Bareboat & skippered · Malta & Gozo
Free tools and official sources for taking a boat out in Maltese waters. Everything here is either published by the authority responsible for it or free to use — and where something is only partly free, this page says so.
Search and rescue in the Maltese Search and Rescue Region is coordinated by RCC Malta, run by the Armed Forces of Malta.
Which channel to monitor depends on where you are. These are the working channels published by Transport Malta.
| Where | Channel |
|---|---|
| Valletta VTS area | 12 |
| Marsaxlokk VTS area | 14 |
| Mġarr, Gozo (LPS) | 10 |
| Distress, safety and callingKept clear for emergencies — not a chat channel | 16 |
The forecast decides whether the day happens at all, and in Malta it does not come from the maritime regulator. Transport Malta publishes notices to mariners — works, closures, firing exercises — while the Malta MET Office issues the marine forecast and the warnings. Two different bodies, and people routinely look for one at the other.
The official one
The Malta MET Office's marine forecast, covering an area of 50 nautical miles around the Maltese coast — which is the whole cruising ground and then some. Wind, sea state and outlook, from the body that issues them. Check it the morning you sail, not the night before.
maltametoffice.com →Warnings, colour-coded
The Europe-wide warning feed, carrying Malta's official warnings at the same yellow / orange / red levels the local news reports them at. Useful because it says plainly whether a warning is in force right now, rather than leaving you to read it out of a forecast.
meteoalarm.org →Free
The MET Office's land forecast and current conditions. Less use than the mariners' forecast for a passage, more use for the question people actually ask the day before — whether it will be pleasant to sit on a boat.
maltametoffice.com →A skipper who calls off a day on the strength of one of these is not being difficult — Malta is small enough that the usual answer to bad weather is a different coast rather than no trip, so a flat no generally means the day is genuinely not on. How to plan a day around the wind covers which coast works in which conditions.
Works, closures, races, firing exercises and anything else that changes what is safe or permitted on a given day. Transport Malta publishes these continuously and they are free to read — worth a look the week you sail, not the month before.
What each one actually costs, rather than what the download button says.
Genuinely free
An open nautical chart built the way OpenStreetMap is, covering Malta and Gozo. Free to use and openly licensed, with seamarks, lights and harbour detail. Community-maintained, so treat it as a useful reference rather than as an official chart.
openseamap.org →Free app
Free to download and use for route planning, marking waypoints and community harbour notes. Its free chart download is NOAA cartography, which covers United States waters — so the charts are of little use here even though the app is.
garmin.com →Free app, paid charts
The app is free and the charts are a subscription. It is the one most Mediterranean charter skippers use, and it is worth the money for a bareboat week — but budget for it rather than arriving expecting free coverage.
garmin.com →Free to use
Wind and wave forecasting, free on the web and as an app. Worth more than any chart on a Malta day charter: summer mornings are often close to windless and the breeze builds through the afternoon, which decides whether you sail or motor.
windy.com →It closed on 31 December 2025. The Royal Yachting Association shut the UK app down in agreement with HM Coastguard, and a good deal of boating advice still online has not caught up. SafeTrx continues in some other countries under separate operators, but there is no Maltese version, and Malta's search and rescue runs through RCC Malta rather than through any app.
Source: RYA — SafeTrx is closing
It is a set of links, not advice. charters.mt does not provide navigation, weather or safety guidance, and nothing here replaces a proper passage plan, the skipper's own judgement or the operator's briefing. Where a rule applies, the authority that makes it is linked so you can read it first-hand rather than take our word for it.
Taking a boat out yourself is bareboat charter, and operators ask for evidence of competence before they hand one over. If you do not hold a certificate, the same boats are available skippered.
Bareboat charter in Malta →Sailing yachts →Where to sail from →
Try:
Enquiries go to the operator from a boat's own page — this panel does not send them.
