Reference
Luxury Charter & Rental Glossary
The vocabulary of chartering is doing real work — a term like “six-pack” decides how many people can legally board your boat, and “bareboat” decides whether you are driving it. These are the definitions, with the sources.
An Advance Provisioning Allowance (APA) is a prepaid operating fund a charterer pays on top of the base charter fee to cover variable running costs such as fuel, food, beverages, and marina fees.
A bareboat charter, also called a demise charter, is a written agreement transferring full possession and control of a vessel to the charterer without crew or provisions, making the charterer the de facto owner for the term.
Beam is the width of a boat measured at its widest point, usually amidships.
A catamaran is a vessel with two parallel hulls joined by a deck or bridgedeck; a monohull has a single hull.
A Certificate of Inspection (COI) is the document the U.S. Coast Guard issues to a vessel that has passed federal inspection, authorizing it to carry more than six paying passengers.
Draft is the vertical distance from the waterline to the lowest point of a vessel's hull, keel, or running gear.
An empty leg is a private charter flight that flies without paying passengers because the aircraft must reposition — returning to base or moving to its next pickup.
An FBO, or fixed-base operator, is a commercial business granted the right by an airport to provide aeronautical services to aircraft on the field.
The federal excise tax on domestic commercial air transportation is 7.5 percent of the amount paid, plus a per-passenger domestic segment fee for each flight segment.
The Florida Boating Safety Education Identification Card is state-issued proof that you completed an approved boating safety course.
Florida requires a Department of Business and Professional Regulation vacation rental license for any dwelling rented more than three times in a calendar year for periods of less than 30 consecutive days.
Under Florida Statute 509.032(7)(b), a local law, ordinance, or regulation may not prohibit vacation rentals or regulate the duration or frequency of rental.
A flotilla is a group of boats travelling together on a shared itinerary, coordinated by a professional crew aboard a designated lead boat.
A flybridge is a raised open deck above a motor yacht's main cabin or wheelhouse that contains a second, duplicate helm station.
A full-coverage insurance transfer is the requirement that your personal auto policy, including comprehensive and collision, extend to the rented vehicle.
A charter gratuity is a discretionary tip paid to the crew at the end of a charter, calculated on the base charter fee rather than the total invoice.
A jet drive propels a boat by drawing water through an impeller and expelling it through a steerable nozzle; a propeller drive turns a bladed prop in open water.
A knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour.
Light, midsize and heavy are industry categories for business jets, sorted by cabin volume, range and weight.
A mileage cap is the number of miles included in your exotic car rental rate, usually stated per day.
A no-wake zone is a marked area where vessels must operate at idle speed, meaning no faster than needed to maintain steerageway, producing no wake.
Part 135 of the Federal Aviation Regulations governs commercial on-demand charter — flights where passengers pay for transportation.
A personal watercraft, or PWC, is defined in Florida law as a vessel less than 16 feet in length that uses an inboard motor powering a water jet pump as its primary source of motive power, and that is designed to be operated by a person sitting, standing or kneeling on the vessel rather than inside it.
A repositioning fee — also called a ferry fee — is the charge for flying a charter aircraft empty to or from your trip.
The Miami Beach resort tax is a municipal tax on tourism-related sales within the city.
A sandbar is a shallow shoal where deposited sand raises the seabed close to the surface, leaving water often only a few feet deep.
A security deposit hold is a credit card authorization placed at pickup that reserves part of your available credit rather than charging it.
In Miami Beach, a short-term rental is a residential unit rented for a term of less than six months and one day.
A six-pack license, formally the Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessels (OUPV) credential, is a U.S. Coast Guard license permitting its holder to carry no more than six paying passengers on an uninspected vessel.
A tender is a smaller boat carried by or assigned to a larger vessel, used to ferry passengers and supplies between the anchored yacht and shore.