Bareboat Sailing Holidays Ltd

About Bareboat Sailing Holidays

About us

BareboatSailingHolidays.com is the specialist bareboat desk of Sailing Holidays Ltd, the largest British-owned sailing holiday company. The company has been in operation since 1977 (yes, over 30 years!) and is proud to send thousands of British sailors on a sailing holiday every year.

We're proud to be British owned and operated (despite a few Kiwi accents here and there..) with our main office and staff located in London.

BareboatSailingHolidays.com is a yacht charter agent, sourcing yachts from a select pool of pre-approved yacht owners throughout Europe.

Your Financial Protection

Sailing Holidays Ltd is a fully bonded tour operator.

When you buy an ATOL protected air holiday package from Bareboat Sailing Holidays you will receive a Confirmation Invoice from us confirming your arrangements and your protection under our Air Travel Organiser's License number 2580.

In the unlikely event of our insolvency, the CAA will ensure that you are not stranded abroad and will arrange to refund any money you have paid to us for an advance booking. For further information please visit the ATOL website at www.atol.org.uk.

A Brief History of the Bareboat Charter Business

Bareboat Sailing Holidays is headed by Tim Anderson. A Kiwi, I first came to Old Blighty from New Zealand in March of 2005 to see the world and experience the vast culture of er, South London.

I was lucky enough to meet Barrie Neilson who rescued me from the banking profession and gave me the opportunity to run this sailing business opportunity which I could hardly refuse. After all, what could be better than organising sailing holidays to some of the most beautiful sailing destinations in the world...? Not to mention the prospect of actually going to 'research' these fantastic areas.

It has always been the view of Barrie that the flotilla business would feed sailors through into bareboat charter as they became more experienced. It was also thought that the flotilla sailors would look to bareboat in areas not currently served by the flotilla business. Both of these points of view have proved correct with many of our flotilla sailors trying a bareboat charter for the first time with us. Word of mouth has spread the good word about our bareboat business and we now have thousands of very happy clients.

Our Yachts

BareboatSailingHolidays.com is a yacht charter agent, sourcing yachts from very select yacht owners throughout Europe. With the support of Sailing Holidays Ltd has also come great responsibility in assuring that the yachts and people we use are of extremely good quality.

We travel numerous times a year to inspect the yachts and meet all the people involved. This travel involves taking a yacht surveyor and/or an engineer with me. Over the last two years this has been Alistair Moore who, in addition to his technical skills, is one of the most experienced sailors around. He's sailed across the Southern Ocean, sailed Antarctic and Arctic waters, he's even skippered a 120ft plus yacht up the Amazon River...

In chartering from us you can have the confidence knowing that the yacht and people are of the best standard around and that you have us here in the UK working for you.

Do get in touch if you have any questions, we look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers,
Tim

The History of Sailing Holidays Ltd

Sailing Holidays Ltd began life in 1976 as Flotilla Sailing Club. Barrie Neilson joined the company in 1979 as a flotilla engineer and subsequently worked as flotilla skipper for six years from 1980 to 1985 in Greece, Florida and the former Yugoslavia. In 1983 Heidi came out on holiday and decided that I needed sorting out; between us we decided to have a go at sorting the company out.

We put a proposal to the then owner, Tom Keen, to take over responsibility for the business and this was accepted. We altered the name to Sailing Holidays Ltd in 1987 to more accurately define what the company did and sprang into action with eleven Jaguar 27 yachts. Sixteen years later, we have 160 yachts in Greece (100) and Croatia, all of which are run as flotilla sailing holiday yachts.

Sailing Holidays is now the only non-corporate flotilla specialist in the United Kingdom and our clientèle remain 95% British (the other 5% are typically colonials!). Our niche is operating the best maintained boats in the industry on two week flotillas around some of the most beautiful islands in the world. They are also within only a 2-3 hours of flying time from the UK.

Our holidays are highly addictive and our average customer has enjoyed between four and five holidays with us in the different areas. Our longest standing client has been on more than 50 of our holidays (two a year!) and our next longest twenty-nine holidays! Several have gone on to buy their own yachts and cruise the world but most have to work for a living and our job is to make each fortnight special.

We are still fully involved with all aspects of the business (stress? what stress?) and enjoy our own holidays every year. Our children, Amy and Alice, especially enjoy the family atmosphere on the school holiday flotillas (its not easy getting them out of the water)! We remain as un-corporate as you can get, preferring to remain in personal touch with our clientele. We know no better way to give your brain a break!

Cheers,
Barrie

Skiing Holidays

More recently we have launched a skiing holidays business, hopefully leveraging off the fact some of you keen sailors are also keen skiers! Please visit our site: Skiing Holidays website, and also visit my skiing holidays news blog here.

Thanks for your support!

Cheers,

Tim