Is anyone in the Sunsail Ownership Scheme?

[MoodySabre]

A friend of mine got his boat back last year (Vounaki) and said it was in fantastic condition - a few scuffs but new sails and fully serviced and nothing to complain about. He sold 3 shares and reckons he has got his quarter for nothing. And has been sailing all over the place in the meantime courtesy of Sunsail.

 

[peterb26]

Thanks MoodySabre. I have also had an email from someone who has purchased an ex-sunsail boat and said it was in extremely good nick.

However - on the negative side - the "special offers" that sunsail are presently offering turn out not to be brand new boats. As far as I can tell they are 12 months old - yet Sunsail are asking prices that would buy you a new boat.

 

[Richard10002]

[ QUOTE ]
Always struck me if ownership of a charter yachts is such a jolly good thing, you'd expect Sunsail, et al, to arrange their own finance and take the boats into 100% ownership. After all, if they're buying at retail less 20% (say) and selling at retail less 40% after 5 years of revenue earning, and depreciation accounting, they'd be laughing all the way to the FTSE100.

Something doesn't stack up

[/ QUOTE ]

These have always been my thoughts - if owning the boats was such a good idea, Sunsail would own them. They must be making a packet on the initial sales, a packet on the chartering, and saving a packet because they dont finance their assets.

One of our crew this summer, bought a quarter share, (or was it an eighth?), in a boat in Alcudia, knowing that he would only use it for 2 weeks a year.

Reckoned the shared costs of ownership, plus getting a bit less on resale, made it tons cheaper than chartering.

I'll leave it to him to make himself known if he wants to.

There was also the possibility to use it more if time and opportunity presented themselves.

There might be a shared ownership deal available in Lagos if you ask around - at least you will be there to use the boat if others cant.

Richard

 

[Bacc]

We were in the program for 3 and 1/2 years. We had 21 actual weeks of useage including the odd club week. We are retirees & it worked out for us. We had the fixed payment and when the boat was at the end of the agreement, they did a very good job of making good on restoring it. They gave us a brand new mainsail as well as repairing all mechanical and most cosmetic flaws. We decided to keep her and had a number of upgrades done to her before we brought her back from the Caribbean to the New York Area. The Caribbean agreements talk about points - one point can be a week but it's very very out of season. Three is more common. We did so well because we did shoulder season & as many walk ons as we could do. We sailed Greece, Spain, Caribbean, Australia, Croatia and others. Look into it.

 

[peterb26]

Thanks Bacc.

 

[andymcp]

I spent a long long time looking around at these schemes, and IIRC the critical point was 8 weeks sailing a year. Any less than that and it wasn't worth the hassle. One point that was brought out of all the conversations I had (and that hasn't been mentioned here) is that it may be worth remembering to have at least one trip a year on your own boat, to keep an eye on what state it is being kept in.

For some, smaller owner-charter schemes in the Ionian & similar it's a given - there's no option to charter elsewhere. For some that had been in multi-base schemes, they saw it as a worthwhile effort to make since known issues were raised ahead of final handover.

In the end it wasn't for us, but if you have the time and inclination then good luck.

 

[peterb26]

Walking around stunned at the moment. In many ways due to the power of this forum.

One of the yacht owners at Lagos has today offered me a months sailing with them in BVI next year, followed by a trip to Antigua and then the ARC Europe back to Lagos via Bermuda and the Azores!

Hence all schemes for sailboat acquisition are presently on hold!