Sailing small boats around the world

September 29, 2020 10:33 AM

In the US, in various coastal towns, it's possible to rent a small sailboat for a day -- think a dinghy for 1 or 2 people like a Sunfish or Daysailer. Where are some places around the world where one can rent similar boats? Particularly interested in non-Anglophone and non-European locations.

This question is pure curiosity as there's not much chance of travel for the near future. Googling around for likely famous non-US coastal destinations seems to turn up only yacht charters, not the small dinghys I'm interested in.

posted by vogon_poet to Travel & Transportation (9 answers total)

If anything, I think this is more likely in non-US beach towns, it's just not on the internet. A lot of this ends up being informal - it's run locally rather than as part of the official hotel program. In some ways I think there are more sailing opportunities in places that serve primarily European tourists, because they have more time on vacation, they are more likely to have skill-based vacation hobbies like sailing. (EU renters are overrepresented in the US charter sail boat market for example.)

I have never used this, but it looks like airbnb for boats: getmyboat.com
posted by mercredi at 10:46 AM on September 29, 2020

I rented a sunfish in Bacalar Mexico where you can sail on a lagoon there, it was a blast!

I hope other people chime in with other locations, this is a great question.
posted by 12%juicepulp at 10:52 AM on September 29, 2020

If I survive covid this is what I want to do.
posted by night_train at 12:23 PM on September 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

I know mostly about Florida. Key Lime Sailing Club gives you a 22' Catalina with your stay. I've rented a Hobie Island in Key Largo a couple of times -- you might want a wetsuit in the cooler months when beating to windward. There's also a club in Clearwater Beach, FL that rents small sailboats. St. Augustine too, near Anastasia State Park. I'm sure there are more.

This is probably a larger boat than you'd like but I've always to charter this Macgregor 26X in La Paz, Mexico.

Carribbean resorts usually rent out small cats too. Sailing forums are probably the best places to look.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:24 PM on September 29, 2020

You could also search YouTube for "hobie sailboat rental" -- for example this one in Punta Cana, DR
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:58 PM on September 29, 2020

You can rent dinghies from places all over the UK (coastal and inland eg the Lake District), lasers are very commonly offered.
posted by plonkee at 3:22 PM on September 29, 2020

Here in Berlin, on the Wannsee you can rent sailboats from a couple places. I'm not sure about other lakes in Germany but I kind of assume you can.

I've also rented a Catamaran on the Atlantic coast of France, and on Majorca.

It might be cool to sail either Lake Como or Lake Garda - both have pretty large sailing communities and I expect you'd see lots of different kinds of boats. This is also the big charm (for me at least) of sailing in Berlin - on any given day you'll see everything from Moth's to Z-Jollen, which are racing dinghy's from the 1920's. Also the foiling board, with the little motor - those are insane looking.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:59 AM on October 1, 2020

Response by poster: These are exactly the types of answers I'd hoped for. Thanks, everyone!

Looking on sailing forums was a good tip. On one forum I found evidence of Hayama Sailing Club and Odakyu Yacht Club south of Tokyo. It does seem to be correct that much of this is informal and not online, though.
posted by vogon_poet at 7:36 AM on October 1, 2020

As someone mentioned, getmyboat.com is an interesting solution, but I'm not sure you'll find something as small as a dinghy or smaller sailboat.

Might as well do a little planning first, figure out what locations you want to visit, and then just Google local places. I also came across this very helpful site... shoot, this might be what you need (if you wanted to visit say France for instance): https://www.clickandboat.com/us/boat-rental/france

Lastly, heard about an app Snag-a-Slip from here, but not sure if that's just for renting a slip, or for boats as well (also not sure if it covers outside of the US).

Think that ClickandBoat might be your best bet. Just found a dingy for rent in La Spezia, Italy for $247 per day. Pretty awesome.
posted by DavidC83 at 8:08 AM on June 15, 2021