Bambina 44

The Bambina 44 puts eleven guests on eleven metres, which makes her the most tightly packed hull we charter and one of only two boats on this site that will take a group of that size at all. Low season opens at €2,690, or about €245 a head once she is full.

She achieves that by giving up almost everything below the waterline in favour of what is above it. There is no meaningful interior and no attempt at one. What you get instead is deck, seating and a swim platform, driven by twin petrol engines good for 34 knots.

How eleven people spend eight hours

Differently from how seven people spend them. A larger party moves more slowly through every stage of the day, from getting aboard to getting back out of the water, and the skippers who run her build that into the plan. Two well-chosen anchorages will feel busier and better than four hurried ones.

Departure time is yours to choose inside the usual band, and her eight hours count from when she actually goes rather than from when you were expected. With this many guests we do gently suggest the earlier end, because eleven people take a while to settle and the good anchorages fill up.

What tends to work is a longer run out at the start while everybody is fresh, a substantial stop through the middle of the day, and something short and close on the way home. That last stop is often the one people remember, because by then the group has stopped organising itself and simply relaxed.

A full boat is also a loud one, which is fine in an empty inlet and less fine anchored beside a family at four in the afternoon. If the skipper asks for the volume to come down, that is about protecting the permissions the charter operates under rather than about anyone’s taste in music.

The parties that book her

Big friendship groups and extended families, overwhelmingly. Ten or eleven people who have looked at the arithmetic and realised that one boat divided eleven ways beats two boats divided five and six. Birthdays, reunions and the last shared day of a longer holiday are her bread and butter.

She works less well for a small group, who would be buying capacity they cannot use, and less well again for anyone whose idea of a good day involves sitting somewhere air-conditioned for part of it. There is nowhere on this boat that is not outside.

Eleven is her legal maximum and it will not stretch on the morning. Twelve or more means either a larger hull or a second boat, and both routes appear on our page about getting a party of twenty afloat here.

What is above deck

Cockpit seating aft with a table in the middle of it, a foredeck given over entirely to lying down, and a bathing platform at the stern that will be the busiest part of the boat from about eleven in the morning until the skipper starts the engines for the last time.

Refreshments travel with her: water and soft drinks, beer, a couple of bottles each of wine and of cava, together with savoury snacks of the crisps, nuts and olives variety, and a stand-up paddleboard for the flat stops. Every guest gets a towel and there are snorkels aboard.

There is no cabin layout published for this hull, and describing rooms we cannot vouch for is not something we do. Assume an entirely outdoor day and bring your own shade, because with eleven aboard the space under the helm canopy will not go far.

Where she anchors well

Eleven metres needs relatively little swinging room, so even in the crowded first fortnight of August the skipper can usually find her a spot closer inshore than the larger yachts manage. For a group that intends to be in the water most of the day, a shorter swim to the sand is worth more than almost any feature list.

She handles both coasts. The west for the late afternoon light and the south for the clearest water and the shortest hop towards Formentera. The skipper picks between them on the morning based on the wind, and he will tell you why rather than simply announcing it.

Getting eleven people ashore for lunch is possible but slow, so groups on this boat more often eat aboard. If a restaurant table is important to you, say so at the booking stage and we will build the day around the reservation instead of squeezing it in.

Speed, fuel and the crossing

She is quick enough for Formentera and does the trip regularly. The 34 knots on her specification turns the passage from the south of the island into a short leg, which keeps the balance of the day tilted towards swimming rather than travelling.

Consumption on her is given by the day rather than per running hour: around 225 litres over a charter, on the basis of roughly 1.5 hours of engine time. That is a more useful number for planning than a rate per hour, because it is closer to what you will actually be billed.

As on every boat here, fuel sits outside the published rate and is settled once the day is finished, against what was genuinely used. Nothing else about the charter changes after you book. If the crossing is the point of the trip, our page on going to Formentera by private boat or ferry puts the costs next to each other.

Getting the day right

With this many people, luggage is the thing that most often goes wrong. One small soft bag between two is plenty; rigid cases have nowhere to live and end up sliding around the cockpit. Towels are already on board for everybody.

Nobody aboard needs any kind of boating certificate. That sits with the skipper, whose licence, time and legal responsibility are all inside the figure you were quoted. We go through the detail on our page covering licence requirements in Ibiza.

Agree in advance who is paying. Working out a bill between eleven people after a long day in the sun makes for a poor finish, and putting it on one card when the booking is made removes the problem.

Trips timed for the sunset are arranged individually rather than sold as a package, since the sensible departure time moves a great deal between the beginning and the end of the season.

Her three rates

Every figure is published up front. The quiet band is May together with October, the middle band is June with September, and the peak band is July with August. Bottom to top on this hull is €1,000.

The jump into the middle band is €700 and the jump into the peak only €300, so if your dates cannot be in May or October there is comparatively little to save by dodging July. At €335 a head in the busiest weeks she remains one of the better-value ways to keep a large group together, as the per-person comparison shows.

The other large-group option

The Chiara 37 also carries eleven and starts at €2,100, which is the lower headline of the two. For nine guests with a calmer hull, the Von Dutch 40 begins at €1,799. Both sit alongside the rest on our speedboat hire page.

Questions about the Bambina 44