Some guidance /advise

[AlwaysLearning]

My Partner and i have agreed to start the long journey retirement plan, we are about to hit the midlife point of the youthful age of 50.
We have been a little luck with property and jobs, and so have about 180k available cash. and we have sailed in the past 40 ft size boats
We are looking at buying a boat, which type would be good, we intend to Sail around the Ionian / Greece for a few years then over to the Caribbean, then who know maybe call it a day.

We have been looking at putting it with a charter company to have some revenue as we are not retired, also do we buy in this county or the UK. or not bother and buy a property a piece of land in greece and build an apartment

thanks in advance

 

[RichardS]

We bought our cat under a managed owner scheme with Sunsail/The Moorings 6 years before we retired. We bought the boat in Croatia but you would buy one in Greece.

For the 6 years before we were handed the boat we spent two or three holidays a year on the boat for free with no operating expenses for us during those 6 years, which meant that we were also able to keep a close eye on it so when we were handed it we knew that it was in great condition.

We could have taken those free holidays anywhere in the world but we were happy with being based in Croatia, and still are, and saw keeping an eye on the boat as a higher priority that going to the Caribbean or Far East or wherever.

We also sometimes gifted some of our free weeks to friends who were then able to use those weeks for free whilst we were able to charge them ourselves. We actually charged them around half the proper charter fee but those extra thousands helped pay for the boat.

In the end we got a 6 year old boat at around 50% of new value plus 6 years worth of free charter holidays and, as we had been chartering most years anyway, plus income from friends, I guess that effectively knocked another 25% off the price of the boat. The total deal was therefore a 6 year old boat, in good and known condition, in the location we wanted, with a ready berth for about 25% of the cost of the new boat.

If the figures stack up for you and you have the time, it's worth considering.

Richard

 

[RupertW]

We looked at a similar arrangement to Richard but were a bit worried about our boat getting damaged and repaired in the years under charter so decided to cut out the middle years and the risk and look at Sunsail boats coming out of charter - at very cheap prices in Croatia as functionally fine but cosmetically very tired.

That does mean we don’t get charter income and the boats been a bit of a project but I like that.