Do you need a boat licence to sail in the Carribean (Guadeloupe, Martinique)?

No for a sailing yacht or a sailing catamaran. Guadeloupe and Martinique are French departments, and French law requires no certificate of competence for sailing, whatever the size of the boat. Yes for a motorboat of more than 6 hp. In every case, a bareboat charter means submitting a sailing CV for the charter company to approve.

When a licence is required and when it is not

A yacht's auxiliary engine does not trigger the licence requirement, because sail remains the vessel's main means of propulsion. A 45-foot catamaran fitted with a 40 hp engine can therefore be skippered without any licence. The minimum age to sit the French exam is 16.

Almost the entire fleet available for catamaran charter in the Carribean is open to sailors without a certificate, since it is made up almost entirely of sailing boats. The same goes for sailing yacht charter in the Carribean, monohulls included.

What the charter company actually asks for

No licence does not mean no conditions. Boat hire without a skipper comes with requirements of its own: operators ask for a sailing CV, which takes the place of a licence when they assess your level.

What a sailing CV should contain

• Miles covered as skipper rather than as crew
• Areas sailed, specifying any open-water passages
• Types and sizes of boats already skippered, monohull or multihull
• Number of nights on board and length of the cruises completed
• Date of your most recent significant passage
• Any qualifications and certificates held

Where the record is judged insufficient, the outcome is a refusal, a requirement to take a skipper, or a trial sail with the base manager's time charged separately.

Qualifications recognised in the Carribean

None of these qualifications replaces the sailing CV: they support it. The ICC (International Certificate of Competence) is a qualification issued under a UN/ECE agreement and recognised internationally as proof of recreational sailing ability.

What are the conditions for chartering with a skipper in the Carribean?

• No licence required
• No sailing CV requested
• No previous experience needed
• The skipper is responsible for handling the boat and for safety on board

This suits first-time sailors, families planning their first Caribbean sailing holidays, and crews whose experience does not cover the tropics. The same applies to scheduled departures: a catamaran cruise in Martinique leaving from Le Marin sails with a professional skipper, and the skipper and crew handle both the navigation and the port formalities at every stop.

Sailing beyond French waters

From Le Marin or Pointe-à-Pitre, most itineraries leave French waters. That is the case on an Carribean cruise departing from Guadeloupe, running down to Les Saintes and on to Dominica. None of the neighbouring states requires a licence for a sailing yacht, but the formalities change.

The real limit is contractual rather than legal: the charter contract sets a permitted sailing area, outside which the boat's insurance no longer applies. Before you go, it is worth reading up on sailing conditions in Guadeloupe, the trade wind patterns and the best anchorages in particular.

Do you need a radio licence for the VHF?

Using a VHF set on a French-registered vessel falls under the Certificat restreint de radiotéléphoniste (CRR), the French restricted radio operator's certificate. On a charter the radio station belongs to the operator and the CRR is not asked of the client, though it remains advisable for anyone in command on an island-hopping passage.

Documents to prepare: the summary