ontheplane
Well-Known Member
Hi there,
I am considering setting up a boat share for the 2011 season (long way off but this could need some planning).
I know the obvious problems (fighting over use time, arguments over boat being left clean / unclean etc etc) I am keen to hear from anyone who's done it as to the problems that come up that they DIDN'T expect / Couldn't have forseen (obvious problems welcome too).
I have looked at some of the schemes on the market to join one of them but none seem to hit the spot for what I want.
Some seem to have the problem that they have too many people in the group (have seen up to 12 - so just 4 weeks use over a whole year and as the season's only 6 months long in this country really only 2 wks / weekends - useless) or the cost of entry is really high so it's not a proper "budget" boating option. Also many seem very expensive for what they offer (I saw one for £499 per month that you'd get 13 days use - that seems too dear to me).
Have also looked at Seawake - which looks interesting (unlimited access - really?? For £195 pm - what if you were retired and just booked all the time), but allocation is on a first-come basis, so I can see you'd need to sit at your keyboard at 00:00:01am to book that Saturday on the Bank Holiday six months in the future.....
So I am considering doing my own and offering it how I would want it.
I am looking to have 4 members (possibly add a fifth if they were retired and only wanted mid-week use not in school hols for example at a reduced cost) and have the boat in a South Coast Marina either in the water or possible dry stack / Park & Launch for perhaps 7 or 8 months (Start April -> end Oct / Nov?) All members to have a PB2 qual as minimum + VHF certificate.
We'd put in around £12k each plus a £1000 damage deposit each (Which the detail of how that would be taken would need careful working out.
We'd look to buy a older small boat (currently looking at Sealine S23 with diesel at around £25k around the 1999 mark) and see if I could get an engine warranty (can you do that with older boat engines)?
I've chosen that boat as it seems to offer a lot of boat for the money, big enough to sleep 4 (at a push) but small enough to keep costs down - other candidates would be considered, but there seems a good choice of these boats at that price and the one I've already looked at was in excellent condition - Also there aren't many diesel boats at that size, and I think for a boat that will get used a lot, diesel is important.
So let's assume we had £48k in the pot - we buy the boat for £25k and I'm allowing £5k to kit her out to suitable spec - DSC-VHF, a decent plotter, liferaft, flares, small aux outboard, etc etc (hopefully it would have a lot of this already)
so we now have £18k in the pot. If we say insurance will be £700 pa, Berth will be £3000 pa and servicing and maintainence will be £800pa then annual cost will be £4500
We'd expect the members to give the boat a quick clean when they'd used it and to leave it as they found it, but with 4 users I suspect we'd need a professional clean once a month at say £100 per time (hopefully cheaper but I don't know).
So assuming we say it would cost £5300 per year to run the boat, we could have 3 seasons use with the money we had in the pot - I'm guesstimating here, but I doubt I am too far out. I don't want a scheme where people pay monthly, too much risk of one or more members just not paying their "subscription" and me left "Holding the baby" in terms of the bills etc. If people didn't have the money in cash, personal loans go well over £12k and I doubt anyone looking at this sort of thing would need to borrow more than about half the cost. Then if they defaulted on their loans, it wouldn't affect the other members, as it would be a personal debt.
At the end of a pre-agreed time (I'm thinking 3 years) the members have a vote as to which of the following they wish to do:-
1) Put the boat on the market - when she sells, the proceeds are divvied up equally. I would hope that after 3 years, the boat will only have dropped a few thousand - perhaps we'd get £20k - £24k for her if we buy at the right price and with the full kit we'd have on her - which would mean each member getting £5000 - £6000 back. All in, the whole 3 years will have cost a total of £6000 - £7000 or around a couple of thousand a year which is less than just the mooring cost if you owned it yourself.
Or
2) Keep the boat for a further year - in which case people just pay up £1500 each which should cover it. This would again be such a cheap way to own and run a boat.
At the end of that year the same vote as to what to do is had and so on perhaps up to a maximum of six years when the boat has to be sold no matter what.
Of course once the boat is sold, anyone of the group who wanted to, could leave their money in the pot, top it up and we'd get a newer boat and so on.
Anyone wanting "out" can sell their share privately, as long as the incoming member is approved by the existing members (personalities will be important in this) and they can sell it for whatever they can get - if for example the incoming "buyer" saw he'd get £4500 back and there was still a year to go, I'm sure you could sell it for £5500 - £6000. We could also put in that after the first full year, if more than 2 members want out and can't sell their share, then the boat is put up for sale and once sold, the proceeds are divvied up.
So that's the theory, I am sure the practice isn't that simple.....
Would the boat have to be MCA coded - or as it would be effectively owned by a company with "shareholders" and the company didn't rent it out for profit would it not be classed as a commercial vessel? (In reality, purely for safety sake we'd probably have to do a lot of the coding requirements anyhow)?
Does anyone on here think they would buy into something like this, where you'd certainly get one weekend in 4 on the boat, but if someone couldn't use it one week, I am sure there would be chances to swap weekends, or even buy extra weekends from the other members!
As I mentioned at the start, the key would be how the time was divvied up, and how the use of the boat was policed in terms of any damage done etc. but do the forum think it could work??
I am considering setting up a boat share for the 2011 season (long way off but this could need some planning).
I know the obvious problems (fighting over use time, arguments over boat being left clean / unclean etc etc) I am keen to hear from anyone who's done it as to the problems that come up that they DIDN'T expect / Couldn't have forseen (obvious problems welcome too).
I have looked at some of the schemes on the market to join one of them but none seem to hit the spot for what I want.
Some seem to have the problem that they have too many people in the group (have seen up to 12 - so just 4 weeks use over a whole year and as the season's only 6 months long in this country really only 2 wks / weekends - useless) or the cost of entry is really high so it's not a proper "budget" boating option. Also many seem very expensive for what they offer (I saw one for £499 per month that you'd get 13 days use - that seems too dear to me).
Have also looked at Seawake - which looks interesting (unlimited access - really?? For £195 pm - what if you were retired and just booked all the time), but allocation is on a first-come basis, so I can see you'd need to sit at your keyboard at 00:00:01am to book that Saturday on the Bank Holiday six months in the future.....
So I am considering doing my own and offering it how I would want it.
I am looking to have 4 members (possibly add a fifth if they were retired and only wanted mid-week use not in school hols for example at a reduced cost) and have the boat in a South Coast Marina either in the water or possible dry stack / Park & Launch for perhaps 7 or 8 months (Start April -> end Oct / Nov?) All members to have a PB2 qual as minimum + VHF certificate.
We'd put in around £12k each plus a £1000 damage deposit each (Which the detail of how that would be taken would need careful working out.
We'd look to buy a older small boat (currently looking at Sealine S23 with diesel at around £25k around the 1999 mark) and see if I could get an engine warranty (can you do that with older boat engines)?
I've chosen that boat as it seems to offer a lot of boat for the money, big enough to sleep 4 (at a push) but small enough to keep costs down - other candidates would be considered, but there seems a good choice of these boats at that price and the one I've already looked at was in excellent condition - Also there aren't many diesel boats at that size, and I think for a boat that will get used a lot, diesel is important.
So let's assume we had £48k in the pot - we buy the boat for £25k and I'm allowing £5k to kit her out to suitable spec - DSC-VHF, a decent plotter, liferaft, flares, small aux outboard, etc etc (hopefully it would have a lot of this already)
so we now have £18k in the pot. If we say insurance will be £700 pa, Berth will be £3000 pa and servicing and maintainence will be £800pa then annual cost will be £4500
We'd expect the members to give the boat a quick clean when they'd used it and to leave it as they found it, but with 4 users I suspect we'd need a professional clean once a month at say £100 per time (hopefully cheaper but I don't know).
So assuming we say it would cost £5300 per year to run the boat, we could have 3 seasons use with the money we had in the pot - I'm guesstimating here, but I doubt I am too far out. I don't want a scheme where people pay monthly, too much risk of one or more members just not paying their "subscription" and me left "Holding the baby" in terms of the bills etc. If people didn't have the money in cash, personal loans go well over £12k and I doubt anyone looking at this sort of thing would need to borrow more than about half the cost. Then if they defaulted on their loans, it wouldn't affect the other members, as it would be a personal debt.
At the end of a pre-agreed time (I'm thinking 3 years) the members have a vote as to which of the following they wish to do:-
1) Put the boat on the market - when she sells, the proceeds are divvied up equally. I would hope that after 3 years, the boat will only have dropped a few thousand - perhaps we'd get £20k - £24k for her if we buy at the right price and with the full kit we'd have on her - which would mean each member getting £5000 - £6000 back. All in, the whole 3 years will have cost a total of £6000 - £7000 or around a couple of thousand a year which is less than just the mooring cost if you owned it yourself.
Or
2) Keep the boat for a further year - in which case people just pay up £1500 each which should cover it. This would again be such a cheap way to own and run a boat.
At the end of that year the same vote as to what to do is had and so on perhaps up to a maximum of six years when the boat has to be sold no matter what.
Of course once the boat is sold, anyone of the group who wanted to, could leave their money in the pot, top it up and we'd get a newer boat and so on.
Anyone wanting "out" can sell their share privately, as long as the incoming member is approved by the existing members (personalities will be important in this) and they can sell it for whatever they can get - if for example the incoming "buyer" saw he'd get £4500 back and there was still a year to go, I'm sure you could sell it for £5500 - £6000. We could also put in that after the first full year, if more than 2 members want out and can't sell their share, then the boat is put up for sale and once sold, the proceeds are divvied up.
So that's the theory, I am sure the practice isn't that simple.....
Would the boat have to be MCA coded - or as it would be effectively owned by a company with "shareholders" and the company didn't rent it out for profit would it not be classed as a commercial vessel? (In reality, purely for safety sake we'd probably have to do a lot of the coding requirements anyhow)?
Does anyone on here think they would buy into something like this, where you'd certainly get one weekend in 4 on the boat, but if someone couldn't use it one week, I am sure there would be chances to swap weekends, or even buy extra weekends from the other members!
As I mentioned at the start, the key would be how the time was divvied up, and how the use of the boat was policed in terms of any damage done etc. but do the forum think it could work??
