Illustrative photograph
Guide
Choosing the yacht
Catamaran against monohull in the Andaman Sea, motor against sail with the fuel bill included, and what a gulet is for.
Catamaran or monohull in the Andaman Sea
Start hereShould I charter a catamaran or a monohull in Phuket?
In the Andaman the catamaran wins more decisively than it does in most cruising grounds, and the reason is not the deck space. It is draught. A catamaran draws about 1.2 metres against a monohull's 2 metres, and the anchorages here are shallow, the approach to Koh Panyee silts continuously and several bays shelve gently. A catamaran also does not heel, which matters over a week with eight people aboard in 32 degree heat. The monohull wins on price, on upwind performance and on the actual pleasure of sailing, and if the group came to sail rather than to be somewhere, that is not a small thing.
Motor yacht or sailing yacht, with the fuel bill included
Is a motor yacht or a sailing yacht better value for a Phuket charter?
A motor yacht buys you speed, and in this cruising ground speed buys you destinations: a thirty mile crossing to Phi Phi takes ninety minutes rather than four hours, which changes what fits into a week. It costs you fuel, which comes out of the APA rather than the base rate, so a motor yacht quoting 35 percent APA against a sailing yacht's 25 percent is telling you something real. Over a week the total gap between a comparable motor yacht and sailing yacht is usually larger than the base rates suggest, and the honest question is whether you want to cover distance or to be somewhere.
Gulets and traditional junks in Phuket
What is a gulet and is it worth chartering one in Thailand?
A gulet is a heavy wooden motor-sailer, originally a Turkish type, with a broad beam, a lot of deck and typically six cabins for twelve guests. In Phuket they charter from around twenty-four thousand dollars a week fully crewed, which makes them the cheapest way to put a group of twelve on a private yacht with a chef. They do not really sail, they are slower than anything else in the fleet, and the appeal is space and shade rather than performance. For a large family group on a Phang Nga itinerary that is a good trade.
Explorer yachts, and why Mergui needs one
What kind of yacht do I need for a Mergui Archipelago charter?
The Mergui Archipelago has around eight hundred islands, almost no infrastructure, no fuel dock worth the name, poorly charted anchorages and no meaningful rescue service. That makes it explorer territory: a displacement hull with range and tankage, a full dive compressor aboard rather than a rendezvous arrangement, and a crew carrying spares for the things that cannot be bought within three hundred miles. The decisive factor is not the yacht, though. It is how many seasons the captain has done there, and that is the question to lead with.
The other clusters
Chartering for the first time
What the booking actually involves, how many days a route needs and how big the yacht has to be for the group you are bringing.
Money and the contract
The base rate is about two thirds of the bill. APA, VAT, park fees, gratuity and the four clauses in a MYBA contract that decide who pays when something goes wrong.
Law and safety
A foreign-flagged yacht needs a Thai charter licence, and chartering without one puts the yacht and the guests at risk. Also: which sailing certificates Thailand accepts for bareboat.
Cruising grounds and weather
Northeast monsoon against southwest monsoon, month by month, and where the fleet still sails between May and October instead of sitting out the season.
Life on board
Who the crew are, what the preference sheet decides, what the toys are and how diving works off a charter yacht.
Weddings, incentives and New Year
The charters that have a date attached, and what the date does to availability, minimum length and price.
Every article in the guide opens with the complete answer in three to five sentences. If that paragraph settles the question, stop reading. The rest is there for when it does not.