Von Dutch 40

The Von Dutch 40 solves a problem that comes up more often than you would expect: a group of nine. Most day boats in Ibiza are licensed for eight or for eleven, which leaves parties of nine either paying for space they will not use or leaving somebody on the dock. This twelve-metre open boat carries nine, and low season starts at €1,799, or almost exactly €200 a head.

She is also the most relaxed hull in our fast fleet. Her quoted figure is 26 knots, lower than the boats either side of her, and that is not a shortcoming so much as a different intention. She was drawn to sit in coves and run the coast at a civilised pace, not to sprint between islands.

The shape of a day aboard

You board wherever the boat lies, agree the plan with the skipper over the first five minutes, and the eight hours begin when the lines come off. Departures are arranged to suit you within a late-morning to early-afternoon window, and there is no penalty for a slow start beyond the obvious one of a shorter day.

The itinerary that suits this boat best is a short one done properly. Two anchorages on the same coast, an unhurried lunch at the second, and a slow return with the sun behind you. Groups who insist on four stops usually discover that the fourth was the one nobody remembers.

She is at her happiest along the west and south coasts, where the runs between good water are short and the scenery does the work. Cala Bassa, Cala Comte and the coves below Es Cubells are all inside a comfortable leg of one another, and none of them asks the boat for anything she does not have.

Because there are nine of you rather than a dozen, the anchor stops feel different too. Everybody can be in the water at once without the boat turning into a queue, and everybody can be back aboard and eating within a few minutes of the skipper suggesting it.

There is a rhythm to a good charter that has nothing to do with how many places you visit. Swim, eat, doze, swim again, and let the skipper move the boat while nobody is paying attention. This hull is well suited to that rhythm because she is quiet at anchor and quick enough that the moves between stops never feel like travel.

The group she fits

Nine is an awkward number ashore and an easy one here. Three families of three, a stag or hen party that has lost or gained one member, four couples plus a friend: these are the bookings that end up on this boat because the alternatives all round in the wrong direction.

She is also a sensible first charter. There is no crew hierarchy to navigate, no dress code implied by the boat, and no interior that makes people feel they should be tidier than they are. If you have never done this before, our new to charter page covers the handful of things that surprise people on the first day.

If your group grows past nine, do not try to negotiate it. Spanish day charter licensing sets a hard number per hull and we hold to it. The Chiara 37 takes eleven for a modest step up in price, and the arithmetic frequently improves rather than worsens when you move.

What is on deck

An open forty-footer is essentially one large outdoor room. Cockpit seating at the stern, a table that comes into its own at lunch, sunpads forward for the people who came to lie down, and a bathing platform that the swimmers will treat as home base for most of the afternoon.

Because she is over forty feet she carries the fuller hospitality package. Water, soft drinks, some beer and a few bottles of wine and cava come aboard with you, along with crisps, nuts and olives, and a stand-up paddleboard for the flat-water stops. Towels and snorkels are there as they are on every boat we run.

Nothing is published about an interior on this hull, so treat her as a wholly open boat and pack for that. The shade you have is the shade over the helm and whatever you brought with you, which in July is worth taking seriously.

Twelve metres is a useful length in a crowded anchorage. She needs less room to swing than the larger yachts, so in the first fortnight of August the skipper can often put you closer to the sand than a boat costing four times as much. That is a small technical fact with a large practical payoff.

Speed, fuel and where she will and will not go

At 26 knots the Formentera crossing is possible but it is not what she is for. Expect the passage to eat a meaningful slice of the day in each direction, and expect the ride to be honest about the sea state on the way back in the afternoon breeze. Groups whose main objective is the sandbanks are better served by a quicker hull.

What she does beautifully is the Ibiza coast, where 26 knots is more than enough and the fuel figure stays kind. Consumption runs around 110 litres per hour under way, and a normal charter has the engines working for only about 1.5 hours across eight, since the rest is spent stopped.

Fuel sits outside the rate and is settled at the end against what was actually used. That is deliberately not a flat surcharge, because it means a group that chooses two nearby coves rather than a lap of the island sees the saving rather than subsidising somebody else’s itinerary. If Formentera is non-negotiable, our Formentera day trip page lists the hulls that make it effortless.

Before the day

Pack light and pack soft. Storage is lockers rather than wardrobes, and hard cases have nowhere sensible to live on an open boat. Sun cover, a hat and something with sleeves will do more for your afternoon than anything else in the bag.

None of your party needs a qualification of any kind. The skipper is licensed and included, which is the structural reason a crewed rate looks higher than a bareboat advert and ends up costing less once the extras are added. We set out the detail on our page about whether you need a licence in Ibiza.

Lunch is your call: shop that morning and eat on board, walk up to a beach restaurant, or let us organise catering in advance. Say which when you book, because a table booked ashore fixes the boat’s position at a particular hour and the skipper plans backwards from it.

One question that comes up often enough to answer here: music is welcome, and volume is a matter of neighbours. In an empty cove nobody minds at all. Anchored near families through the middle part of the afternoon, the skipper will ask for it quieter, and that has to do with keeping our licences rather than with spoiling anybody’s fun.

Her three published rates

All three are on the page above, none of them is a headline figure that grows later. Low is May and October, mid is June and September, high is July and August. Across the full year the swing on this boat is €1,000.

The biggest single step here is the €600 between low and mid, which is worth knowing if you are choosing between the last days of May and the first days of June. Water temperature barely notices the difference; the invoice does. There is more on the month-by-month trade in our guide to Ibiza charter seasons.

Where else to look

For a faster hull at a similar money, the Nastyia 34 opens at €1,800 and is licensed for eight guests. For more people rather than more speed, the Bambina 44 carries eleven from €2,690. The full speedboat charter page puts the whole group of them in one place.

Common questions about her