In a recent post we gave you the cheapest possible way to get on the water – in an inflatable. But, knowing that a rubber dinghy is not everyone’s idea of fun and that some people may like to go sailing in a boat that has a loo, this post provides 3 ways of sailing at a fraction of the cost of owning one.
myBoatshare.com is a membership sailing club that provides an alternative to owning a boat. From around £300 a month you can sail boats from 31ft to 39ft for up to 50 days a year.
You actually pay a higher monthly fee the more days you want, so don’t expect 50 days for £300. This is likely to get you 24 days, depending on the boat you sail. Other packages give you 36 or 49 full days sailing a year.
One of the really attractive things about a fractional club (as this one is) or fractional ownership is that the home marina mooring fees, boat maintenance and depreciation are all covered in the costs.
With myBoatshare.com you don’t join an individual boat, but do join membership to a class that best suits your sailing needs. It means you’re not tied to any sailing base, nor to a particular craft. You are free to book and sail any yacht in your membership class from any base at no extra cost.
There’s no capital investment but there is an annual membership of £199 (inc vat) on top of the montly fees (range from £299 – £699) which covers your consumables. There is a security deposit but no joining fee. This is good news as joining fees can be a real turn off, especially since you have to pay the security deposit as a lump sum up front (though you get it back if you do not damage the boat when you leave the scheme).
They have an online booking system which means you can book a single day, a mid-week break, a relaxing long weekend, or a family holiday.
myBoatshare.com is currently looking to expand their fleet and their locations so if you fancy a return of 5.5% (their claim), 63 full days sailing a year, no mooring fees, no insurance premiums, no maintenance costs or anti-fouling to pay then this could be right up your street (or creek).
On the basis that no single boat meets all your boating requirements, most people want to sail in a variety of locations, boats are very expensive and time consuming to own, and most owned boats are hugely underutilised, chartering is a good option. Except that boat charter can be very expensive too.
Pure Latitude looked at boating from every possible angle and set themselves up as a limited membership boat share club based on the Solent. They offer high quality yachts for fractional sailing.
Like myBoatshare.com, they don’t tie you to a particular boat. Instead they have a points system which are used to ‘buy’ the use of the boats in the fleet on a daily basis. Obviously, taking a bigger boat uses more points than a smaller boat, and taking a boat in high season uses more points than low season. Likewise, taking a boat at the weekend or bank holiday uses more points than weekdays.
The Pure Latitiude sailing fleet are split into five categories and membership to three levels from £300 (240 points), £400 (340 points) and £500 (460 points) per month. Each level is a little cheaper if you pay for annually. There is a joining fee to pay of £600 which may put some people off, however this goes towards a full induction and training on the boats so is a good investment.
Below is the points chart per day to give an idea of the way the points can be allocated (correct at time of publication July 2010)
| Boat Category | Low Season | Mid Season | High Season | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| examples | week | weekend | week | weekend | week | weekend | |
| 1 | Ballistic 6.5 | 10 | 12 | 10 | 14 | 10 | 16 |
| 2 | First 27.7 | 10 | 14 | 12 | 18 | 14 | 21 |
| 3 | Dufour 34 | 12 | 19 | 15 | 25 | 18 | 28 |
| 4 | Hallberg-Rassy 36 & Bavaria 29 | 14 | 22 | 18 | 30 | 20 | 33 |
| 5 | X Yachts 37 | 16 | 25 | 21 | 34 | 24 | 38 |
SailTime provides a more traditional fractional ownership programme for sailing. You are guaranteed a minimum of seven sailing times each month, at an affordable cost. You can schedule your sailing using their online scheduler which is really handy.
Each yacht is shared by seven other members and one owner-member, who are each guaranteed, but not restricted to, at least two weekend sail times and five weekday or weeknight sail times every month. A ‘sail time’ is either a day sail from 10.30 am to 6.00 pm, or a night sail from 6.00 pm to 10.30 am the following morning. Additionally, each member is has access to unlimited “as-available” use on a 24-hour notice at no additional cost.
SailTime say that ‘most people who own a sailboat use it 2-3 times per month but the cost of ownership is very high: marina fees are £300-£700 per month, your monthly payment to the bank could range from £500-£2000, yacht maintenance is expensive – then there is insurance and . . . the list goes on and on!’
With SailTime you become like a part owner of a boat in that you are likely to sail the same boat each time you go out, even though you don’t technically own it. Only the owner member owns the boat and they get a 4-7% return on their capital plus zero berthing and maintenance costs.
MyBoatingInfo.com
In all cases, the companies and the boats’ owners need to make sure that the sailors using the yachts are well qualified with the best RYA sailing qualifications (or equivalent). To make sure your sialing cv is kept up to date you can use the service at www.myboatinginfo.com to log your qualifications, all your miles and create a printable PDF sailing cv.
Related posts:
- Find Out All You Need to Know to Start Dinghy Sailing
- Extreme Sailing Series at Cowes Week
- Top Sailing Applications for the iPhone
- WIN a week for two Sailing to the Scillies
- Ben Ainslie back in the Finn at the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy (9 – 14 August 2010)
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