Pardo 52

The Pardo 52 is the largest walkaround we charter and the first boat on this list with a genuine interior. Sixteen metres, a beam of 4.95 metres, ten guests, one skipper and twin diesels quoted at 33 knots. She is the point in our fleet where a fast day boat starts behaving like a yacht.

Her pricing carries an oddity worth knowing before you read any further. Low season is €3,599 and mid season is €3,699. That is a difference of €100 for a month with warmer water and longer light, and it is far and away the cheapest seasonal upgrade in our fleet.

What ten guests do with eight hours

The extra beam is what you notice first. At almost five metres across she carries her width well forward, which turns the bow from a perch into a proper lounge and means the group naturally splits into two areas rather than crowding one. Ten people aboard rarely feels like ten.

Boarding happens at the berth and the eight hours run from departure, with the start time set to suit you within the standard window. Ten guests take slightly longer to settle than eight, so a prompt arrival buys real water time at the other end.

Two or three anchorages is the sensible target. The skipper will normally propose the furthest one first while everyone is fresh and the sea is at its calmest, then work back with progressively shorter legs so the afternoon drifts rather than sprints.

Because she has cabins below, this is also the smallest boat in our fleet where somebody can get out of the sun properly for half an hour. On a long August day that turns out to matter to at least one person in almost every group.

The group she is built for

Parties of eight to ten who want a step up from an open day boat without moving into crewed yacht money. Families with a mix of ages, where the grandparents want shade and the teenagers want the swim platform. Groups celebrating something who would like the boat itself to feel like part of the occasion.

She is also the boat we point people towards when they have chartered twice before and are ready to spend a little more. The improvement over an eleven or twelve-metre hull is obvious within the first anchorage, and it is mostly about width rather than length.

Ten is the number on her licence. A larger party moves onto a crewed yacht rather than into a negotiation, for reasons laid out on our page about the twelve-guest limit in Spain.

On deck and below

The cockpit converts for lunch and seats the group around a table. The foredeck, thanks to the beam carried forward, is a genuine second living area rather than a strip of sunpad. The swim platform sits close to the water, and the helm station is shaded, which matters to the skipper across a full shift in July.

Below deck there are two cabins. Across a day charter they take care of changing, of stowing things properly, and of the odd hour spent away from the sun; nobody stays aboard, because what we sell runs in daylight and finishes at the pontoon.

Provisioning is the wider list: cold water, soft drinks and beer, a modest quantity of wine and of cava, savoury nibbles, some fruit and a paddleboard. Towels for everyone and snorkels come as standard, as they do on every boat we operate.

Range and the routes that fit

Formentera is an easy proposition. At 33 knots the passage from the south of Ibiza is short, and sixteen metres is enough boat that the afternoon return in a building breeze is comfortable rather than something to endure. This is the smallest hull in our fleet on which the crossing is genuinely relaxed for everybody aboard.

She also works well for a full lap of the south coast, or for a longer run up the west side towards the quieter beaches. Her length does exclude the very tightest inlets, but those are a small proportion of what makes a good day here.

Music follows the same convention as on the rest of our boats. Alone in a bay you decide; with other yachts anchored close by later in the day the skipper will ask for it lower, and that is a licensing question rather than a matter of taste.

What she burns

Around 220 litres per hour with the engines working, which is a bigger figure than the smaller boats carry and reflects both her size and her pace. What keeps it manageable is that a typical charter only asks those engines to work for perhaps 1.5 hours out of the eight.

Fuel is charged after the day against the amount consumed, rather than folded into the rate as an estimate. That means a group choosing two nearby anchorages sees the saving directly, and a group that decides to cross to Formentera and back knows exactly what that decision was worth.

Everything else in the price is fixed at the point of booking. There is no separate skipper charge waiting at the pontoon, which is the most common unpleasant surprise on cheaper listings elsewhere on the island.

Getting ready

Soft bags again, though with two cabins below there is more sensible stowage here than on the open boats. Bring sun protection and something for shoulders; the cabins help but nobody comes to Ibiza to sit inside. Towels are provided for the whole group.

No guest needs any qualification. The skipper holds the licence and the legal responsibility for the vessel, both of which are inside the quoted figure. Our page on licensing for Ibiza charters sets out how that differs from a bareboat rental.

Catering can be arranged in advance, or you can provision yourself and eat aboard, or the skipper can drop you ashore. Flag your preference when you book, because a table reserved on land fixes the boat’s position at a given hour.

Evening runs to catch the sunset happen by arrangement and are not a standard item, because the sensible hour to leave moves a long way between May and October.

Her three seasons

The quiet band is May and October, the middle is June and September, and the peak is July and August. Across the whole year the spread on this hull is €900, which is modest for a boat of her size.

The point to take from that table is the €100 between the first two rows. Nowhere else in our fleet does a move from May into June cost so little, and September is priced identically to October on this boat. If your dates are flexible, the middle band here is the best value we publish. There is more on that in our guide to choosing when to charter.

Comparable boats

The Pershing 5X is the same length for ten guests with two crew, from €3,300. The Predator 66 goes bigger again at €3,790 for nine. The Pardo 44 is her shorter sister from €1,999, and the whole group is on our yacht rental page.

What people ask