It is common to rent sailboats and motor yachts from Saturday to Saturday. This rule has come about from the desire of guests to make the most of their annual vacations.
Work week ends on Friday, and vacation begins on Saturday. The rule has been so established that numerous yacht booking systems do not recognize any other possibility than the boat reservation from Saturday to Saturday.
The consequences of this rule are huge crowds accompanying guests from the airports, through nautical marinas where the guests are boarding, and then most often during their entire vacation.
Imagine this information, 40% of the world’s bareboat charter fleets are located on the Croatian side of the Adriatic Sea. Almost all the marinas are on the shore, and all those sailing boats at the same time, on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning, sail to the islands and return at the end of the week, so that on a Friday afternoon they are back in the marina from which they started their seven-day cruise.
All of these sailboats at the same time have to fill up with fuel, which creates large crowds at the pumps, and in the waters in front of the pumps there are queues that last for hours instead of a few minutes.
I must tell you the truth. Most of the guests renting sailing boats do not hire skippers, these guests have a license to operate the boat, but sail for only one week per year.
Their knowledge and skills are not particularly high. Then people came to vacation and they relax when it comes to eating and drinking. In addition to people and boats, you also have elements that no one can influence, like weather conditions. Then we have frequent incidents in anchoring, docking and sailing.
In case of nasty weather, they will all look for the well-known safe bays at the same time, and this can significantly limit the planned vacation, because we have to go somewhere much earlier or stay far longer than we would do if there were less sailboats at sea.
If, instead on weekends, you start your week-long vacation on a sailboat on weekdays, say Wednesday, then you’re completely avoiding the crowds at sea. When all sailing boats are far away on the islands, you are boarding in an empty marina, and you reach the distant islands during the weekend when all other sailing boats are on the coast.
If you come to visit Croatia from afar, say from America or from Asia or Australia, and you want to visit other destinations in Europe, then the start of sailing during the week will give you more opportunities to visit some other locations.
Also airline tickets for weekdays can be more affordable than airline tickets for weekends.
I also found two discussions on the Internet on the topic of which is better weekday or weekend, check out what others say about it: