Is this allowed? paying crew.

Any of the above.

Cost sharing is routine, thousands do, and nobody needs any licence, qualifications, equipment or vessel registration. His ebay ad is just another version of the forum crew section.
Long may it remain so unregulated, and if anybody wants more rules and regulation of yachting, try N Korea which you will love to bits.
 
Last edited:
I'd be curious what costs will be incurred in a day sail which add up to £55 per person. If it cost anywhere near that much on my boat I'd sell it lickety split! This is a 30 foot sailing boat and he reckons the actual costs of taking it sailing for a day are £110?! Since a day sail wouldn't incur any berthing fees which could justifiably be shared and the engine would probably burn a couple of litres per hour I assume there will be unlimited champagne and caviar aboard for guests. Unless he's trying to share the maintenance costs of course but it would need to be in very poor condition to need that much maintenance even if he was allowed to share those costs.
 
I'd be curious what costs will be incurred in a day sail which add up to £55 per person. If it cost anywhere near that much on my boat I'd sell it lickety split! This is a 30 foot sailing boat and he reckons the actual costs of taking it sailing for a day are £110?! Since a day sail wouldn't incur any berthing fees which could justifiably be shared and the engine would probably burn a couple of litres per hour I assume there will be unlimited champagne and caviar aboard for guests. Unless he's trying to share the maintenance costs of course but it would need to be in very poor condition to need that much maintenance even if he was allowed to share those costs.

So what, in the real world it's all negotiable anyway, obviously. A marina stop and a decent hamper could demolish a hundred bucks quite easily. Fair play to the geyser for broadening his crew hunt in a new way and being realistic.
 
Last edited:
So what, in the real world it's all negotiable anyway, obviously. A couple of S Coast marinas and a decent hamper could demolish a hundred bucks quite easily. Fair play to the geyser for broadening his crew hunt in a new way and being realistic.

It's not that negotiable. He states on the website it's a day sail from his own marina and you'll be eating tinned food. That only really leaves diesel as far as costs which he can legally claim for and there is no way in hell that his boat uses that much fuel. Because of this, he needs to have the boat coded, and he and his mate need to be qualified. He doesn't have a mate, so the advert is for an illegal charter service. I won't be reporting him but that doesn't make what he's doing right or safe.
 
The eBay ad shows 2 boats (or sail numbers anyway) - a UFO 27 993C and a Ballad 2999C - for "one man and a boat" and the pictures show 2 different bows. £55 for a day sail seems a little more than a non-profit share of a day sail. Assuming just a skipper and crew £110 a day seems generous for a 6 month "adventure", making ~£20,000 all in.

Could be an interesting discussion with the MCA!
 
I'd be curious what costs will be incurred in a day sail which add up to £55 per person. If it cost anywhere near that much on my boat I'd sell it lickety split! This is a 30 foot sailing boat and he reckons the actual costs of taking it sailing for a day are £110?! Since a day sail wouldn't incur any berthing fees which could justifiably be shared and the engine would probably burn a couple of litres per hour I assume there will be unlimited champagne and caviar aboard for guests. Unless he's trying to share the maintenance costs of course but it would need to be in very poor condition to need that much maintenance even if he was allowed to share those costs.

Some people would see £55 per day to go sailing on an hoc basis to be a bargain compared to chartering or ownership !
 
The eBay ad shows 2 boats (or sail numbers anyway) - a UFO 27 993C and a Ballad 2999C - for "one man and a boat" and the pictures show 2 different bows. £55 for a day sail seems a little more than a non-profit share of a day sail. Assuming just a skipper and crew £110 a day seems generous for a 6 month "adventure", making ~£20,000 all in.

Could be an interesting discussion with the MCA!

This was covered in detail on Scuttlebutt recently. http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?380553-Update-Paying-contributing-crew&highlight=

£55/day sail is a business. Hope he has some good insurance for when it goes tits up.
 
Fair enough lusty I didn't read the details. Whether it's "right" is dubious I agree.
Whether it's safe depends on lots of things, it might easily be very safe. It might be a superbly equipped vessel which he only sails in a force 3 or less. He might be a super-extra-master mariner, high commander of the USS Condoleeza Rice Carrier Battle Group with RYA commercial endorsement.
Or he might be on day release from Rampton secure mental hospital, sailing a rustbucket. In fact if it is the latter I might have crewed for him once.
 
Fair enough lusty I didn't read the details. Whether it's "right" is dubious I agree.
Whether it's safe depends on lots of things, it might easily be very safe. It might be a superbly equipped vessel which he only sails in a force 3 or less. He might be a super-extra-master mariner, high commander of the USS Condoleeza Rice Carrier Battle Group with RYA commercial endorsement.
Or he might be on day release from Rampton secure mental hospital, sailing a rustbucket. In fact if it is the latter I might have crewed for him once.

I meant safe as in someone with no knowledge of boats at all might "buy a ticket" to go sailing on a boat which has no coding and therefore may or may not meet the safety requirements for such a person to be on board. This goes as far down as clear signage showing where safety kit is, and these regs have been put in place based on previous incidents. The skipper may or may not be qualified to take newbies sailing, but the law is there because the zero experience person wouldn't know he doesn't hold teaching qualifications, again the law is there for a reason. He is also clearly making a profit according to the law, as a cost sharing operation it isn't possible to set a price per person up front, the law says you can split costs and that is all. If he gets one person he gets £55, two gets £110 yet the costs are almost entirely fixed and therefore he is without doubt unintentionally (you'd hope) outside the law.
 
Some people would see £55 per day to go sailing on an hoc basis to be a bargain compared to chartering or ownership !

Some people might, but the MCA are the ones who make the call and they say this is illegal and back that up with evidence as to why. I'd gladly pay those rates for cheap sailing but there's a side of me that's also glad that new sailors are protected from the same. Law can't be easy to define, especially the ones where both arguments can look reasonable. Luckily our country stops at this level of protection and doesn't get too invasive :)
 
Top