Clubs that own classic boats?

ylop

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I am aware of a couple of “clubs” which own more unusual boats/operate on unconventional basis:

- Brighton Belle: where members own a 1/64th share in a 55ft Oyster Ketch
- Offshore (Overlord) Cruising Club who sail a 1930s 58ft windfall boat - with around 200 members

in both cases membership is relatively low (Brighton Belle is a one off single digit thousands with no annual fee, and then per day rates for sailing that are trivial compared to charter; OCC is less the £100 per annum and less than £50 per day!)

Is this a common approach? It strikes me as a neat way of operating some of the more expensive to maintain boats - and perhaps some classics like pilot cutters or old gaffers might benefit from this?
 

KompetentKrew

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www.PhoenixYachtClub.co.uk is a shared-ownership yacht co-op with similar pricing, but their boats are not classics - currently they have a 20-year-old Westerly Oceanquest 35 and a 2008 X-Yachts X-40. They plan to replace the Westerly within 5 years.

Fees are in the order of £28 per day (winter weekdays) to £68 per day (summer weekends). If you have some savings then there is a discount scheme whereby you lend the club money, earn 2% interest and your day fees are reduced (£5000 gets you 25% off - I don't understand why they run this scheme, as it seems unnecessarily generous).

I know at least one skipper who uses both Brighton Belle and Phoenix.

I highly recommend this club to newcomers to the sport as they have RYA instructors so you can get your competent crew or day- or coastal skipper ticket for not much money.
 
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ylop

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www.PhoenixYachtClub.co.uk is a shared-ownership yacht co-op with similar pricing, but their boats are not classics - currently they have a 20-year-old Westerly Oceanquest 35 and a 2008 X-Yachts X-40. They plan to replace the Westerly within 5 years.
28/day - could almost make it worth me travelling from Scotland! It’s an approach which makes sense for many boats - but that intuitively should make even more sense for the type of boat that rational people don’t own!
 

Shuggy

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One of the clubs above have a yacht that anchored next to us in 2018. I witnessed the most awful behaviour - it was like watching a vindictive parish council meeting about dogs fouling playgrounds and it took them an hour of pomposity and shouting to finally finish the shenanigans. I’d rather scoop my eyeballs out with a blunt rusty spoon than engage in that kind of sh*te.
 

ylop

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One of the clubs above have a yacht that anchored next to us in 2018. I witnessed the most awful behaviour - it was like watching a vindictive parish council meeting about dogs fouling playgrounds and it took them an hour of pomposity and shouting to finally finish the shenanigans. I’d rather scoop my eyeballs out with a blunt rusty spoon than engage in that kind of sh*te.

oooh, free entertainment thrown in!

I'm intrigued what the argument was about - the work being/not being done on the boat (to be honest the other half can probably initiate that debate without much help) - the planned destination or aspects of this trip (the other half can definitely help!) or the long term club plan/strategy etc (the other half tends not to shout about this!)?
 

Shuggy

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Anchoring. I don't write much in my log but it read, 'There was a yacht called [x] that came next to us in Loch [x] and tried to anchor for just over an hour, with a group of several people all arguing about the best position and technique. We'd anchored in about 3 minutes with three children on board 'helping' us; these guys made anchoring by committee a new sport to watch. I have no idea if any of them spoke to each other again that evening. They tried at least 5 different places, all of which we had previously thought had good holding. Please spare me the pain of buying into a cruising yacht club share.'
 

Romeo

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The Dutch and the Norwegians effectively manage this method of use/ ownership to keep old vessels going.
 
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