Nastyia 34

The Nastyia 34 is eleven metres of open day boat licensed for eight guests, and she is one of the least expensive ways we can put a private crewed hull under a group in Ibiza. Low season opens at €1,800, which is €225 a head once the boat is full, and that figure already contains the skipper, the insurance and Spanish tax.

She is small, she is quick, and she does not pretend to be anything else. There is no flybridge to climb to and no saloon to retreat into. What there is instead is a hull that gets to 34 knots, a cockpit that seats the group, and a running cost low enough that the day does not end with an unpleasant sum at the fuel dock.

How eight hours tend to unfold

Boarding happens at the berth, usually somewhere between mid-morning and early afternoon depending on what suits you, and the clock starts once you cast off. Eight hours is longer on the water than it sounds on paper; groups who plan four stops routinely settle for three and are happier for it.

A common shape is a run down the west coast for the first swim, a longer stop somewhere sheltered while everybody eats, then a shorter hop on the way home so the last swim is in flat late-afternoon water. On a boat this size the skipper can tuck into inlets the larger yachts have to admire from a distance.

Because she is light and quick, changing your mind mid-day costs very little. Deciding at one o’clock that you would rather be on the other side of the island is a twenty-minute problem here, not an hour-long one, and that flexibility is worth more than it looks when the wind turns.

The other thing worth saying about a short charter day is that it rarely feels short. Between boarding, the first run out, three stops and the return leg, the eight hours fill themselves without any help from an itinerary. Groups who arrive with a list of six places to see generally hand the list to the skipper by lunchtime and let him pick.

Who ends up booking her

Groups of six to eight, almost always. First-time charterers who want to find out whether a day on a private boat is worth the money before committing to a bigger one. Couples travelling in pairs. Families with teenagers who will spend the entire charter in the water and will not notice the absence of an interior.

She is a poor choice for a group hoping to sit at a long table in the shade, and a very good one for a group whose plan is essentially swimming with intervals. If your party is larger than eight, look at the Chiara 37 instead, and if you are trying to place more than twelve people we explain the constraint on our page about hiring a boat for twenty.

The deck

Seating runs around the aft cockpit with a table in the middle of it, the foredeck is given over to lying down, and the bathing platform at the stern is the busiest square metre on the boat all day. The helm sits under cover, which is the skipper’s office rather than a guest space.

There is no published interior layout for this hull, and inventing one is not something we do. Towels come aboard for everybody, snorkels are there if the water below is worth looking at, and the skipper is licensed, insured and part of the price rather than an extra on the day.

There is one more thing an open boat gives you that a larger yacht cannot, and it is quiet. With the engines off in a cove at eleven in the morning, before the day boats arrive, an eleven-metre hull makes almost no noise at all. Groups who have chartered bigger boats before tend to mention that more than anything else on the specification sheet.

Range, burn and the Formentera question

She will make the crossing. At 34 knots the water between southern Ibiza and the Formentera sandbanks passes quickly, and plenty of charters on this boat do exactly that trip. What you should weigh is comfort rather than capability: an eleven-metre hull feels every bit of a choppy afternoon in a way a twenty-metre one does not.

Consumption sits near 95 litres per hour under way, one of the lower figures across our boats, and the engines typically turn for only about 1.5 hours in a whole charter. Fuel is charged on the day against actual use, so a lazy itinerary genuinely costs less to run than an ambitious one.

If the forecast looks unsettled the skipper will say so before you leave and propose the sheltered version of your day. That conversation happens at the berth, in plain language, and it has saved a great many charters from being remembered for the wrong reasons.

Anchoring is the other half of the speed question and it is the half nobody asks about. A short, light hull needs less swinging room, so in a busy August anchorage she can take a spot the twenty-metre boats have already ruled out. That usually means a shorter swim to the beach and a good deal less engine noise from the neighbours.

Practical things worth knowing

Soft bags only, because storage on an open eleven-metre boat is measured in lockers rather than cabins. Bring a hat and something long-sleeved for the middle of the day, since the only reliable shade is the shade you brought. Leave your own towels behind; they are already aboard.

Nobody in the group needs any qualification to be here. That is the skipper’s job, and it is one of the reasons a crewed day costs what it does rather than what a bareboat listing quotes. Our longer answer sits on the page about licences and boat hire in Ibiza.

Lunch may come aboard with you, be eaten on land, or be organised by us beforehand. Tell us which before the day rather than on it, because a restaurant stop changes where the boat has to be at one o’clock and therefore where it goes at eleven.

Music is fine and volume is a matter of where you are. In an open cove nobody minds; anchored twenty metres from another family at four in the afternoon, the skipper will ask you to bring it down, and he is not being difficult when he does. Speakers on board are modest, so a portable one is worth packing if sound matters to your group.

What she costs across the year

Three bands, all published, none of them a teaser. Low covers May and October, mid covers June and September, high covers July and August. From the quietest band to the busiest is a rise of €999 on this hull.

The step from mid to high is €559, the largest of the two jumps, which is why late September is such a well-kept secret on this boat: warm water, thinner crowds, and the middle number rather than the top one. Our notes on seasons and weather in Ibiza go through the trade-offs month by month.

One practical note on the low band: May and October are the two months when the island is at its most pleasant and its least busy, and they carry the same rate. October water is warmer than May water by some margin, which is why we quietly recommend the back end of the year to anybody whose dates are genuinely open.

Alternatives at a similar price

The Pardo 39 is longer at thirteen metres for the same eight guests and starts lower at €1,699. The Von Dutch 40 takes nine and opens at €1,799. If you want the comparison across every hull at once, the cost per person breakdown does the division for the whole fleet.

Questions people ask about her