If you are planning to rent a boat in Ibiza and Formentera this summer and do not have much experience in this area, we can say from personal experience, that you have a lot of work ahead of you. The offer of boat rental in Ibiza is a bit messy. Boats, sailboats, catamarans, powerboats, and yachts. Then we need to clear up if prices include VAT, local taxes and what the heck are the “extras” or the “comfort pack”? What’s all that? Will I be able to rent a boat in Ibiza? Or is ti going to cost me an arm and a leg? On top of everything that i am paying, do I also need to pay for bed sheets, rent a dinghy and an outboard motor? Are you kidding me? Why don’t you give all-inclusive prices to make it easier to compare among all the offers in Ibiza?
Ibiza boat hire
Can you picture yourself admiring this sunset with Es Vedra on the back?
Who is offering me a boat for rent in Ibiza?
The amount of charter companies, distributors, dealers, boat brokers and boat owners that are offering their charter services on the Balearic island is huge. The financial crisis over the recent years in Spain has taken a toll on mainland Spain. Not only on the rental price but especially on demand. Both concepts have plummeted and many charter companies in the Iberian Peninsula, because of the lack of demand, have been forced to move their fleets to the promised land, in search of the holy grail called Ibiza, also known as the only Spanish territory in which tourism demand grows every year at the same rate than before the financial recession in Spain.
What is the current situation in Ibiza?
Rumor has that ports are packed and it’s really hard to find a berth to dock your boat. Well, the truth is that the demand for rental boats in Ibiza is so high during the months of July and August that despite all charter boats that move to the island to cover all the charter requests, the demand can’t be fully covered. This situation, especially critical by mid August, is well known in Ibiza.
Ibiza catamaran rental
One of our catamarans docked the Yacht Club San Antonio in Ibiza.
The problem of lack of moorings for yacht charter Ibiza
Since the amount of berths at all the ports in Ibiza town is not enough, some of the boats for hire in Ibiza are anchored off ports or at sheltered coves such as Talamanca bay near the port of Ibiza town or San Antonio Bay near the port San Antonio Abad, on the west side of the island of Ibiza.
The rest of the ports on the island, San Antonio and Santa Eulalia, take care of most of the charter boats in Ibiza. The port of Santa Eulalia is not too big , but in San Antonio Yacht Club is becoming the home port for most boat charter companies in Ibiza. The “club nautico” in San Antonio has changed for the better throughout the last years, with the latest additions and improvements of their facilities. A bit pricy, but still far from the rip off in Ibiza town.
San Antonio, port base for chartered catamarans
As we stated before, finding a decent mooring on Ibiza island is a bit of a quest for a regular sailing boat. A catamaran offers many advantages over a sailboat: spaciousness, livability , stability, speed, comfort , and a long list of improvements. But only one drawback. It’s really hard, if not impossible, to find a berth at port for a monohull sailboat that has a beam (width) of about 3-4 meeters. So you can imagine the difficulty of finding a berth for a catamaran, occupying the same space almost two traditional sailing boats. Catamarans are about 7 meters wide. So, the problem is multiplied by two, with the addition that a catamaran does not need two random berths, but two berths that are simultaneously available and also contiguous.