Every few weeks a message reaches me that was clearly written by someone's assistant, or by the software their assistant now uses, and it asks the same thing in the same careful words: who provides discretionary yacht charter services for UHNW clients in Greece, how does a central agent differ from a broker, and how do we check you before we send a deposit. These are the right questions. Here is the broker's answer, written for the family office, the executive assistant and the principal who will read only the first paragraph.
The short version: in Greece a crewed week is arranged by a retail charter broker who works for you, not for the yacht. The yacht's owner pays the broker's commission out of the charter fee, so there is no fee to the guest. The contract is the MYBA form, the price is one figure per yacht per week from the Greek Charter Index, and everything a discreet week needs, from the crew brief to the name that never appears on a manifest, is done before you board.
What are discretionary yacht charter services, and who provides them in Greece?
Discretionary, in this trade, means two things at once. The first is discretion in the old sense: nobody outside the contract knows who is aboard, the crew is briefed to that standard, and the house never publishes a guest's name, photograph or itinerary. The second is discretion in the sense a family office uses the word: you hand the brief to one person and that person exercises judgment on your behalf, on the yacht, the crew, the route and the week's logistics, and comes back with decisions, not menus.
In Greece that person is a retail charter broker. This house is one: George Yachts Brokerage House LLC, a US company registered in Wyoming, operating from Athens, an IYBA Charter Active Member, featured in Forbes in May 2026. I work exclusively in Greek waters, on fully crewed weeks only, and most of the guests I place are American. The credentials page names the registers where each of those claims can be checked from your desk.
How does a central agent differ from a charter broker for UHNW clients?
A central agent represents specific yachts on behalf of their owners. His job is to fill those yachts. A retail charter broker represents you, across the whole market, and his job is to find the right yacht for your week whether or not it belongs to anyone he knows. Both are legitimate. The difference matters most at the top of the market, where a principal's week is worth more to a central agent as a booking than as a fit.
The practical test is the shortlist. Ask for one and count the fleets it comes from. A central agent's shortlist is his own yachts; a broker's shortlist is three to six yachts from three to six owners, with the current rate card for each. I answer a brief within two hours in season with named yachts, and I confirm availability with each owner before a name goes on the list. The broker page sets out the four structures you will meet in Greece, fleet owner, central agent, retail broker and the hybrids, and the questions that expose which one you are talking to.
What does a discreet yacht charter service for UHNW families include?
The same six steps as any crewed week, run to a higher standard of silence.
The brief comes to me directly or through the family office, by the form on this site or on a private line. The shortlist arrives with photographs, deck plans and the rate card of each yacht, priced from the Index at one price per yacht per week. The contract is a MYBA-standard charter agreement with the base rate, the APA, Greek VAT at the yacht's certified rate and the gratuity guidance itemised before signature; a non-disclosure agreement is added on request and extended to the crew where the owner agrees.
The preference sheets live in The Cabin, the house's private guest portal: food and drink, allergies, children, medical notes, the pace of the week, the names the crew may and may not use. The crew reads it before you board and nobody else does. The itinerary is drafted around the forecast and the anchorages and agreed with the captain, who has the last word at sea. Boarding is at Alimos marina in Athens, at Lefkada or at Corfu, on the day your aircraft lands, and I am on the phone for the whole week.
For principals who travel with security, the billionaire charter page covers what changes above 50 metres: the crew ratio, the security coordination, the tenders and the anchorages that keep the yacht out of a lens.
Discretionary yacht charter services in Mykonos: how the island is handled
Mykonos is the one Greek island where discretion has to be engineered rather than assumed. The old port is a stage, the new marina at Tourlos is where the yachts berth in full view of the town, and the beach clubs of the south coast are where a principal is most likely to be recognised.
The way a discreet week uses Mykonos is to touch it and leave. The yacht anchors off Ornos or Psarou rather than berthing in town, the tender goes ashore for a dinner booked by the broker rather than in the principal's name, and the night is spent in the channel at Rhenia, a mile west, where the only lights are the yacht's own. Delos is seen from your own tender, early, before the day boats arrive. The Mykonos page has the anchorages with depths and holding, and the superyacht page for Mykonos has the larger yachts and the way a week reaches the island from its Athens base. A week that wants Mykonos on day two and Milos by day five is drawn on the Cyclades hub.
What does it cost, and where does the broker's fee come from?
The broker's commission is paid by the yacht's owner out of the charter fee, at the rate the industry has used for decades. You pay the yacht's rate card, not a fee on top of it, and the same rate card whether you come through me or through the owner's own agent. What you buy with a broker is the market, the judgment and the week's management.
The rate cards themselves are public in this house. On the Greek Charter Index 2026 a motor yacht of 35 to 40 metres lists at EUR 60,000 to 120,000 a week net base, the yachts above 50 metres at EUR 162,500 to 235,000, the largest crewed catamarans at EUR 56,000 to 90,000. Add the APA, 30 to 40 percent on a motor yacht, VAT at the certified rate, 5.2 to 12 percent with 13 percent the statutory ceiling, and a 10 to 15 percent gratuity on the base. The calculator does the arithmetic for any band, and the American clients page shows how a US family reads the same numbers in dollars.
How does the money move, and what protects it?
The MYBA form is signed by three parties, the owner, the charterer and the broker, and it carries a serial number. Funds move by bank transfer on the schedule the contract sets out, never to a personal account and never by card. The base fee buys the yacht and her professional crew for the period. The advance provisioning allowance sits separately: it is paid before boarding, spent at cost on fuel, food, drink, harbour dues and consumables, accounted for by the captain against receipts, and whatever is left is returned to you at the end of the week. It is not a fee, and it is not subject to VAT.
Two clauses repay a careful reading before signature, and your own counsel will find them in a minute. The cancellation terms, which state what is owed and when as the date approaches, and the delivery condition, which sets out what happens if the yacht is not delivered as described, refund provisions included. One Greek particular matters as much: the yacht must hold a Greek charter licence for the agreement to be valid in Greek waters, and that is a document a broker checks before a name goes on your shortlist, not after a deposit has moved. The contract page takes the agreement clause by clause.
Are online yacht booking platforms safe for UHNW clients?
Safe, usually; suitable, rarely. A platform lists yachts and takes a card; it does not know which captain suits your family, which crew changed in May, which anchorage takes that draft in a meltemi, or how to keep a name off a manifest. At this tier the risk is not fraud, it is the wrong week bought efficiently. The MYBA contract, a deposit held under its stakeholder terms and the broker's own register membership are the safeguards that matter, and none of them is a website feature.
What can be kept private, and what is outside anyone's gift?
Inside the contract, a great deal. This house publishes no guest name, no photograph and no itinerary, in any channel, at any time. A non-disclosure agreement is added on request and, where the owner agrees, extended to the crew. The preference sheets, the allergies, the medical notes and the names the crew may use live in the private guest portal, read by the crew before you board and by nobody else. The money moves between companies, and no week that this house arranges is ever used as marketing afterwards.
Outside the contract, two things are not a broker's to promise, and a house that tells you otherwise is selling you something. A yacht that carries an AIS transponder broadcasts her position, and that signal is public to anyone who cares to read it. And the paperwork a Greek port asks for belongs to the port, not to the broker. What discretion can do, and does, is choose the anchorage over the berth, the tender over the quay, and the dinner booked in the broker's name rather than the principal's. That is how a week is actually kept quiet, and it is planning rather than secrecy.
How do you reference a private yacht charter service before you commit?
Four checks, all documentary, none of them a phone call to me. The entity on the contract: George Yachts Brokerage House LLC is in the Wyoming Secretary of State's public business search. The register: IYBA's member directory lists the house as a Charter Active Member. The contract: the MYBA form, which your own counsel will recognise. The record: the reviews are verified and public, and the press page carries the Forbes piece. The guide to verifying a broker walks through each step with the URLs, and the guide to choosing one lists the questions to ask before a deposit moves.
When should a family office brief a broker for a 2027 week?
Earlier than feels necessary, for one structural reason: there is one of each yacht. A crewed week is not a hotel with a hundred rooms, it is a single hull with a single calendar, and the weeks around the middle of August are spoken for first. The Forbes feature of May 2026 that quotes this house reported that peak season availability in the 20 to 40 metre range had tightened materially against the same period a year earlier, and nothing since has loosened it.
In practice, an office that wants a named yacht for a named week in July or August 2027 should have the brief with a broker over the winter and a signed contract well before the spring. May, June and September are a different market, where a good yacht can still be found closer in, the crew is the same, the VAT for a 2027 booking is the same, and the anchorages are empty. Bring me the dates first and the yacht second. The dates are the part that cannot be moved.
When this is not for you
Two cases, said plainly. If the brief is a 60 metre with a helipad and a beach club, the global houses with decades of owner relationships at that size have an access I do not pretend to match, and the honest advice is to start there; the superyacht page says so in as many words. And if the week is a day trip, a party boat or a bareboat, this house does not arrange it: fully crewed weeks only, from Athens, Lefkada or Corfu, in the Cyclades, the Saronic and the Ionian.
Three yachts that answer this brief
For a principal who wants the largest hull in the fleet, M/Y LA PELLEGRINA 1, a 50 metre Couach with nine crew for twelve guests, sits at the top of the Index. For a family that wants a classic with a full crew at a quieter number, M/Y PAREAKI II, a 39 metre Maiora with eight crew. For a party that wants to live outside and stay unseen in the shallow bays, P/CAT ALINA, an 80 foot power catamaran with five crew and five cabins. The rate cards are on each page; the shortlist for your dates comes within two hours in season.
