for €150, or €13.64 each; at twelve guests, the Beneteau Oceanis 48 works out at €50.83 and the Bavaria 41 Cruiser at €124.58. Ask how many hours a day rate covers and whether a skipper is included before comparing it with an hourly price: four hours on a Sun Odyssey 469 already cost €500, more than a whole day on an Oceanis 43.

Newer is not always dearer

Build year and price move independently. The 2019 Beneteau Oceanis 35.1 costs €370 a day, while the 1984 North Wind Mistral 43 costs €950. The 2015 Oceanis 48, at 16.7 metres and five cabins the longest cruiser on the page, costs €610 — less than the 12.5-metre Bavaria 41 Cruiser at €1,495. Classic boats sit at both ends: the classic Ta Chiao ketch at €150 and the 1962 Ketch 110 at €7,020. Read the year and length as information about the boat, and the day rate as information about the offer.

Cheapest days for a full boat

For groups of eleven or twelve, a handful of day rates stand out once divided by the guest limit. The Ta Chiao CT 41 comes to €13.64 per guest, the Ronáutica RO 400 to €21.45, and the Dufour 430 and Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 36i to €27.27 each. The Beneteau Oceanis 461 Clipper works out at €36.36 for eleven, and the Oceanis 43 at €37.50 for twelve. All six cost less per person for a whole day than four hours on the cheapest hourly yacht, which come to €41.67 per head for twelve guests on the Sun Odyssey 469.

Special boats at the top of the range

Three yachts are priced for an occasion rather than a day out. The 24-metre Agantur Gulet takes 12 guests in five cabins for €800 a day. The IMOCA Open 60, a 20-metre ocean racer, costs €2,500 a day for up to 12. The Yarrow & Co Ketch 110 is the only sailing yacht here for a large party: 65 guests at €7,020 a day, or €108 per head when full. For a group above twelve that wants to stay under sail, it is the one option on this page; otherwise, a catamaran is the usual answer.

Weekly charters and multi-day trips

Across the market, a sailing yacht for a week costs from €2,600 to €3,600. Five boats on this page carry their own week rate, and one day-rate fleet at Port Olímpic gives a useful benchmark for the maths.

Five yachts priced by the week

A week against seven single days

Seven days on a Beneteau Oceanis 40 at its €390 day rate come to €2,730 — €130 more than the lowest weekly figure on the market. A week from €2,600 works out at about €371 a day. The weekly yachts above go lower: the Oceanis 30.1 costs €1,100, or €157.14 a day, and the Hanse 320 €1,400, or €200. The Sun Odyssey 42i, at €3,770, sits above the usual €3,600 ceiling. For sailing boat hire in Barcelona of five days or more, ask for a week price before multiplying day rates: on four of the five weekly yachts the per-day figure is below the €390 day rate.

Cabins, guests and who sails

On a multi-day trip the guest limit is not the sleeping limit. The Oceanis 30.1 and Hanse 320 take six guests and have two cabins; the First 40 and Oceanis 38.1 take eight with three cabins; the Sun Odyssey 42i takes ten, also with three. Ask how many people the boat sleeps, not only how many it carries for a day sail. Per guest for the whole week, a full Oceanis 30.1 comes to €183.33, the First 40 to €218.75, the Hanse 320 to €233.33, the Oceanis 38.1 to €237.50 and the Sun Odyssey 42i to €377. And settle the helm first: a week without a skipper is open only to someone holding a boating qualification. Without one, ask for the price with a skipper on board.

Busy months and departure marinas

Timing and the departure point both change what is available and how far you sail before the trip begins.

May to September, booked from late winter

Peak season for sailing in Barcelona runs from May to September, and about 45% of the boats on offer are already booked by March. For July and August, send a request before spring, especially for twelve-guest yachts and for weekly charters, where one boat is taken for seven days at a time.

Reial Club Nàutic, Marina Vela and Port Olímpic

The hourly yachts with a captain leave from the Reial Club Nàutic and Marina Vela. The day and week fleet in the Oceanis 40 to Bavaria 45 Cruiser range sails from Port Olímpic, and the one-hour private and shared trips leave from Port Olímpic, Moll de Mestral. A few day boats are based along the coast north of the city, in El Masnou and Sant Vicenç de Montalt. Ask for the exact marina together with the price; the rates here say nothing about transfers to the boat.

Sail, motor or catamaran

By the hour, sailing yachts sit between a small motorboat and a motor yacht. The table puts the figures side by side.

Hourly and daily figures across boat types

When another boat fits the group better

Every sailing yacht here except the Ketch 110 tops out at twelve guests. Catamarans take 12 to 126, up to the 24-metre Fountaine Pajot Taiti 80, so a large group usually ends up on one. The lowest motor yacht rate, €293 an hour, is €168 above the cheapest sailing yacht with a captain. A motorboat from €91 an hour suits a short outing for six to nine people. If the point of the trip is to sail, a sailing yacht remains the cheapest way to spend a few hours on a whole boat.

Questions to settle before asking for a quote

Five points make sailing offers comparable. Each follows from the figures above.

Five points for any sailing offer

• Unit: confirm whether the price is per hour, per day or per week, and how many hours a day rate covers.
• Guests: divide by the guest limit — a €125 hour can cost €10.42 or €125 per person depending on who comes.
• Helm: with a captain, no licence is needed; without one, the person steering must hold a boating qualification.
• Marina: get the exact departure point — the Reial Club Nàutic, Marina Vela, Port Olímpic or a harbour up the coast.
• Season: for a May to September date, ask early; about 45% of the boats on offer are booked by March.