Seven cabins on a forty metre yacht is rare. At this length the usual arrangement is four or five cabins, so seven means accommodation pushed forward and down into space a modern build would give to tankage or crew. The result is a yacht that sleeps a large group at the price of a far smaller charter, which is why these hulls suit families travelling three generations deep.
Four yachts hold this combination, all of them motor. Heesen and CRN supply two, alongside a 2006 Aegean Yacht and Calisto, a 1944 Astoria Marine hull that has been rebuilt and now charters as a classic. Lengths run from forty to forty five metres. Donna Del Mare sleeps sixteen, the other three sleep twelve, and gyms, jacuzzis and a cinema appear across the group.
Weekly rates run from sixty five thousand euros to one hundred and thirty nine thousand, with the median close to one hundred and seventeen thousand. That is roughly half what a five cabin forty metre of recent build asks, and the trade is age rather than condition. An advance provisioning allowance of around thirty percent covers fuel, food, berthing and drinks.
Forty metres goes almost anywhere, and a shallow draft opens the parts of the coast the bigger fleet skips. The Aegean and the Turkish coast suit these yachts best, with berths available in Bodrum, Gocek and the Dodecanese through August. The Croatian islands work as a second option. Winter takes the fleet no further than the eastern Mediterranean in most years. Send us your dates.
