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A 7-day Mediterranean charter on a 50m motor yacht running at cruising speed covers 120 to 220 nautical miles. That envelope is what defines a workable itinerary. Push beyond 250 nautical miles and the trip becomes a delivery. Stay under 100 and the yacht is anchored more than it is moving, which clients sometimes want and sometimes do not realize they want.
The first decision is not which ports to visit. The first decision is how much of the trip you want spent transiting versus anchored. Everything else flows from that.
Boarding port, disembarkation port, and the one-way fee
Lock the boarding port and the disembarkation port with the central agent before any route work. A standard charter is round-trip from the same port. A one-way charter, where you board in Nice and disembark in Capri, is permitted on most yachts with a repositioning fee of 5 to 15 percent of base fee. The fee covers the captain's deadhead run back to home port. Shoulder weeks in May and October sometimes waive the fee because the yacht is already moving anyway.
We have seen one-way fees waived on three of the last twelve French Riviera to Sardinia repositioning runs we tracked, all in early October. We have also seen the fee come in at 18 percent on a peak August Cannes to Sicily request. Ask. Negotiate. Get the answer in writing in the contract, not in an email exchange.
The yachts to pass on are the ones whose owners refuse one-way charters entirely. This is more common on yachts under 40m where the owner runs a tight rotation between two regions and cannot absorb a 200-mile deadhead. Confirm one-way availability before you fall in love with a yacht.
The cruising envelope at three speeds
A 50m motor yacht has three operational speeds. Slow cruise at 10 to 12 knots, the speed it should run if you want a quiet boat and reasonable fuel consumption. Standard cruise at 14 to 16 knots, the default for most transit runs. Fast cruise at 22 to 24 knots, available on planing or semi-displacement hulls and accounting for 3 to 5 times the fuel burn of slow cruise.
At standard cruise on a 7-day charter, expect 4 to 5 days at anchor or in port and 2 to 3 days in transit. The transit days are not lost days. Lunch underway between Saint-Tropez and Calvi, with the boat moving and the toys deployed at a stop, is one of the best days of the trip. Plan for it rather than against it.
Yachts under 40m have shorter cruising legs. Sailing yachts have weather-bound speeds. A 60m sailing yacht in average Mediterranean wind moves at 9 to 11 knots, less if the wind is light or contrary. Build the route around the yacht you have, not the route you would build for a different boat.
Build the preference sheet, not the itinerary
The mistake first-time charter clients make is sending the broker a finished, hour-by-hour itinerary. The captain does not want this. The captain wants a written preference sheet that lists priorities, dietary restrictions, and three to five ports or anchorages you would like to see. The captain then builds the working route against weather, port reservations, and the specific quirks of the cruising area in that week.
A workable preference sheet contains:
The names of all guests and any dietary restrictions, allergies, or medical considerations. The three to five ports or anchorages that matter most to the trip. A statement about the trip's center of gravity: party week, family week, water sports week, gastronomy week, or quiet week. Specific meals you want booked ashore (Le Sirenuse, Cala di Volpe, Tetou, or whichever you want secured). A statement of how much beach club time, tender time, jet ski time, and helicopter time you expect. Any anniversaries, birthdays, or surprises the chief stew should plan around. A short list of music preferences, with brand names rather than vague genre statements.
Send the preference sheet 6 to 8 weeks before charter start. Earlier risks the crew rotation changing before the trip. Later and the chef cannot provision properly, the chief stew cannot pre-book ashore reservations, and the captain cannot pre-clear customs at the ports you have named.
The captain's reroute
The captain will read your preference sheet and produce a working route. The captain's route is the working route. The captain knows that the Bonifacio Strait is closed to charter traffic some afternoons in July. The captain knows that the anchorage you have named in Capri requires a 6am arrival to secure a position. The captain knows that the Saturday afternoon ferry traffic in Hvar makes a tender drop near the old town impossible between 14:00 and 16:00.
The clients who fight the captain's reroute are the clients who have the worst trips. Accept the captain's adjustments. If a swap is meaningful (the captain has moved you off a Saint-Tropez night to a Pampelonne anchorage because of an inbound mistral), ask why, listen to the answer, then accept.
Where to push back: if the captain has cut a port that you specifically named in the preference sheet, ask whether it can be added back as a day stop rather than an overnight, or whether the day order can be reshuffled. Captains will accommodate this if it can be accommodated.
Days 3 to 5 should be unplanned
The strongest 7-day itineraries reserve the middle days for the trip's center. Days 1 and 2 are about getting clients on board, the crew calibrated to the group, and the route into the cruising area underway. Days 6 and 7 are about positioning toward disembarkation. Days 3, 4, and 5 are where the trip happens.
These days should have no fixed reservations and no fixed plan. They are the days when the group says, at breakfast, that they want to anchor off Spalmatori today and have lunch on board and tender into Porto Cervo at six. The captain repositions. The chief stew rebooks. The chef adjusts. The trip works.
Clients who pre-book Le Sirenuse on day 4 and Cala di Volpe on day 5 are clients who spend day 4 transiting to Positano and day 5 transiting to Sardinia. Those clients had two days of trip and five days of delivery.
Where to put the named meals
If the trip has a destination meal (a 50th birthday at La Colombe d'Or, a wedding anniversary at Le Petit Nice, a family-business celebration at La Sponda), plan the trip around that meal as day 3 or 4. Build the cruising route so the yacht is in or near that port at the right hour. Tell the captain about this meal in the preference sheet.
For ordinary good ashore meals, book one or two and leave the rest to the chief stew. The chef on most yachts above 40m is better than any restaurant in the cruising area below the destination tier. The mistake is booking five high-end restaurants for a 7-night trip and discovering on night 4 that the chef has been underutilized and the group is tired of dressing for shore.
The yacht configuration constraint
Some itineraries are blocked by the yacht's spec rather than by weather or distance.
A yacht over 60m cannot enter the inner harbor at Capri and must anchor in Marina Grande or off the Faraglioni, which is fine but limits a planned hotel transfer. A yacht with a draft over 4m cannot anchor inside the Cala di Volpe reef field. A yacht without an at-anchor stabilizer system will roll uncomfortably in any open anchorage in afternoon wind. A yacht with a tender garage too small for the standard Castoldi 26 will not have a proper guest tender, only a smaller crew tender.
These are not deal-breakers but they shape the itinerary. The yacht broker should flag them. If they have not, ask the captain directly before you finalize the preference sheet.
What to pass on
Two itinerary patterns we tell clients to drop.
The grand-tour itinerary that crosses three countries in 7 days. Cannes to Saint-Tropez to Corsica to Sardinia to Capri sounds appealing on a map. It is 480 nautical miles. The trip is delivery, not charter. If you want this route, book 10 nights, not 7.
The trophy-port itinerary that books every famous name. Saint-Tropez night, Monaco night, Portofino night, Capri night. Each of these ports has 15 to 30 yachts of similar size berthed within 100m of yours. The trip becomes a parking-lot tour of the Mediterranean. The best charter weeks we have logged on internal recommendations skipped at least two of the famous-name ports and substituted anchorages where you could swim off the beach club without a tender wake every 40 seconds.
A worked example: Cote d'Azur, 7 days, family of 8 on a 55m motor yacht
Saturday: board in Cannes at 17:00. Light dinner on board. Run to Cap d'Antibes overnight.
Sunday: anchor off Cap d'Antibes for the morning. Tender into Eden Roc for lunch (pre-booked at the preference-sheet stage). Run to Saint-Tropez in the afternoon. Anchor off Pampelonne.
Monday: Pampelonne beach day. Tender into Club 55 for lunch. Run to Saint-Tropez for evening berthing. Walk into town for dinner.
Tuesday: depart Saint-Tropez at 09:00 for Bonifacio. Lunch underway. Arrive Bonifacio late afternoon. Walk the citadel.
Wednesday: unplanned. Most groups elect to spend the day anchored in the Lavezzi Islands, returning to Bonifacio for dinner.
Thursday: run to Calvi. Day at anchor off the citadel. Dinner in town.
Friday: run back to Saint-Tropez overnight. Last full day in the bay.
Saturday: disembark in Saint-Tropez at 10:00 (one-way fee of 8 percent agreed at booking).
Total distance: roughly 220 nautical miles. Four days at anchor, three days transiting with lunch underway. One destination meal. Two unplanned days.
FAQ
How many ports should a 7-day charter visit? Four to six ports. Fewer than four feels static, more than six and the trip becomes transit rather than charter.
Who builds the final itinerary, the broker or the captain? The captain. The broker collects your preferences and forwards them. The captain produces the working route.
Can I plan a one-way charter? Yes, on most yachts, with a repositioning fee of 5 to 15 percent of base fee, sometimes waived on shoulder weeks.
How far in advance should I send the preference sheet? Six to eight weeks before charter start.
Should I plan every meal ashore? No. Plan three to four key ashore meals and let the chef handle the rest.
What happens if the weather blocks our planned route? The captain reroutes. Mediterranean charters in July and August routinely shift 30 to 60 nautical miles off the planned route to avoid the meltemi or mistral.