If you’re traveling this summer, you can charter a boat for a few hours or more at your destination through Boatsetter. Founded in 2014 in Fort Lauderdale, Boatsetter now has more than 50,000 boat listings at 700 locations around the world. It is something of a Airbnb on the water, but it also works with commercial charter companies, all with the goal of making it as easy as possible for you to rent a boat where you want it, when you want it.
If you’re going overseas, you’ll find a Boatsetter boat on the French Riviera, Ibiza and Mallorca in Spain, and Santorini in Greece, all among the most glamorous of cruising grounds. But the Boatsetter offerings are just as attractive closer to home. Here, we’ve found three in various parts of the U.S. as a representative sample.
New York is certainly a major destination, and you can book a boat with Big Apple Charters down on Chelsea Piers on the Hudson at 23rd Street in Manhattan. It’s the only female-owned charter company in town, and it’s also part of Boatsetter. You can charter a Cruisers 38 (pictured) for two hours this Sunday, Mother’s Day, for $1,080. It comes with a captain and can hold up to six guests, and can deliver a close-up view of the Statue of Liberty and the New York waterfront. If you wait until the middle of the week, say Wednesday, May 15, the price falls to $800. An “all day beach escape” charter including anchoring off Sandy Hook, lunch and swimming, costs $3,000.
In Miami, you can charter a Boatsetter 70-foot Azimut for two hours for $1,250, plus fees. It comes with a captain and stewardess, and it will carry you over Biscayne Bay’s sparkling waters to Star Island and the Nixon Sandbar. You can view the Miami skyline from its floating mat. (It’s pictured with jet skis.)
For an entirely different charter, look at the 68-foot paddle-wheeler Christine W on Seattle’s Lake Union and Lake Washington. It’s driven by a ten-foot-diameter paddlewheel, and it’s made for special events, birthdays, graduations, Husky games. The Christine W holds 48 passengers and it has an inside dining room, a bar, two restrooms, and an upper deck that can seat 20. A minimum three-hour charter costs $2,000.
Read more at http://boatsetter.com
