Property services

Boat Operators

Charter, transfer and the care of your own boat.

10 skippers on the network Lake Como

The lake reads as a benign sheet of water from a terrace, and it is not one. It is long, deep and narrow, held between mountains that funnel the air, and it has a wind clock that anyone who works on it can recite. The morning belongs to the tivano coming down from the north; the afternoon belongs to the breva coming up from the south, building through the middle of the day and dropping away in the evening. In the central basin that is a pleasure. In the northern reach above Menaggio and Varenna, with a long fetch and steep shores, an afternoon breva can build a short sea that will spoil a lunch and frighten passengers, and a squall coming over the mountains in late summer arrives faster than most people expect. A skipper's judgement about when to cross, which shore to take and when to turn around is the thing being paid for.

For owners, the expensive part of a boat on this lake is the winter, not the summer. A wooden hull left in the water from November to April dries and works, seams open, varnish goes and the cost of putting it right is many times what proper storage would have been. Mooring lines chafe unwatched, spring water levels rise, and a boat that nobody looked at between the last weekend in September and the first in May comes back into the season with a flat battery, or with a soaked interior. The operators who look after boats do the unglamorous half of the year: lifting and storing, keeping the hull in the right conditions, the varnish work, the engine, and the recommissioning in spring so that the boat is ready before the family arrives rather than a fortnight after.

Commercially, three different things share this page and it is worth separating them. A charter operator holds boats certified and licensed to carry paying passengers and is the correct route for a day out or a party. A transfer service moves people between an airport, a hotel and a landing stage and lives or dies on timing. And a boat captain kept for a family runs their own boat, maintains it, is on the jetty at nine and washes it down at seven. Some firms do two of these; very few do all three well. The one thing they have in common is scarcity in high season: by August the good boats and the good skippers are committed, and what remains available is available for a reason.

01What they actually do

Skippered days on the water

A day planned around the wind rather than the itinerary, with lunch somewhere that can be reached from the water and a mooring arranged before you arrive.

Transfers and arrivals

Airport, hotel or station to a private landing stage, coordinated with the car so that the two halves of the journey meet.

Looking after an owner's boat

Daily readiness through the season: washing down, fuel, engine checks, mooring lines and fenders, and being on the jetty when the family wants to go.

The winter

Lifting, storage in the right conditions, hull and varnish work, engine servicing, and recommissioning early enough to fix what the winter revealed.

02How we choose

We go out with them, including on days when the weather is unhelpful, because that is when a skipper shows what they know. We look at how the boat is kept below as well as above, whether the safety equipment is current, and whether the skipper volunteers that a crossing is a bad idea rather than agreeing to whatever the guest suggests. For the yards and operators who look after boats, we ask to see a hull they have carried through several winters.

No operator pays for a listing and we take no commission on a charter placed through us. In a market where a great deal of boat business moves on introduction fees paid by the operator, that is the only way we can honestly say that the boat we suggest is the right boat for the day rather than the one that pays.

We take an operator off for safety before anything else: overloading, ignoring weather, a boat that is not properly certified for what it is being used for. After that, the reasons are the familiar ones: a boat that has been allowed to go shabby, a skipper who is not the person the member was told to expect, and bookings quietly passed to somebody else in August.

Boat Operators: questions

Do I need a licence to drive a boat on Lake Como?

It depends on the boat: below a threshold set by Italian rules, certain small craft may be operated without one, and above it a licence is required. We do not publish the threshold here, because it is easy to state wrongly. Confirm it with the operator before you book.

In practice most self-drive hire on the lake is arranged around boats that fall inside the no-licence category, and everything larger is offered with a skipper. Even where a licence is not needed, ask the operator to take you out of the harbour and talk you through the afternoon wind before you are left with the wheel.

How much does it cost to charter a boat for the day?

Charter is normally priced by the half-day or day for the boat rather than per person, with the skipper included and fuel either inside the price or billed on use. We do not publish rates.

The type and age of the boat account for most of the difference: a classic mahogany runabout, a modern day boat and a crewed motor yacht are three different propositions. Ask what happens if the weather makes the day unworkable, since a written cancellation position is worth having before August rather than during it.

Where can I keep a boat on Lake Como?

In a marina berth, on a private jetty or in a boathouse attached to a house. Berths are scarce, rarely advertised, and tend to move privately when they move at all.

This is one of the reasons waterfront houses with an existing boathouse or landing stage sit in a category of their own: rights and structures on the water cannot readily be created now. If you are buying a boat before you have somewhere to put it, settle the berth first.

What does it cost to look after a wooden boat here?

Owners generally pay a seasonal arrangement for readiness and washing down, and separately for winter lifting, storage and any hull and varnish work. We do not publish rates.

The winter is the larger and less predictable half, because varnish and hull work are found rather than scheduled. Budget for the boat to be inspected at lift-out and for the findings to determine the spring programme, and expect that a boat neglected for one winter costs considerably more over the following two.

By village

Boat Operators in ComoThe city at the foot of the western branch. Roman in plan, silk in trade, and the one address on the lake that works as a place to live rather than a place to summer.

Boat Operators in BellagioThe village on the promontory where Lake Como divides. The most visited address on the lake, and still one of the hardest to buy into.

Boat Operators in TremezzinaNot a village but a shoreline: four former comuni strung along the western bank, holding the greatest concentration of gardens and grand villas on the lake.

Boat Operators in MenaggioThe town at the western end of the mid-lake crossing, with a working piazza, a golf course above it and a road out to Switzerland behind it.

Boat Operators in LaglioA narrow shelf of houses on the western shore between Moltrasio and Brienno, where the mountain comes down almost to the water and everything is reached by steps or by boat.

Boat Operators in MoltrasioThe village the lake was partly built from, a quarry town on the western shore between Cernobbio and Laglio, stacked in tiers above a small harbour.

Boat Operators in VarennaThe eastern-shore village at the mouth of the Lecco branch, small, steeply built, and the only address of its kind on the lake with a railway station of its own.

Boat Operators in BlevioA villa shore rather than a village: a string of hamlets on the steep eastern bank immediately beyond Como, close enough to the city to be useful and separate enough to forget it.

Written by The Como Private Desk

Reviewed by Como Private Property

Published 12 May 2026 Updated 31 August 2026

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For people who work on the lake

Are you the bestat what you do here?

The list we introduce from is short and grows slowly: by working with somebody, seeing how a job goes, and only then adding them. If that is the standard you hold yourself to, tell us who you are. We read every one. We check work before we introduce anybody, and no money passes in either direction.

Put yourself forward