Yachtsie makes booking yachts easier than a flight, car or hotel

Booking a car, flight or hotel has become pretty darn easy in the 21st century thanks to smartphones, Google and specific online services.

However, for fans of sailing, booking a yacht has always been a time consuming, and difficult endeavour — at least that’s how Steve Raw, an Oxford-educated engineer and RYA Yachtmaster, felt about the process.

That’s why he founded Yachtsie, a web-based yacht booking service that hopes to make securing a yacht for hire as easy as booking that car, flight or hotel.

“The purpose of Yachtsie is to make it really easy to find and book high quality yachts. You can browse through thousands of yachts worldwide with live availability, price comparisons and instant booking. We will be the first port of call for customers who want to avoid the usual fuss and just get out on the water,” says Raw.

To date Yachtsie has secured partnerships with more than 50 charter companies representing over 2000 yachts in over 40 countries.

Yachtsie’s technology connects customers directly with the booking systems of yacht providers and charter operators all in real-time, so the pricing and availability is always up to date. Furthermore, customers can compare prices and book instantly via a secure payment system, theoretically getting the best deal.

Raw adds that the idea behind Yachtsie’s design was to make yachting more accessible, and everything from the UX and UI was focused towards customers with no prior experience of yachts. In practice customers choose their area, dates, price range and yacht-type to get a quote before booking. At its core, Yachtsie is as simple as “…search, compare, book,” says Raw.

Yachtsie has completed an initial round of funding and is now focused on nurturing its community and growing the Yachtsie team.