Financing life aboard by taking on guests

S

sailinghonza

New Member
Joined
27 Jan 2019
Messages
6
Visit site
I am from Prague (CZ) - land dweller. I have become fascinated by the possibility of living on board a boat and cruising the world. After watching tons of vids on youtube and reading many articles about boats, sailing and living aboard I think I am getting a some understanding of what it means.

I know that before buying I need to get more experience, so I think next holiday will be a charter (preferably bareboat with friends who can handle it) and then probably some sailing education.

For a liveaboad I have my eyes set on a cat, because frankly I would not convince my wife to live on anything else. I think we could muster up enough money to buy a cat of decent size and condition so the question remains how to pay the cost of living.

One idea is to find remote work, which could be possible, but also quite problematic in remote areas. So I have came up with the idea to offer our extra berths for charter. Take some people on board, teach them paddle-boarding, kite surfing and of course sailing. I have done some calculations on how much I would need to charge for such a service and I think I could fit into the niche between crewed charters and bareboat rentals with the additional value we as crew could provide to our guests.

I have two questions:
1) My preferred outcome would be work no more than half-year and have the rest of the year to ourselves. I have done some research and came up with a basic yearly budged and from that came up with a weekly price of about 5-6k USD, does that sound right?

2) are there any legal requirements for such business? I would be providing my services world-wide, so my understanding is that this very much depends on where I decide to incorporate, if at all, and subsequently pay taxes. Should I? Where? Any marine regulations I should be aware of?

Thanks for all your tips and opinions.
 
Welcome to the forum.

A HUGE first question which I can only offer broad comments upon as follows :

As with all business plans, you should double your costs and halve your income to see what happens.
At $6k per week I would say you would be mixing it with the mid to high end holidays. How are you going to sell with corporate companies as competitors ?
Do you have any other income streams you could rely on ? (Pensions etc). What you are planning I am guessing is not an uncommon plan - there will be much competition out there !.

Good luck !
 
And be aware that many countries dislike casual competition and so it may be illegal, impossible to get liability insurance for any harm to any guests, complex and different safety coding in each country, and of course the unofficial boat damage and threats from locals.

In practice there seems to be a big divide between the true professional boats which go round and round ocean circuits with all paperwork in place and the casual hidden ones who mostly survive by inviting and advertising only in the own home country so that it's easy to pretend that there are just a series of friends coming out to see them.
 
How much does it cost to find yourself on a boat for a week? The average charter holiday , for one week,costs between €400 and €700 per person, if you have 5 to 7 people on board to share the cost, or one-week sailing course costs probably about €700 -€1000. What will you be able to offer that will cost the guest/customer €6000?
Even if you spend a great deal of time, money and effort to become qualified as a sailing instructor I don't think you could realise €6000 per week unless you could fill the boat. This would be difficult without coming to the notice of the authorities if you are operating in a "black market", "under the radar" fashion.
 
Interesting, could you please provide an example where I can book charter holiday on private yacht for €400-700/person/week?

The cheapest bareboat charters I found were about $3500/week for a boat that would fit 4 people, that makes over $800/person/week without fuel, food, activities. So it would easily reach over $1000.

My price is $6000/week for 4 guests making it $1500/person/week all included which from my personal view is still very expensive, but comparing to the market prices I found not so much.
 
Wansworth said:
Invest in a charter holiday aboard a crewed yacht and you should be able to see how it works in practice and ask questions of your host or his captain
Click to expand...

I'd second this. Best to see what the job actually entails as I don't think that life would be for everyone - it would be a lot of hard work and incredibly intense with nowhere to retreat and no down time while customers were onboard.

I think it's difficult to assess the value of your proposition without knowing age and type of boat, capacity, time of year, cruising ground, what's included etc. I suspect you'd also need to offer substantial reductions early on until you built up your reputation and have proven your credentials.
 
CPD said:
As with all business plans, you should double your costs and halve your income to see what happens.
Click to expand...

Are there any business plans that survive such a check? Seems rather harsh!

CPD said:
At $6k per week I would say you would be mixing it with the mid to high end holidays. How are you going to sell with corporate companies as competitors ?
Click to expand...

Very good question, one that relies heavily on social media marketing a word-of-mouth. At the same time I realize that not everyone is La Lagabonde.

CPD said:
Do you have any other income streams you could rely on ? (Pensions etc).
Click to expand...

Not really. But I can always whip-out my laptop and find a remote gig and earn some more money.

CPD said:
What you are planning I am guessing is not an uncommon plan - there will be much competition out there !.
Click to expand...

My thinking exactly, but they must really all suck at SEO, or I don't know the right key-words to find them. Actually, the only ones I found are Distant Shores (link, they also have quite sizable youtube following)
 
Your boat would probably have to be "coded" - that is, equipped and maintained to a much higher standard than is required for your own use. It might well be subject to restrictions based on the level of coding; some nations restrict the use of a boat to the waters for which it is coded. Insurance would be costly; you need comprehensive liability insurance in addition to the usual accidental and third party cover. Again, depending on where you operate, you might well require commercial qualifications that are costly to acquire. You are moving from the legal framework of a leisure yacht to that of a commercial vessel.

Most of this means that you need to be considering a new or nearly new yacht; the initial investment will probably be at least £250,000 and probably much higher.

I also don't think that your offer would work at the price you suggest; other competing activities are MUCH cheaper.
 
To be brutally frank ... you have no sailing experience and no boat, but on the basis of some YouTube videos you are planning to set yourself up as a watersports instructor and charter skipper/owner with a business plan which requires you to charge roughly ten times the going rate, right?
 
JumbleDuck said:
To be brutally frank ... you have no sailing experience and no boat, but on the basis of some YouTube videos you are planning to set yourself up as a watersports instructor and charter skipper/owner with a business plan which requires you to charge roughly ten times the going rate, right?
Click to expand...

What's your point ?



















:):):)
 
JumbleDuck said:
To be brutally frank ... you have no sailing experience and no boat, but on the basis of some YouTube videos you are planning to set yourself up as a watersports instructor and charter skipper/owner with a business plan which requires you to charge roughly ten times the going rate, right?
Click to expand...

^

Don't listen....he's just jealous because you thought of it first OP!

Get that cat bought asap!
 
davidej said:
Is bit my imagination or do boats attract more dreamers than any other object on the planet?
Click to expand...

Not so sure.. used to run into lots of people who spent a couple of weeks in S Iberia, then thought they could run a bar. Their total experience in bars was just that. drinking in them. If you want to run a business in another country, you have to be a knotch up on the locals. Bit different if you are Sunsail or the Moorings.
 
JumbleDuck said:
To be brutally frank ... you have no sailing experience and no boat, but on the basis of some YouTube videos you are planning to set yourself up as a watersports instructor and charter skipper/owner with a business plan which requires you to charge roughly ten times the going rate, right?
Click to expand...

Thanks for being frank, that's exactly what I need. Right now I am just dreaming and trying to confront my dreams with reality before making significant investments. I know it is going to take years to get there, if at all.

One of the reasons I asked this question is to validate the going rate for charters. I have done a bit googling and I have not found a boat to charter in the Caribbean under $3000/week (main season). So your remark about 10x the going rate is a bit confusing to me.
 
sailinghonza said:
...... I could fit into the niche between crewed charters and bareboat rentals with the additional value we as crew could provide to our guests. ........
Click to expand...

To truly make an assessment if your proposition is worthwhile, what "additional value" could you add as crew for your guests? I am aware of a number of very successful operators who take guests on their boats e.g. https://www.symoonshadow.co.uk To charter their boat with 2 crew is over £4k for 4 x days; http://www.corryvreckan.co.uk over £850 per person per week. Both are high quality boats offering a top service. What can you do that is different?

I don't think that paddle-boarding, kite surfing or teaching sailing is added value, far from it, stuff like that would or could be expected, except kite surfing, I grant, but perhaps that is a very limited market.

I have no association with the referenced companies.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
Your boat would probably have to be "coded" - that is, equipped and maintained to a much higher standard than is required for your own use. It might well be subject to restrictions based on the level of coding; some nations restrict the use of a boat to the waters for which it is coded. Insurance would be costly; you need comprehensive liability insurance in addition to the usual accidental and third party cover. Again, depending on where you operate, you might well require commercial qualifications that are costly to acquire. You are moving from the legal framework of a leisure yacht to that of a commercial vessel.

Most of this means that you need to be considering a new or nearly new yacht; the initial investment will probably be at least £250,000 and probably much higher.

I also don't think that your offer would work at the price you suggest; other competing activities are MUCH cheaper.
Click to expand...

+1 some get away with it some don't , this is why if taking on paying passengers or any cash transfering between parties ,you open up a legal minefield.
Your insurance will have to cover you for third party liability for paying guests, and as said you would in some countries need to code your boat
As you will be chartering guests who want to sail in the nice warm weather of the Med , Caribbean, Pacific islands , these all have serious charter codes
Don't be fooled by the lovely Utube videos that give you 15 mins of bliss this is 200 hours of edited video , they aint going to show them cleaning the heads for guests :D
You would also need to get your self a good sailing Qualification , not essential but will give your Guests confidence, in your abilities, you would need a pretty clean and non shabby boat , and a good attitude as people will be living ontop of you , and as a hotelier for many years Guests can be a demanding bunch :rolleyes:
But in saying all that if its your dream go for it , the world is your oyster:encouragement:
 
Last edited:
davidej said:
Is bit my imagination or do boats attract more dreamers than any other object on the planet?
Click to expand...

No, that honour is reserved for planes ... if you think the costs of running a boat are high, wait until you try a simple single engine light aircraft ... and if you think you've seen silly ideas that make no commercial sense on the water ... there are soem way more goofball ones in the sky!
 
rszemeti said:
No, that honour is reserved for planes ... if you think the costs of running a boat are high, wait until you try a simple single engine light aircraft ... and if you think you've seen silly ideas that make no commercial sense on the water ... there are soem way more goofball ones in the sky!
Click to expand...

I thought parts for boats were expensive until I started flying. Five quid for a single released washer wasn't unusual.
 
Where are you going to find your customers? To command a premium price you will need to reach your target audience and have brand / reputation / references. Also, be aware that your competitive landscape extends well beyond the obvious ….. We looked for a flotilla holiday for June 2019 (after my son completes his GCSEs) I couldn't justify £5000 so we have booked 10 days in Lanzarote for 800 quid + a week on our boat in the Solent!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top