Catamaran, sailing yacht or superyacht: matching the boat to your Adriatic week
An Adriatic yacht charter can mean a Lagoon catamaran with berths for 12 at €18,500 a week, a 1988 classic sloop or a 99-metre ship built in 1943. Before comparing prices, decide who is coming and how they want to spend the days: under sail, at anchor off a beach or moving fast between islands.
Arcon Yachts lists 245 yachts for charter in the Adriatic. Twenty of them are catamarans and eleven are sailing yachts. The others are motor yachts, from 19-metre open boats that do 40 knots to steel displacement yachts with zero-speed stabilisers.
Catamarans for families and shallow bays
The 20 catamarans run from 15.8 to 34.7 metres and charter for €15,000 to €84,000 a week. Two hulls give a wide, flat deck and much less rolling at anchor than a single hull, which helps when children are on board.
They also draw little water. Six of the Lagoon models list a draft of 1.5 to 1.55 metres, so the captain can anchor closer to a beach than a keel yacht could. Lagoon NOMAD, a Lagoon 52 from 2019, sleeps 12 guests in six cabins for €18,500 a week. At the other end, Sunreef 80' 7X was the first Sunreef 80 to be launched and was ordered by a Croatian owner. Her saloon measures 47 square metres, and a week costs €84,000. CHE, a 35-metre sailing catamaran built by Sunreef in 2010, is priced at €75,000.
Sailing yachts and the summer maestral
On summer days the Adriatic usually gets the maestral, a north-westerly breeze that rises around midday, builds through the afternoon and fades by sunset. A sailing crew plans around it: mornings for swimming at anchor, passages after lunch. The bura from the north-east and the jugo from the south-east bring rougher weather, but they blow mostly between October and April.
Eight of the eleven sailing yachts in the list:
Several have a story behind them. DRAGONFLY carries 718 square metres of sail and won the Bodrum Cup, a regatta for wooden yachts, in 2017. WIND OF CHANGE is a Ron Holland design built by Brooke Marine and refitted in 2018. ARESTEAS is a 50-metre wooden yacht inspired by the Turkish gulet. Keels go deep, though. HYPERION draws 4.7 metres and BARACUDA VALETTA 4 metres, so some shallow coves stay off the route.
Speed or stability on a motor yacht
Some motor yachts in the list are built to cover distance quickly. AB Yachts MUSA, a 36-metre AB 116 on water jets, has a top speed of over 47 knots and cruises at 40. A week on her costs €75,000. The Italcraft ALEMIA (32 metres, €49,500) reaches 41 knots on surface drives, and the 19-metre Itama DIVAMARE does 40 knots for €21,000 a week. Both MUSA and ALEMIA draw well under two metres.
Speed has a running cost. Fuel is paid from the APA, so a week of long fast passages ends with a bigger final bill than a week spent mostly at anchor.
Guests prone to seasickness may prefer the opposite: a displacement yacht cruising at 12 to 14 knots with zero-speed stabilisers, which damp the roll at anchor as well as underway. Thirteen listings mention them. One example is Oceanco DEEP BLUE II, 43.8 metres, at €135,000 a week.
Groups of more than 12 guests
Charter yachts usually stop at 12 guests, and 62 yachts in the Adriatic list take exactly that number. The cap comes from safety codes. A commercial yacht that carries more than 12 passengers counts as a passenger vessel and has to meet stricter rules, such as the Passenger Yacht Code.
Among the yachts listed for larger parties, DONNA DEL MARE, a 40-metre steel yacht, takes 16 guests in seven cabins for €110,000 a week. BLACK SWAN, 49 metres and launched in 2024, is listed for 20 guests in ten cabins at €125,000. CHRISTINA O, the 99-metre ship that served in the Second World War and was refitted in 2022, takes 34 guests in 17 cabins for €700,000. Bigger groups can also split between two yachts that cruise together.
Day charters before a full week
Five yachts in the list can also be booked by the day:
VZ MY WAY, a 23.2-metre navetta from 2015 for six guests, €3,600 a day.
PERFECTION, a 23.93-metre crossover built by Baltic Yachts, €4,800 a day.
SUNLINER X, 36 metres, eight guests and zero-speed stabilisers fitted in 2018–19, €8,900 a day.
GINEVRA, a 35.62-metre Tecnomar for eight guests, €10,000 a day.
Ferretti YVONNE, 28.31 metres and ten guests, €12,500 a day against €75,000 for a week.
A single day aboard shows whether the group enjoys yacht life before anyone commits to seven.
Chartering a yacht that is also for sale
Fourteen yachts on the Adriatic charter list are also offered for sale. For a future owner, a charter week works as a long sea trial. It shows how loud the generators are at night, how the crew runs the yacht and whether the layout suits a full party, things a short viewing in port rarely reveals. Baglietto HIGH ROLLER, a 32-metre open yacht for eight guests, charters at €48,000 a week and is listed at €3,250,000. QUINTA ESSENTIA, a 55-metre Admiral, charters at €280,000 and is priced at €25,000,000.
Start planning your week on the Adriatic
Arcon Yachts works from Monaco and belongs to MYBA. You can start choosing a yacht for the Adriatic today: tell the team how many guests are coming, which month suits you and what kind of week you have in mind, and ask for offers across two or three types of yacht. The full list and contacts are on https://arconyachts.com/.
