Vanquish VQ88

The Vanquish VQ88 is the widest boat in our fleet. Her beam is 6.54 metres, more than any other hull we charter and nearly a metre and a half wider than the Pershing 5X, and on a boat with no superstructure to speak of that width translates directly into deck you can use.

She was built in the Netherlands in 2019 in aluminium rather than composite, and she is twenty-four metres long, licensed for twelve guests with four crew. Charters begin at €8,800 for the eight-hour day.

One deck, no hiding places

There is no flybridge and no saloon behind glass. What she has instead is a single continuous social space running from the bow to the stern, with a bimini over the helm and nothing else interrupting it. Everybody on board is in the same room all day, and that is entirely the point of her.

The helm sits amidships rather than tucked behind a bulkhead, which keeps whoever is driving inside the conversation instead of separated from it. On most yachts of this size the person at the wheel disappears for the duration; here they do not.

Below there are four cabins, arranged as two doubles and two twins. On a day charter their function is changing, stowing bags and an hour out of the sun, since what we sell runs by day and is back on its berth once the eight hours have gone.

What aluminium changes

She is light for twenty-four metres, which means she comes onto the plane quickly and holds her line in a chop rather than pounding through it. The practical result is a boat that feels smaller than she is when she is moving and considerably larger than she is when she stops.

Guests notice it most as noise, or rather the absence of it. An aluminium hull at cruising speed is quieter than most composite boats of the same length, which matters over an eight-hour day where a good part of the time is spent under way and talking.

She also has the profile people photograph. There is no soft way to say it: a good deal of her booking traffic comes from groups who saw a picture of her and decided that was the boat they wanted in their own pictures.

The parties she suits

Groups of ten or twelve who want to be together rather than distributed across three decks. She is a poor choice for a family with a member who wants to sit in air conditioning for two hours, and an excellent one for a group whose whole plan is company, water and sun in roughly that order.

Celebrations do well on her because the layout forces a single centre of gravity. Nobody drifts to the flybridge and stays there, because there is no flybridge. Twelve people on a boat like this behave as one group for the whole day.

Twelve is the legal maximum for a Spanish day charter and she carries exactly that. Parties above it need a second boat, something we put together more often than people imagine, set out on our page about taking a group of twenty out in Ibiza.

Pace, range and Formentera

She cruises at 32 knots. The crossing to Formentera is comfortable and quick, and her width means the return leg in an afternoon breeze stays civilised for everybody rather than only for the people sitting aft.

Longer itineraries work well on her precisely because being under way is not a penalty. On a boat where the deck is one open space and the ride is quiet, the passages between anchorages are part of the day rather than an interruption to it.

Her beam does need swinging room, so the crew will choose the broader bays and run the tender for the last stretch. That is standard practice at this size and it usually improves the day rather than limiting it.

What she burns

Thirty to fifty litres in an hour, which across a full charter comes out near 200 litres at the low end and 400 at the high, depending on time spent moving. For a twenty-four metre yacht those are modest figures, and the lightness of the aluminium hull is a large part of the reason.

Fuel is worked out at the end of the charter and charged on what was actually used. It is the only part of the day that is not fixed when you book, and it responds to your itinerary rather than to a tariff.

Inside the seasonal figure sit four crew, insurance, towels, snorkels, the 21% Spanish VAT and eight full hours afloat. Toys on the water, kayaks and Seabobs and jet skis, along with catering to order, get their own quote well before the charter.

Planning a charter on her

Because the deck is open from end to end, shade is the thing to think about. The bimini covers the helm and the crew can rig more, but anyone booking her in July should still pack hats and something to cover up with for the middle of the day.

Stowage below is real, so luggage is not a constraint. Towels come with the boat for everybody aboard. Tell us at the booking stage if the day is a celebration, since with four crew the catering and the timings can be built around it properly.

Guests are never asked for a licence or for any history afloat. The four crew carry it, and the cost of that sits inside your rate. Our page on licences and Ibiza boat hire explains why a crewed charter is a different product from a bareboat listing.

You choose a departure to fit the morning inside the usual window; her eight hours start as she pulls away. Sunset charters are handled individually on request.

A word on the practical side of an open yacht at this scale. Everything is visible, which means everything is tidy, which in turn means the crew are constantly putting things away. Guests who leave a towel on the coaming will find it folded within a minute, and that is not fussiness but the only way a boat with no cupboards stays presentable.

It also means the day has a certain formality to it that a flybridge boat does not impose. Nobody disappears upstairs. Conversations include everybody by default. Some groups love that immediately and a few find it takes half an hour to settle into, but almost nobody is indifferent to it by the end of the eight hours.

Her seasonal figures

May and October carry the lowest rate on her, June and September the middle rate, July and August the highest. The full-year spread on this yacht is €3,199, one of the widest we publish.

The step into the peak band is €2,199, more than twice the step out of the low band, which makes her one of the clearest arguments in our fleet for a September date. The identical yacht on identical water, at €183 a head below the August number. Our guide to Ibiza charter months works through the trade in more detail.

Yachts in the same class

The Riva Perseo 76 is the same twenty-four metres with a hardtop and a saloon, from €5,900. The Pershing 8X is longer and dramatically faster from €11,700. Both are listed on the Ibiza superyacht page, and she also heads the experiences page.

Questions about the Vanquish VQ88