Mediterranean Chartering

Nearly every big port and fashionable fishing village in the Mediterranean has yacht agencies ready and willing to charter cabin cruisers. Their prices range from $2,000 to $10,000 or more a month. To avoid unpleasant surprises it is advisable to write in advance.

One of the best organized and least expensive agencies (it is largely patronized by the French) is Euronautic, 47 Rue du Faubourg St. Honor�, Paris (telephone ANJ 70-70 or 75-85). This company has two types of small cabin cruiser. Its 30-foot, 75 hp, Dutch-built Vedette Argo will sleep four in comparative comfort and can be had without skipper or crew for the entire month of June for $1,250; two weeks in July or August cost $900. The smaller boats (about 23 feet long) also sleep four and are about 30% cheaper. All prices go down in September.

French law will not allow a sailor to go more than 20 miles from the coast, so if you want to go to Corsica from Antibes on the French Riviera special permission has to be obtained. Euronautic is better equipped than any lone U.S. sailor to get it.

Palcoa, a charter agency that operates in the Balearics, has offices both in Palma, on Majorca, and at 16 Rue Hal�vy in Paris (telephone PRO 21-30). It rents 35-foot French cabin cruisers with a one-man crew, sleeping five, for $450 a week in midsummer. A slightly larger model that has room for six costs about $650 a week. Palcoa will also arrange for the chartering of all kinds of privately owned motor yachts along the coasts of Spain, France, Italy and the Mediterranean islands. The powerboat de luxe is rented by the day: a 72-footer, with a crew of two or three, sleeping six, would be $120.