Guide · 7 min read
When to Sail Thailand, and Which Coast to Pick
Thailand has two sailing coasts running on opposite clocks. Get the month right and you sail dry in a 10-knot breeze behind limestone karsts. Get it wrong and you sit in a marina watching squalls cross the bay.
7 chapters · 7 min read · Updated 3 September 2026
Photo · Stan VersluisThe Andaman coast: November to April
The north-east monsoon settles in around the start of November and holds until April. Wind comes off the land, so the eastern side of Phuket — where Yacht Haven Marina and Ao Po Grand Marina sit, both on the north-east shoulder of the island — stays sheltered, and Phang Nga Bay behind it is close to a lake on most mornings. Breeze usually builds through the middle of the day and dies at dusk, which is why so many Andaman itineraries end with an early dinner at anchor rather than a night sail.
The water is shallow and the tide matters more than the wind does. Much of Phang Nga Bay carries single-figure depths, spring tides run to roughly 3m, and several of the best-known spots — the hongs, the mangrove entrances at Koh Hong and Koh Panak — are only enterable by dinghy or kayak near high water. Read the tide table before you plan the day, not after. Charter briefings at Yacht Haven cover this properly, and it is the one part of the briefing worth taking notes on.
April is the hinge month. It is the hottest, the water is at its clearest, and the first south-west swell usually arrives towards the end of it. May to October the monsoon turns, the west-facing beaches take the swell head-on, and the bareboat fleet largely stands down. Some operators keep boats working through the wet months at lower rates, but you are trading price for a real chance of losing days to weather.
The Gulf: two clocks, not one
The Gulf of Thailand is not simply the Andaman shifted six months. It sits in the lee of the peninsula, so the south-west monsoon that shuts Phuket down largely passes Samui by, and sources broadly agree the Gulf's usable window is roughly the opposite of the west coast's — with sailing guides putting the best of it between May and October, and land-based season guides stretching the good weather from February through August (Safety Anchor Alarm, Inside Samui).
What the sources agree on is what to avoid. The north-east monsoon drives rain onto the Gulf's eastern shores, and the second half of November through mid-December is the wettest, squalliest stretch of the year around Samui and Phangan — rough north-east seas, and mainland ferries cancelled often enough to disrupt a charter start. January and February can still throw strong squalls at the Samui archipelago even as Phuket is having its finest fortnight.
Practically, the Gulf is a smaller proposition. The charter fleet there is concentrated around Koh Chang in the east rather than Samui, the passages between Chang, Wai and Kood are short and pretty, and prices are quoted in dollars more often than euros. It suits a returning charterer who has already done Phang Nga and wants somewhere quieter — not a first Thai week.
Month by month
- Novemberthe Andaman dries out and the fleet comes back online, but the first two weeks can still carry leftover rain. Good value, slight gamble. December: reliably good sailing, and the Christmas and New Year fortnight is the single busiest, priciest window of the year — anchorages at Koh Phi Phi and Railay fill by mid-afternoon, and boats for those dates go under contract nine to twelve months ahead.
- January and Februarythe best of it. Steady north-east breeze, low humidity by Thai standards, minimal rain, and long settled spells that let you plan a week rather than react to it. March: still dry, noticeably hotter, thinner crowds after the European half-term traffic clears. April: hottest of all, glassy water, Songkran in the middle of the month turning every coastal town into a water fight — charming or unwelcome, depending on your party.
- May to October on the Andamanmonsoon. Cheaper, greener, and genuinely unpredictable, with days lost to swell on the west-facing coast. This is the stretch where the Gulf makes more sense, or where you sail elsewhere entirely — if your only free weeks are July and August, that is an Ionian yacht charter in Greece or the Adriatic, not the Andaman Sea.
What the season does to your route
In peak season the north-easterly lets you leave Phuket's east coast and reach comfortably into Phang Nga Bay, then work south past Koh Yao Yai towards Krabi and Phi Phi with the wind broadly behind you. The classic seven-day loop out of Yacht Haven runs roughly 90 to 130 nautical miles in total: Koh Hong, the Krabi coast, Phi Phi Don, the Racha islands, back north. Nothing on it is a long day, and nearly all of it is done under 20 knots of true wind.
The same wind decides where you sleep. In December and January the north-east means north-facing anchorages get uncomfortable overnight, so plan to tuck under the southern side of islands — Phi Phi's Tonsai bay is protected but crowded, while the eastern coves of Koh Yao Noi stay calmer and emptier. Come March and April, when the breeze softens and swings, the choice widens considerably.
Two practical constraints that catch people out. National park fees apply across much of the good cruising ground, including the Phi Phi and Phang Nga areas, and are collected per person per day. And Thailand runs almost no flotilla yacht charter in the Croatian or Ionian sense — you are on your own boat making your own decisions, with the charter base a phone call away rather than a lead boat in sight.
The boats, and roughly what they cost
The Andaman fleet is catamaran-led and for good reason: shallow draught for the bays, deck space for the heat, and stability for the guests who came for the swimming rather than the sailing. Bareboat monohulls out of Phuket — Bavaria Cruisers in the low 30s to mid 40s, Jeanneau Sun Odysseys, Beneteau Oceanis — run roughly €1,800 to €3,600 a week as an indicative peak-season from-price. Bareboat and skippered catamarans in the 4-cabin bracket sit around €3,500 to €7,000.
Above that you are into crewed territory. A fully crewed sailing yacht or a large 5- to 6-cabin catamaran with skipper, cook and provisioning starts around €9,000 a week and climbs steeply from there; power catamaran charter and motor yachts are available too, mainly from Royal Phuket Marina and Ao Po, and they buy you range in a region where the wind is often light. These are indicative bands only — current prices sit on the individual Thailand yacht pages and move with the season.
Bareboat here needs a recognised skipper qualification and a sailing CV the operator is happy with; requirements vary by base, so confirm before you book flights. Adding a local skipper costs a daily fee on top of the charter and is money well spent on a first Thai week — the tides, the fishing gear strung between islands, and the unlit longtail boats after dark are all easier with someone who reads them nightly.
Who this suits
Thailand between November and April is the easiest tropical sailing week we know: no serious passages, warm water, anchorages you reach by lunchtime, and scenery — vertical limestone rising straight out of green water, longtails threading between it — that does not need selling. Families with non-sailing members do well here, as do couples chartering a catamaran with a skipper for their first time outside the Mediterranean.
It suits you less if you want to sail hard. Average wind is modest, the good breeze is a mid-day thermal rather than an all-day trade, and you will motor more than you would in the Cyclades or the Sir Francis Drake Channel. It is also a long, expensive flight from Europe, so a single week is poor value against the airfare — ten days to a fortnight makes the sums work, and gives you slack when a day goes flat.
Right for first tropical charterers, mixed-ability crews and families who want short hops and warm water in the European winter; right for anyone whose free weeks fall between December and March. Less right for hard-sailing crews chasing mileage, for anyone tied to a July or August holiday window, or for a quick week squeezed around the flights.
