Forty metres is the most heavily chartered size in the motor fleet, and for good reason. It is the smallest length that reliably delivers a main deck master, a proper beach club and a crew large enough to include a dedicated chef, while still fitting the berths and the budgets that most groups actually work with.
Hull type matters more here than anywhere. Planing and semi displacement yachts from Sanlorenzo, Sunseeker, Overmarine and Ferretti will hold twenty knots or better, which turns a coastline into a series of day trips. Displacement hulls from Benetti, Heesen and Codecasa give up that speed for markedly more volume, quieter running and the fuel economy to cruise all week without watching the gauge.
Rates cluster between one hundred and twenty and two hundred and twenty thousand euros a week, with well kept hulls from the early two thousands starting nearer sixty thousand and the newest deliveries reaching three hundred. The advance provisioning allowance runs at about thirty percent, and a planing yacht run hard will use a good deal more of it than a displacement one.
The size suits busy coastlines. Draft of two to three metres opens the Balearic calas, the Sicilian bays and the Croatian channels that fifty metre yachts approach more cautiously, and berthing is available in ports where the larger fleet must anchor off. Winter takes the fleet to the Caribbean and increasingly to Florida and the Bahamas. Tell us your week and we will send a shortlist.
