Pershing 5X

The Pershing 5X is the quickest boat we charter under twenty metres. Her specification says 38 knots, and everything about the way she is drawn serves that number: a beam of only 4.38 metres, a low profile, and a hull that looks like it is moving while tied to the dock.

She takes ten guests with two crew rather than one, which is unusual at sixteen metres and tells you something about how she is run. Low season opens at €3,300, and the three bands step up in exactly equal amounts of €1,200.

Two crew on a sixteen-metre boat

Most hulls this length carry a skipper and nothing else. Having a second pair of hands changes the day more than the specification sheet suggests: someone is looking after the guests while someone else is looking after the boat, so nobody is waiting for the person driving to finish a manoeuvre before they can ask for anything.

It matters most at the anchorage and at the swim platform, where a busy day boat with one crew member is always slightly compromised. Here, the tender work, the ladder and the drinks are not competing for the same person.

You name the departure inside the usual late-morning band, and her eight hours start the second she is off the lines. Both crew are aboard and ready before you arrive, which in practice makes boarding quicker than on a single-handed boat.

What that narrow beam is for

At 4.38 metres she is a slim boat for her length, and that is a deliberate trade. A narrow hull cuts through a chop instead of slapping across it, which is why she can hold a high pace in conditions that would force a wider boat to slow down.

The cost is deck width. The foredeck is a sunbathing strip rather than the broad lounge you get on a beamier hull, and ten people on board will naturally cluster aft. Groups who want to spread out across a wide bow are better served elsewhere in the fleet.

What you gain is placement. A slim sixteen-metre boat slots into anchorages that wider yachts of the same length have to give up on, and in the second week of August that is a real, repeatable advantage rather than a theoretical one.

The group she fits

Ten guests who care about how the boat moves. She attracts people who have chartered before, who notice the difference between a hull that is fast and a hull that is merely powerful, and who would rather have crew than a slightly larger deck.

She is also a strong choice when the plan involves distance. If your day is built around getting somewhere specific and spending real time there, 38 knots buys back a meaningful part of the eight hours compared with a boat doing 26 or 30.

Ten is her licensed maximum. Parties of eleven or twelve need a different hull, and the reasoning behind those figures is laid out on our page about guest limits on Spanish day charters.

How a charter on her usually goes

Faster boats change the geometry of a day rather than simply compressing it. On a hull like this the question stops being how far you can get and becomes where you actually want to be, because almost everywhere on the island is within reach and the answer is no longer decided by the engines.

Most groups use that freedom badly on the first attempt and try to see four places. The crew will steer you towards two, chosen properly, with a long enough stop in the middle that the day has a centre to it. The boat is quick so that you can linger, not so that you can rush.

The other thing worth planning for is the wind. An afternoon breeze that would send a smaller hull home early barely registers here, so a plan that involves being on the exposed side of the island late in the day is realistic on this boat in a way it is not on most.

On volume, the same convention applies as across the fleet. Alone in a bay it is your decision entirely; anchored among other boats through the afternoon the crew may ask you to bring it down, which is about the permissions the charter runs under.

Deck and interior

Aft, a cockpit with seating and a table, and behind it the bathing platform where the day mostly happens. The helm is set low and under cover. Forward, sunpads along the narrow foredeck, reached down side decks that are functional rather than generous.

Below there are two cabins: a master and a VIP forward. On a day charter their job is changing, stowage and an hour out of the heat, since every charter we run is a daytime one that comes back to the berth.

Included on board are towels for the whole party, snorkels, the two crew, insurance and Spanish VAT at 21%. Anything beyond that, from paddleboards to catering, is quoted in advance and confirmed before you board rather than settled on the day.

Speed, routes and fuel

Formentera is comfortably inside her range and she makes short work of the passage. So is a full circuit of the south coast, or a run north to the quieter water above San Antonio and back with time to spare. At this pace the island stops being a constraint on the itinerary.

Fuel on her comes as a daily band and not an hourly rate: 200 to 400 litres across a charter, decided by how much of the day she actually spends moving. A day of two nearby anchorages sits at the bottom of that band and a day of long passages at the top.

Fuel is billed afterwards on real consumption, and it is the one line left open when you make the booking. Everything else, including both crew, is inside the published figure.

Before you board

Bring soft luggage. There is proper stowage below, but the cabins are compact and hard cases are awkward everywhere on a boat of this shape. Towels are supplied, so those can stay behind.

Not one of your guests needs a licence, and none of them needs to have been on a boat before. That responsibility sits with the crew and is priced into the charter. Our page on licence rules for renting a boat explains why a crewed rate and a bareboat advertisement are not the same product.

Food can be brought aboard, arranged through us beforehand, or taken ashore at a beach restaurant. Say which at the booking stage, because a reservation on land determines where the boat has to be in the middle of the day.

Sunset outings are arranged individually on request. The right moment to leave shifts across the season by more than an hour, so a fixed slot would suit almost nobody.

The three bands

May and October make up the quiet band, June and September the middle, July and August the peak. The gap from bottom to top is €2,400, one of the wider swings in this part of the fleet.

Both steps are €1,200, which makes the calculation unusually clean: each band you move down is worth exactly the same. A group with flexible dates saves €2,400 by taking her in October instead of August, on a boat that is arguably better in October anyway. Our notes on the charter calendar go into the trade in detail.

Similar boats

The Pardo 52 is the same length for the same ten guests with a much wider deck, from €3,599. The Predator 66 is longer again from €3,790. Both sit on the yacht rental page alongside the rest of the motor fleet.

Questions we are asked