Sailing catamaranSail Zanzibar.
The Charter Desk arranges bareboat, skippered and crewed yacht charters across the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, with live availability and a real person on the other end of every enquiry.
What does the hostess do?
Plans meals (from your preferences), provisions ashore with the captain, cooks 1-2 meals/day, makes beds, services cabins, cleans the saloon. Bigger boats have dedicated chef + separate hostess.
Can we have specific food preferences?
Yes — vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, allergies, kid-friendly: tell us when you book. Last-minute requests are easy too.
How much do we tip?
5-15% of charter fee, end of week, in cash. The captain typically distributes.
Can we drink the bar dry?
Within reason. Standard wine + beer comes with the trip; for top-shelf gin or specific Burgundy, factor it into the APA.
Is the crew always around?
They give you privacy. Captain on watch at the helm, hostess in the galley or her cabin. You get the cockpit and deck to yourselves outside of meals.
Zanzibar · Crewed.
Zanzibar sits off Tanzania's coast in warm, shallow water that runs from milky turquoise over the sand flats to deep blue past the reef edge. The sailing is easy: short hops between islands, a reliable trade wind for half the year, and anchorages where the loudest thing at dawn is a dhow crew hauling sail. You share the water with those dhows — lateen-rigged, low, older than the marina — and with fishermen working the channels off Stone Town. It is not a hard-charging distance ground. It is a place to move slowly between reefs, snorkel, and watch the tide fill the sand bars. Right for first charterers, families, and anyone who wants heat, colour, and short passages; less right for sailors chasing big open-water miles.
Living aboard — the skipper does the work
A crewed charter is the full sailing holiday with none of the workload: a professional skipper (and on larger yachts a hostess and chef) handles the sailing, the cooking and the logistics while you relax.
It suits families, groups and anyone who wants to wake up in a new bay each morning without lifting a winch — multi-day, sleeping aboard, the itinerary shaped around you.