Mykonos

Mykonos is an anchorage destination, not a marina destination. Most yachts visiting in July and August lie off Ornos, Platis Gialos, Super Paradise or Kalafati, and tenders shuttle guests in for lunch and on to Nammos, Scorpios and Principote. The work pattern is short-hop and high-frequency, with crews running back and forth across the day in exposed water that builds quickly when the meltemi fills in. That makes open tenders and limousine tenders the dominant types in the local fleet, prized for a dry ride and easy beach-club drop-offs, and chase boats less common than in the western Med.

The buying side here is light. Owners who base in the Cyclades for a season tend to source tenders in Athens, Italy or France and bring them across, rather than shop locally, so Mykonos generates demand rather than inventory. The replacement driver is wear: a tender that runs eight to ten beach-club rotations a day through a Mykonos August accumulates engine hours and cosmetic damage fast, which pulls many programmes into the pre-owned market for a replacement during the following winter rather than a mid-season repair.

The handling demands here are specific enough to shape the spec. Beach-club drop-offs at Nammos and Scorpios involve coming alongside a quay or stepping guests onto a tender in open swell, so crews favour a limousine tender with a wide, stable boarding platform and protected seating over a fast open boat that throws spray. The meltemi can build from flat to two metres of short chop within an afternoon, which puts a premium on a hull that stays controllable loaded with eight to ten guests and on a tender the crew can recover quickly if conditions deteriorate before the last shuttle home.

There are no superyacht refit yards on Mykonos, Tinos or Syros. For warranty work, paint and structural repairs, programmes route to Athens (Olympic Marine in Lavrion handles up to 60 metres on the hard, and Glyfada has multiple service yards). For larger refit work, owners typically ship the tender to Italy. Day-rate technicians do travel out from Athens during the summer for engine and electronics call-outs, but parts logistics across the ferry network are slow, so prudent programmes carry critical spares and a spare propeller aboard rather than relying on island supply.

The operational rule for a Mykonos season is redundancy: a guest-fleet programme that depends on a single tender to move people between the anchorage and the beach clubs has no fallback if it goes down on a charter week, which is why many crews keep a second open boat rigged and why outboard-powered tenders, which can be swapped or serviced faster than inboard waterjets out here, are common in the Cyclades fleet. Any non-trivial repair should be planned as an Athens or Lavrion job at the end of the season rather than an attempt to fix the boat in place.

Greece levies the TEPAI cruising tax on all yachts over 7 metres operating in Greek waters; the rate scales with length and the tax must be paid monthly or annually. Charter operations require either a Greek-flagged commercial vessel or, for non-EU flags, compliance with Law 4256/2014 covering charter days, crew and itinerary. Tenders carried as ship's equipment do not pay TEPAI separately, but tenders operating independently as day boats do. VAT status of a standalone tender should be clear before arrival; resolving it from a Cyclades anchorage with no customs post nearby is far harder than dealing with it before the boat leaves the mainland. See our tender import VAT note for the mechanics.