Most clients arrive at the marina thinking the hard part is over. The hard part hasn’t started. The first 36 hours on a charter is when the body decides whether the trip works, and there are a small number of disciplines that decide the outcome. This is the brief.
The first 36 hours. Your body is doing two adjustments at once.
The first is the time-zone shift, if you’ve crossed any. The second is the motion adjustment — even on a 40m motor yacht in protected water, your inner ear is doing math it isn’t used to. The combination of jet lag plus initial sea exposure is what catches most first-time charterers off guard. You think you feel okay because you’re at anchor in a calm bay; you take a tender ride to dinner, the chop kicks up on the way back, and at 2am you’re awake in the cabin and not in a good way.
The fix is not glamorous. Arrive a full 24 hours before the charter starts and sleep on land. Eat conservatively the first day on board — small portions, plenty of water, skip the second bottle at lunch. Get on deck. The deck is the best place to be when your body is calibrating; below decks in a closed cabin is the worst. The galley at sea is the third-worst, in case you were thinking about helping.
By the morning of day two, the body has usually solved the puzzle. By day three, you’ve forgotten you had it. The thing to do is not push through the first day pretending to be fine — the thing to do is move slowly, drink water, and let the boat do its work.
Stomach prep. Drammine N, not Dramamine.
This is the single piece of practical advice that’s worth more than the rest of this article combined. If you’ve never spent multi-night time on water, or if you’ve spent it and gotten sick, prepare your stomach in advance.
The drug to know is Drammine N — the European cinnarizine-based formulation that works on the inner ear without the sedation profile of Dramamine. You can order it from any EU pharmacy or the boat’s chief stew can typically source it ahead of arrival. Take it the night before you board and again the morning of any passage day. It works prophylactically; it does not work well as a rescue medication after you’re already symptomatic.
For acute episodes, scopolamine transdermal patches (the round patches behind the ear) are the strongest option but have a real side-effect profile — dry mouth, blurred vision, occasional confusion. Don’t apply one as a “just in case.” Save it for the passage day you actually need it.
And carry Sea-Band wristbands. They’re acupressure bands, no drug, no side effects, and they take the edge off a chop without compromising the rest of your day. Pack two pair.
Watch discipline. The boat schedule is the schedule.
The captain’s call on weather isn’t a negotiation. If he moves dinner up by an hour because the wind is filling in, you eat at the new hour. The boat does not bend to your watch. You bend to hers.
This is the discipline that separates guests who get invited back from guests who don’t. The captain runs the boat, and the boat runs on its own clock — tides, wind, fuel reserves, port hours, the chef’s prep schedule. When the captain calls a 6am move because the weather window is closing, the move happens at 6am. When the chef calls dinner at 7:30 because the langoustine is ready, dinner is at 7:30.
The mental shift for pro athletes is small because the wiring is already there — you spent your career on someone else’s clock. Shoot-around, walkthrough, tape, warm-up, tip. The boat is the same model with different intervals. The crew is running a complex operation around your week, and the smoothest version of the trip is the one where you let the boat tell you what’s happening next.
What this looks like in practice: be on deck five minutes before the announced movement. Be at meals on time. Don’t ask the crew to wait for you on shore excursions. If the captain says no on a planned anchorage because the wind shifted, the answer is no — find the right alternative he’s already chosen.
The no-shoes-inside rule. And the rest of the etiquette.
The yacht is a residence, and the interior is teak. Shoes come off before you step inside. There will be a designated spot for them at the entrance to the salon — a shelf, a basket, a marked area. Every guest learns this on the welcome walkthrough and every guest forgets at least once on day two. The crew will quietly remind you. Don’t make them remind you twice.
The rest of the on-board etiquette, briefly:
- Cabins. The chief stew turns down your cabin every evening and refreshes it every morning. Leave the cabin in roughly the state you’d leave a Four Seasons suite — towels in the bath, not on the bed.
- Laundry. Use it. The boat does laundry daily. Leave clothes in the cabin laundry bag and they’re returned pressed by evening. This is part of the service.
- Galley access. Don’t enter the galley. It’s the chef’s working surface and the safety-critical zone of the boat. If you want something, ring the bell or ask any crew member on deck — they’ll handle it.
- Bridge access. The captain will invite you up at some point. Until invited, the bridge is working space. After invited, you’re a guest there — don’t touch anything without being asked, and don’t visit during passages or maneuvering.
- Dietary requirements. The chef has them in advance and has provisioned for them. Adjusting them mid-trip is fine for small things, hard for major ones. Tell the broker every allergy and preference before contract.
- Water sports. The boat carries a full toy box — paddleboards, jet skis, kayaks, snorkeling gear, sometimes a Seabob. Ask the deckhand to set up whatever you want. Don’t deploy gear yourself.
Tip protocol. The number, and how it’s paid.
Industry standard is 10–20% of the base charter fee, with 15% as the honest middle and 20% reserved for exceptional crews. On a $200,000 base, that’s $30,000 at 15%. Paid in cash at the end of the trip — typically in an envelope to the captain, who distributes it across the crew on a pre-agreed split.
The amount is not a tip in the American restaurant sense. The crew on a charter yacht works 16–18 hour days for the seven nights you’re on board — they sleep on the boat, they eat the meals you don’t eat, they’re on call from the moment you wake until you’ve gone to bed. The number reflects that they made the trip what it was.
If the crew was excellent, tip 18–20%. If something was off and you want to communicate it, tip 10% and have a conversation with the broker after the trip — they’ll loop back to the operator. Don’t tip below 10%; if the trip was that bad, talk to your broker first.
What the guest is responsible for. And what the boat handles.
The honest division:
The boat handles: everything operational. Routing, fuel, food, beverages, dockage, water sports gear, laundry, cabin housekeeping, cocktails, snorkeling guides, tender transfers, shore reservations, anchorage selection, weather calls, safety briefings. You are not expected to drive, navigate, cook, clean, or organize.
The guest handles: showing up on time, communicating preferences clearly and in advance, treating the crew with the respect of professionals (which they are — most senior yacht crew have decades of experience and have worked some of the largest vessels on the water), and tipping at the end. That’s the entire list.
The boat is the rare luxury product that asks almost nothing of you. The temptation, especially for pro athletes used to micromanaging their own training, is to try to participate in the operation. Resist it. The crew does it better than you can, and the trip you booked is the one where you let them.
Sea legs are an actual thing.
Most clients don’t realize this until day three: you adjust. By the middle of the trip, the small motion of the boat at anchor disappears from conscious awareness. Your body recalibrates and you stop noticing the corrections it’s making. Then you step ashore on day seven and the dock doesn’t feel quite right — that’s the recalibration in reverse. The light landlubber wobble for the first couple of hours after disembarkation is the body switching modes back. Real sailors call it dock rock, and it’s the small souvenir the boat sends home with you.
