Plan a sailing trip: what to sort out before casting off
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Saturday, handover at 5 pm, and the crew is standing on the pontoon arguing about the shopping list. That is how Crewsy began. This checklist goes through the planning backwards, from casting off back to the booking, so that on handover day the only thing left to do is take over the boat.
The planning, worked backwards
Three to six months before
Area, boat, dates
- Choose the area by season and the crew's experience: Croatia and Greece in summer for beginners, the Baltic and the North Sea with tides and oilskins for experienced crews.
- Count berths, not cabins: nobody wants the saloon berth for a week. Eight people need four cabins or a catamaran.
- Which licences the charter company wants to see is in the charter contract. In Croatia that includes a radio certificate.
- Sort out the deposit: deposit insurance or the amount on a credit card. Skipper liability insurance covers what the boat's insurance doesn't.
- Firm up the crew before booking. Whoever drops out at the end of June is missing from the charter price in July.
Six weeks before
Crew, travel, money
- Crew list with names, dates of birth and passport numbers to the base; they want it before handover.
- Flights and transfers: everyone at the harbour on Friday evening or Saturday lunchtime, not one person at midnight.
- Agree on the kitty: a contribution to the skipper up front, or everyone pays and you settle up at the end.
- Split the fixed costs: charter price, transit log, final cleaning, outboard. Variable costs go through the kitty.
- Invite the crew to Crewsy: one link per person, valid for 14 days. From here on, every list is with everyone.
Two weeks before
Food, drink, packing
- Meal plan: how many evenings on board, how many in the taverna? Breakfast and lunch almost always on board.
- Hand out the meals: each cooking team enters its dinner with ingredients; Crewsy scales the amounts to the crew.
- Drinks per person per day: 1.5 litres of water for eight people and seven days is 84 litres. Nobody carries that from the supermarket to the pontoon.
- Shopping list from the meals, grouped by aisle; check whether the base offers delivery.
- “Shared” packing list: who brings the Bluetooth speaker, the power strip, the kitchen knife, the espresso maker? Each once, not three times.
- Contract, insurance, crew list and weather links as PDFs in the trip info.
The last few days
Shopping, handover, briefing
- Big shop the day before or delivery to the pontoon; top up fresh food and bread every two or three days.
- Handover: tick off the inventory, photograph any damage, check fuel level, dinghy and outboard, count the gas bottles.
- Safety briefing for the crew: lifejackets, jacklines, man overboard, gas valve, seacocks, toilet.
- Crew meeting on the first evening: the plan for the week, jobs when mooring, galley duty, rules on board.
After the trip
Leftovers, kitty, next time
- Count the leftovers and enter them: too much pasta, too little water. The next trip takes the correction on board.
- Close the kitty: Crewsy shows who transfers what to whom; mark transfers as paid.
- Sea miles confirmation for everyone on board, from the skipper's GPX tracks.
- Create the follow-up trip: same name, a year later, with meals, lists and amounts based on what you actually used.
And the route?
Route planning with chart, weather and pilot book belongs in a navigation app and in a conversation with the charter base, who know their waters. Rule of thumb for a charter week: 20 to 30 nautical miles a day, a harbour day in the middle, and the last night in the base's harbour so that the return in the morning runs without a rush.
Questions about trip planning
How many provisions does a crew need for a week?
For breakfast and lunch on board and four dinners on board: per person per day 1.5 litres of drinking water, plus coffee, milk, bread and fruit. The amounts per person per day and an example for four and eight people are in the sailing provisioning list.
Who plans what: skipper or crew?
Boat, contract, insurance, crew list, route and safety are the skipper's job. Food, shopping, luggage and the kitty the crew sorts out among themselves, ideally so that everyone sees what the others have already entered.
What does a charter week cost per person?
Charter price divided by heads, plus transit log, final cleaning and outboard, plus the kitty for diesel, harbours, provisions and drinks. The kitty is the part that varies; with the breakdown by category you know after the first trip what to expect on the second.
What do I need to know beforehand as crew?
What to pack, what to bring, when you cook and how the kitty works. All four are in Crewsy as soon as the skipper has invited you.
Read on
- Sailing provisioning list: amounts per person per day
- Provisioning calculator: a shopping list for your crew
- Packing list for a sailing trip
- Yacht charter check-in: the checklist for taking over the boat
- Yacht safety briefing: the checklist to print
- Boat kitty on a sailing trip: rules, amounts per week, template
- The sailing trip planner app: everything except the chart
- Sea miles confirmation: example and template
The planning in Crewsy
Create the trip, invite the crew, enter the meals. Shopping list, packing list and kitty are then in one place, for everyone on board. Free for 14 days.