What made you decide to keep your boat abroad ?

[sharpness]

As per the title really, what made you decide to keep your boat abroad.
I'm currently on holiday enjoying a bit of Canarian sunshine and it got me thinking regarding keeping my boat abroad, and truthfully it doesnt appeal to me. Current situation is myself and SWMBO work normal 5 day week with just weekends and 25 days holiday to pick from for our boating, and if we made the plunge i dont think we'd get enough use out of the boat. Currently we use the boat every weekend May till Nov including the main holidays, and although the appeal of great weather abroad beckons, i would imagine the logistics of long travel time to get to the boat etc would mean we use it a lot less.

From having your boat in the UK, and now abroad, do you still just do weekends, or for the travel time involved do you spend longer each trip to justify. Obviously if you are self employed this is an easier option, but I'm curious to know how people make this work.

 

[Eren]

Here are the keypoints for me:

- Being able to adjust your own calendar is pre-requisite (either being self employed or having a flexible work schedule or being retired)
- Choosing the correct place that will be easy to reach with direct flights is important and maximizes your use of the boat.
- Definitely more sunny days (especially for the ones based in the UK)
- Having the opportunity of living different country's cultures in depth, living as a local, rather than being a tourist.
- Having the feeling and lightness of being in a foreign country/different environment. Clears your mind much deeper than a weekend at your home country/known environment.

But if you are enjoying your boat every weekend, it is difficult to catch the same performance if your boat is abroad. It is rather a different experience/style of using your boat.

With your schedule of 2 days weekend, I don’t think that keeping the boat abroad is feasible for you. However, with a more relaxed work schedule, a try should definitely be given to keeping your boat abroad. Here I have seen many people who took their boats to other countries but I personally don’t remember anyone who made the other way 'round.

 

[Portofino]

Weather is a happy coincidence along with ease of access in the SoF as mentioned above .
I bought the mooring in 2001 as an investment it was returning net of expenses early teens %
Rented it out using a modal that worked for U.K. properties, or any other European property.
Tend to be an impulse buyer , buy 1st sort out stuff later - make things happen .
Self employed meant I could get others in my core business to deputise while I was away , so with the kids growing up often took about 3 months off spread out inc 5 weeks skiing when they were off in the winter .

One day a letter arrived from the marina with words to the effect “ under rule 9b of article xyz we remind you that you are about to exceed your letting period .When are you bringing your boat to your berth ? “

Whoops !

Letter arrived on a August Tuesday , that Friday I flow into Bournemouth to be greeted by a Sunseeker sales lady met Mr Braithwaite and by close of business arranged a Portofino 35 to be delivered on the berth 3 weeks later with some tuition for 3 days ,

Knew nothing really it was 2005 .No idea about outdrives or shaft drives - nothing .I did later sit and pass the French Permit d Mer as thought it sensible to get some sort of official ticket locally .

End of summer 2014 the local berth broker come by with a client to view the neighbors boat a Windy 40 Bora ( same berth dims ) .This chap had actually bought on and was looking for a place to keep it .
It was evening and we were having a Rose on the back happy and content with the world .
Conversation was struck up and went along the lines of
“ have you thought about a bigger berth ? Or trading up ,or selling this one ? “
Ans from me “ what do have in mind ? “

Long story short - we moved to a 15 M berth in a better spot . Sold our berth to this “ chap “ so he could park his Windy .

Boat looked silly in its new berth ,so with one kid at uni another in 6 th form U.K. boarding about to fly the nest we sold the Sunseeker ( went in 3 weeks ) and you guessed it put a punter in the berth .
How ever free from having to do family stuff i always wanted an Itama .
Irony is ended up with a bigger arguably more superior boat in many ways now the kids are grown up and gone .

We live in Switzerland since I retired formally @52 ,boats about a 6 /7 hr drive with the dog or 45 min fgt from GVA for me to check it / fiddle around etc ,

Keep looking at Italy calling in at the various ports along the route for lunch etc , but we like the Cote d Azur spend 2-3 weeks out of every summer month there .
We also have property in Antibes another impulse buy - saw it ,walking the dog as a resto project over 10 y ago and with 1/2 hour was in it ( via the agent ) later that day paid the deposit .Idea was to park some cash in euro land bricks and mortar in case there economy improved .Its done very nicely and Antibes as a place has a lot of potential investment wise still to come .
Italian property market in the areas we are interested in is tanking at the mo ,so we are keeping our eurozone stuff in Fr .
Some how mentally cross compensate the expense of a plastic boat against property.
We use the property as an overspill for guests ,so it’s eased the number of cabins pressures on the boat .
Ie zero pressure to buy bigger piece of plastic .
Having said that I think unintentionally I’ve been lucky with this Itama .Unbekown to me it seems to have increased in valve as I have turned down two offers from folks wanting to buy it each over €60 k than what I paid back in 14 eek !

So for me deal 1 st , just happened to aquire a boat somewhere in the mix .

 

[markc]

We spent 17 years boating in the UK, spending most weekends on the boat and extended trips too. That became less appealing with young kids combined with unpredictable weather. So a couple of years ago we bought a boat that we keep in the SoF. It's very easy to get to by air, even for short trips and easy to drive for longer trips. Being flexible with work we manage to spend 10 weeks a year on the boat and the massive upside is the weather - this summer we had 1 day of rain in a 6 week trip.

By keeping the boat abroad you do obviously loose the ability to pop to the boat, but when you do get there, you get to use it.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

As per the title really, what made you decide to keep your boat abroad..

I remember exactly where we were when we made the decision to move our boating to the Med. We had enjoyed (if thats the right word) 12yrs of boating in the E Channel and had ventured everywhere between Holland and the Scilly Isles, up the Thames to London, up the Seine to Paris and round the corner down the west coast of Brittany. However nearly every major cruise had been affected by the weather to a greater or lesser degree and we were both getting increasingly fed up with being holed up in some windswept waterlogged marina waiting for a weather window

The straw that finally broke the camel's back was one Whitsun week in 2002. The forecast had promised settled weather so we had planned a week cruising around the Channel Islands. We had bashed across the Channel to Cherbourg looking forward to this settled weather but when we arrived in Cherbourg, the wind got up and the rain started to lash down. It stayed like that for 3 days and the only high spot was watching England beat Argentina in the World Cup. On the 3rd day, my SWMBO sat me down and told me in no uncertain terms that unless our future boating was going to take place in a location with better weather, she wasnt going to come anymore and I was going to be on my own

I didnt need a 2nd invitation. Our Broom 37 was sold that autumn and by the following spring we had bought a Targa 48 in the Med and had arranged a berth for the season in La Napoule in the south of France. Since then we've been sort of boating nomads spending periods in the SoF, Costa Blanca, Majorca, Croatia, Sardinia and now SoF again. There are drawbacks to boating in the Med but no way I'd go back to boating in the UK now

 

[petem]

What did it for me was a weeks holiday planned in the Summer (on our old boat) where we intended to cruise to the West Country. After 3 miserable days in the rain we admitted defeat and went home. Whist we get less time on the new boat, every day counts.

 

[sharpness]

Appreciate the replies. Does seem as i suspected, that being able to have more flexible downtime is the key to making Med / abroad boating a great experience.
Boating and sunshine is a perfect combination, enjoy :encouragement: