Who owns the yacht you charter?
Most companies renting out yachts in Oslo do not own the boats. They broker them. Here is what that difference means for the price, the answer you get, and what happens when something goes wrong.
3 min read · 29. august 2026
Search for "yacht charter Oslo" and you get a handful of results that look much alike. Good photographs, the same fjord, roughly the same words. What none of them says is who actually owns the boats.
For most of them the answer is: none of them. They broker other people's boats.
How a broker works
A private individual has a yacht that sits still eleven months of the year. It costs money regardless — berth, insurance, servicing — so he lists it with a charter company. They take the booking, keep their share, and pass the rest to the owner.
It is a perfectly reasonable business, and it makes sense for the owner. But it is worth knowing what it does to your day.
Four things that change
Someone else sets the price. Each owner decides their own. That is why you often see a price on one boat and "get in touch" on the rest — they have not been given the figure yet. If the owner changes his mind next season, the price changes.
The answer takes a detour. You ask the broker, the broker asks the owner, the owner replies when he gets round to it. Ask on a Tuesday about a Saturday and it can be Thursday before anyone knows whether the boat is free.
Nobody has been on board today. The person answering you has seen the same photographs you have. Whether the speaker on the flybridge has stopped working, whether there is new teak on the aft deck, whether the fridge holds temperature — he does not know.
If something goes wrong, there are three parties. An engine failure the week before, or an owner who suddenly wants the boat himself. Now the broker has to solve a problem he does not control, and you are in the middle.
We own our three
Chancer, The Butler and the Pershing 62 sit in companies we own. It is not a detail we mention because it sounds good — it decides how quickly you get an answer and how firm that answer is.
When you ask about a Saturday in July, we look at the calendar and know straight away. The price is ours, it is on the website, and it will be the same next year unless we change it. If there is something about the boat, we know, because we were on her last weekend.
And should something come up — it does occasionally, boats are machines — we have two others. We have moved a party from one boat to another within the same week because a generator failed. You can do that when both are your own.
Why this is not just marketing
You can test it. Ask us how many steps there are down to the aft cabin on The Butler, or whether you can use the grill on the flybridge in light rain. We answer immediately, because we have stood there.
Ask the same of a broker and you get "I will check with the owner and come back to you".
When a broker is the right choice
If you want a sailing boat, a RIB, or something to drive yourself, we are not your people. We have three crewed motor yachts and that is all we have. A marketplace has a hundred boats, and for many needs that is exactly what you want.
But if you are taking twelve guests onto the fjord with food on board and a day that has to work, there is something to be said for talking directly to the people who own the boat.