Aura 44

The Aura 44 is the smallest hull we charter and the gentlest. Nine metres, seven guests, one skipper, twin diesels and a quoted 20 knots. That last number is the lowest in the fleet and it tells you almost everything about what she is for: not covering distance, but sitting still somewhere good for most of the day.

She also drinks less than anything else we operate, around 65 litres per hour under way. On a charter where the engines only work for a fraction of the eight hours, that turns into the smallest fuel settlement of any boat on this site, and for some groups that single fact decides the booking.

What a day on her feels like

Slow, in the good sense. She is not a boat that rewards an ambitious route, and the skippers who run her will steer you towards two anchorages rather than four before you have finished asking. The plan that works is one long stop somewhere sheltered and one shorter one on the way home.

Because she is small and diesel-powered she is noticeably quiet at rest, and quiet is the thing people notice. Anchored in a cove before the day-tripper boats arrive, with the engines off and seven people aboard rather than twelve, she gives you a version of Ibiza that the faster hulls tend to drive past.

Boarding is at the berth and the eight hours begin at departure. You choose the start within the usual late-morning window, and on this boat there is a genuine argument for going early, because a 20-knot hull uses more of its day getting where it is going.

The stretch of coast she suits best is the nearer one. Talamanca, the bays around the north of the harbour, and on a settled morning the run down towards Es Cubells. None of it is far, all of it is beautiful, and none of it asks her to work hard.

The group she is right for

Two couples, or a family of five or six, or a group of friends who have chartered before and know that the number of stops is not what makes the day. Seven is her licensed figure and six is where she is most comfortable, with room left to move around.

She is also the boat we suggest for anyone nervous about the water. A short hull at modest speed in sheltered bays is a very different experience from a fast crossing in an afternoon breeze, and for a first outing, or for guests who are unsure how they will find it, that matters more than the specification.

She is the wrong boat for a group determined to reach the Formentera sandbanks, and the wrong boat for eight or more people. If either of those describes you, the fleet has better answers and we would rather point you at one than sell you this.

On deck

A single open deck, cockpit seating and a table aft, sunbathing space forward, and a bathing platform low to the water. With only seven people aboard, none of those areas ever feels contested, which is a real luxury and a slightly unusual one on a boat at this price.

She carries the fuller refreshment list. Chilled water, something soft to drink, beer, and a bottle or two each of wine and cava; savoury things to pick at, crisps and nuts and olives. A stand-up paddleboard travels with her, which on a quiet-water boat gets more use than it does on the fast ones.

Towels and snorkels are aboard for everyone. There is no published interior arrangement for this hull, so plan the day as an outdoor one and bring shade for the middle of it.

The water she was made for

Ibiza has two kinds of anchorage: the broad open bays that suit a large yacht and the tight inlets that do not. This boat belongs firmly to the second category. Her draught and her length let a skipper take her in close where the sand shelves gently, which is exactly where the water is clearest and the swim shortest.

That advantage is at its most obvious in the middle of August, when the popular spots are full of hulls three times her size manoeuvring for room. She simply drops in behind them, closer to shore, and the day carries on. Guests who have chartered larger boats elsewhere usually spot the difference within the first hour.

None of that means she is confined to a small patch of coast. She can reach most of the island within the eight hours if you want her to. It only means that the version of the day she does best involves less moving and more staying.

Music, as ever, is welcome and neighbours are a consideration. At anchor on your own the volume is yours to set; with families close by later on, the skipper will ask for it eased back, and that request exists to keep our operating permissions intact.

Speed, fuel and the honest limits

Twenty knots is a comfortable cruising pace and a poor sprinting one. In practice that means she can go almost anywhere on the Ibiza coast within the day, and that a return crossing to Formentera would consume so much of the eight hours that the swimming becomes an afterthought. We would rather say that plainly than take the booking and disappoint you.

Her consumption of roughly 65 litres per hour is the lowest we publish, and with the engines turning for perhaps 1.5 hours in the course of a charter the resulting bill is modest. Fuel is the one item settled after the day rather than before it, calculated on what was used.

A diesel installation also behaves differently at low speed from the petrol engines in the faster boats: less noise at cruising revs and less fuss when the skipper is manoeuvring into a tight anchorage. It is a small engineering difference that shows up as a calmer day.

Before you come down to the boat

Soft luggage, and not much of it. On a nine-metre boat every bag has to fit a locker, and the deck stays civilised only if it stays clear. Towels are provided, so there is one thing you can leave behind.

Nobody in the party needs any boating qualification. The skipper holds the licence and the responsibility, and both are inside the price rather than bolted on at the quay. We answer that question at length on our page about licences and chartering in Ibiza.

For food, a boat this size makes the shop-and-eat-aboard option genuinely easy, and a beach restaurant stop is equally straightforward given she is rarely far from one. Let us know which you prefer in advance so the skipper can plan the middle of the day around it.

Evening trips to catch the sunset are arranged on request. They are not a fixed package, because the useful departure time moves by more than an hour across the season.

Her rates through the year

She has the flattest pricing in the fleet. From the cheapest band to the dearest is only €600, where several of our boats move by two or three times that. The two cheapest months are May and October; June with September occupies the middle; July with August is the peak.

The step from June into July is only €200 on this hull, the smallest seasonal jump anywhere in our fleet, which makes her one of the few boats where booking the busiest weeks of the year barely changes the sum. Our guide to choosing a month in Ibiza explains why most other boats behave very differently.

If she is not quite right

For the same seven guests at almost the same money but a much faster hull, look at the Azure 50 from €2,500. If you want the pace and the crossing, the Fjord 50 starts at €3,000. The whole small-boat group is laid out on the speedboat fleet page.

Questions about the Aura 44