Booking a berth on a skippered yacht: am I covered as a guest?

A berth charter, sometimes sold as a cabin charter or a sail training week, means buying a bunk rather than a boat. The skipper either owns the yacht or is placed on it by the operator, and the other berths go to people you often meet for the first time on the pontoon. In insurance terms that puts you somewhere quite different from a bareboat charter. You are not in command, you are normally not answerable for the yacht as a whole, and the security deposit does not depend on your conduct alone.

Some things still stay with you. If you are hurt on board, the liability cover of the skipper or the vessel responds only when someone has failed in a duty, for example the safety briefing. A fall in a seaway with nobody at fault is your own risk, and abroad that means medical bills and possibly repatriation. If you damage something yourself, a fender, a winch, the tender, the operator may look to you. Whether your home or personal liability cover steps in varies widely, because damage to hired or borrowed property and to other people's boats is frequently excluded there.

So before you book, get three answers in writing: what liability cover exists for the yacht and the skipper and whether claims by guests are included, whether you will share in the deposit and how much, and what the booking terms say about damage caused by guests. For yourself, check travel insurance with medical repatriation, personal accident cover that pays regardless of fault, and cancellation cover if you book early. Phones, cameras and glasses go over the side more readily on a boat than anywhere else, so look at what your own contents cover says about them too.

Worth remembering

A booked berth is not the same as being insured on board.