A no-show doesn't just cost you a trip fee. It costs you the date you turned other clients away for, the bait and fuel you already bought, and the four hours you could've spent running a different group. Most captains figure this out the hard way, once, and then spend a season writing rules on the fly. That's backwards. Write the policy before you need it.
No-Shows and Weather Are Not the Same Problem
Here's where a lot of policies go wrong: they treat every cancellation the same. A client who bails at 5 a.m. because he overslept is a different problem than a 25-knot small-craft advisory that makes running the boat unsafe. One is on the client. The other is on nobody. Your policy needs to say so, clearly, in two separate sections — because a guest who gets treated like a no-show for weather you called will never book you again, and word travels.
Industry norms give you a starting point, not gospel:
- Client no-show, day of trip: full charge is standard. You held the date, prepped the boat, and turned other business away — the loss is real whether or not the client shows.
- Client cancels with notice: most operators scale the refund to how much runway they had to rebook — full refund outside a set window (commonly 7–21 days out, captain's call), partial or none inside it.
- Captain cancels for weather: deposit protected, full refund or credit toward a rebooked date — the client's choice, not yours.
Deposits themselves usually run 20–30% of the trip price, though plenty of captains use a flat number instead — $100 or $150 regardless of the package. Either works. What matters is that the deposit is real money the client feels losing, and that you've told them, in writing, exactly what makes them lose it.
Write the Weather Clause So It Can't Look Like a Money Grab
The hardest cancellation call isn't the obvious blow — it's the borderline day. Fifteen knots and a chop that's fishable but rough. A client eight hours from home who really wants the trip to happen. If your policy is vague here, you're negotiating weather calls with an upset customer in real time, which is a bad place to make a safety decision.
Two things fix that:
- Make the call early. The night before or first thing that morning, not at the dock. A late cancel reads as an excuse even when the weather is genuinely the reason.
- Give the client a choice, not a consolation prize. Full refund or a credit toward a rebooked date, their pick. Don't default to a credit because it keeps the money in your account — that's the move that gets you a one-star review titled "captain kept my deposit."
Say this plainly in the policy itself: "If we cancel for weather or mechanical reasons, you get a full refund or a credit toward a new date — whichever you'd rather have." One sentence, no fine print, no argument later.
A Template You Can Actually Use
You don't need three pages of legal language. You need a paragraph a client will actually read before they sign. Something close to this works for most inshore and nearshore operations:
A deposit of [X]% is due at booking and holds your date. Cancellations more than [X] days out get a full refund of the deposit. Inside that window, the deposit is non-refundable — it's already covering the date we turned other clients away for. No-shows on the day of the trip forfeit the full trip cost, not just the deposit. If we cancel your trip for weather or a mechanical issue, you'll get a full refund or a credit toward a rebooked date, your choice.
Fill in the numbers that match your season and your risk tolerance. A six-pack operation running a tight summer calendar can justify a tighter window than a boat with open dates most weeks.
Put It Somewhere It Can Actually Do Its Job
A policy buried on a "Terms" page nobody clicks doesn't protect you. It needs to be in front of the client at the exact moment they're agreeing to something — attached to the booking confirmation, ideally with an e-signature, not just a line in a confirmation email they skimmed.
That distinction matters more than it sounds like it should. A signed acknowledgment is the difference between "I told them" and having a paper trail if a credit card company opens a dispute over a forfeited deposit. Verbal agreements and a friendly confirmation email work fine right up until the first client who disputes the charge — and then you're explaining a policy nobody formally agreed to.
| Situation | What happens to the deposit | Who decides refund vs. credit |
|---|---|---|
| Client cancels outside the window | Refunded in full | N/A — automatic |
| Client cancels inside the window | Forfeited | Captain (some allow partial credit as goodwill) |
| Client no-shows, day of | Full trip cost charged | N/A — policy applies as written |
| Captain cancels for weather | Protected either way | Client — refund or credit, their choice |
This is exactly the kind of paperwork that's easy to write once and then never enforce consistently — which is worse than not having a policy at all, because it teaches repeat clients that the rules are negotiable. signing up for Timber & Tackle attaches your cancellation policy to every booking confirmation automatically, so it's the same document every time, signed the same way every time. The flat-fee pricing page is worth a look if you're still running deposits through a mix of Venmo and memory.
The Policy Is Also a Trust Signal
Clients read a clear, fair cancellation policy as a sign the operation is run like a business, not a guy with a boat and a good week. A vague or missing policy reads the opposite way — like there's nothing stopping a bad day from becoming a bad experience for them. Write it down, keep the weather clause generous, keep the no-show clause firm, and you've turned a document you hoped never to need into one more reason a client trusts you enough to book again.