Yacht toys are the watersports and leisure kit a superyacht carries for guests. The category runs from a pair of paddleboards to a submersible, and on a charter yacht the toy list is now a booking decision: brokers publish it, guests compare it, and a thin list costs weeks. What gets less attention is the operational side, because every toy has to be stowed, launched, recovered, charged, rinsed and supervised, and almost all of that work runs through the tender fleet.
This page covers the toy categories, the indicative costs, and the part that belongs on this register: how the toy list changes what you should buy in superyacht tenders and how the garage gets planned around it.
The toy categories
- Personal watercraft (PWC). Jet skis and stand-ups remain the anchor of most charter toy lists. Regulated in most coastal states; plan for licences, minimum ages and named crew supervision.
- Seabobs and underwater scooters. The single most requested charter toy of the last decade. Compact, battery-driven, easy to stow in numbers, and simple to run off a swim platform or tender.
- E-foils and efoil boards. Battery-powered hydrofoil surfboards. Quiet, fast to learn with instruction, and heavily dependent on a tender standing by as safety boat.
- Towables, SUPs and kayaks. Cheap, bulky, and the reason lazarette volume disappears. A tender with a proper tow post earns its keep here.
- Inflatable slides, pools and platforms. Transform the yacht at anchor; need certified attachment points, compressor access and crew hours to rig.
- Dive and snorkel kit. From loose fins to a compressor, nitrox and a dedicated dive tender on expedition programmes.
- Submersibles and amphibians. Top-end items that usually force the conversation onto a support vessel, because they do not share a garage politely.
Toys drive tender and garage decisions
The toy list is one of the four inputs that size a tender programme, alongside guest count, mothership garage envelope and operating area. Three patterns recur:
- The garage is a fixed volume. Every Seabob rack and slide bag competes with tender length. Owners who load the garage with toys end up with a smaller guest tender than the programme needs; run the numbers with the tender garage sizing guide before committing the space.
- Toys need a workboat. Rigging slides, towing inflatables, running safety cover for e-foils and shuttling dive kit is tender work. A RIB or crew tender with a tow post and open deck does it better than a dressed limousine.
- Big toy lists migrate off the mothership. The charter market's answer to the space problem is the chase boat or shadow vessel carrying the toys, the dive compressor and sometimes the helicopter, leaving the yacht's garage for a proper guest tender. If the toy list includes a submersible, that conversation is effectively mandatory.
Buying toys alongside a tender
Toys are catalogue purchases; tenders are specified builds. The efficient sequence is to fix the tender brief first, then fill the remaining stowage with the toy list rather than the other way round. When we run a brief we ask for the toy list up front, because a tow post, a wider swim platform, stowage racks and charging outlets are cheap on the build sheet and expensive to retrofit.
If you are planning a programme and want the tender fleet and toy list to work as one system, start an enquiry and we will spec it with you.