yacht/share

[owen]

having recently sod my boat i have been mulling over the options for the future. we managed 2 weeks sailing over the summer hiolidays and one other wekend in the autumn so not a cost effective year/cf chartering.
i have been wondering about yacht share.
i have looked at yacht fractions but was wondering if anyone had any personal experience. how do you pick a good syndicate??. how do you get out if you want to sell... do you continue paying marina charges maintenance etc . any good or bad experiences|??

 

[stephenk]

Works for me,,I've been in a syndicate based in Gosport for 7 years. Its an old Westerly Centaur and is run on a very informal basis, in fact we often sail together although only two of the owners knew each other prior to joining. The main benefits are you get the possibility of things such as a Marina berth but if you were on your own would probably be difficult to justify.
I have to say that I always seem to be able to use the boat when I want and having 4 people to share such jobs as antifouling is much easier, there are drawbacks but based mainly on economical grounds I believe these are a fair tradeoff.
I used yachtfractions to purchase the boat share and found them extremely helpful and provided a good service. Indeed we may soon trade up to a larger boat and will continue as a syndicate.
SK

 

[neil1967]

Don't know if this is of any interest, but it is a slightly different slant on yacht share. We have recently bought a yacht, which will be moored in Turkey. We expect to use her for about 3 weeks a year - during the rest of the time she will be chartered out by a small charter company, who will also look after all the maintenance - for a fee of course! I expect to make a small profit each year, plus our holiday costs come down to the cost of flights (+beer). We chose the chartering company purely on the high standard of the yachts that we had previously chartered from them. Not actually started chartering yet, so I can't comment on the success or otherwise, but the purchase process has been relatively hassle free, and I've no reason to think the rest will be relatively straightforward.

Something to consider?

Regards

Neil

 

[neil1967]

Of course that should read - "no reason to think that the rest will be anything other than straightforward"!

Time for bed!

 

[andyorr]

Having sold my Moody recently I have been thinking similar thoughts and have perused the Yacht Fractions site. Thee are some interesting fractions for sale and some nice boats. My initial enthusiasm has been dampened by seeing how long some of the fractions have been for sale. If you needed to realise some capital quickly forget it! This last season and a half I have done 2 week long charters in Greece and booked a third for next season. I am still intereted in shared ownership but, as a teacher, I'm stuck with school holidays and not so cheap flights!

 

[Skyva_2]

It can work very well, we shared a boat for 10 years. The problem came when we wanted to sell our share, the market is very limited.

 

[paulrae]

We're now in the third year of our syndicate of 4 partners. It was a new syndicate, set up as a result of an ad on Boatsandoutboards. It has worked very well, although when we set it up it had a fixed term of 5 years, just in case. We're fortunate that all four partners have a similar outlook and are pretty easy-going. That became apparent during discussions about what boat to buy before we bought it.

We do have a formal 'contract', if you'd like a copy PM me. Our calendar is mutually agreed every spring, so if you miss your weekend you have three weekends to wait before you have another go - that tends to make you use it or lose it.

The bottom line is that I get a boat that I otherwise couldn't (or wouldn't) afford, and the running costs are a quarter of what they would be otherwise.

When I was considering sharing I searched the forum and got some valuable advice fom the posts- so have a look and see what you can find.

I reckon that I will buy my own yacht at some point in the future when I can afford it. For the time being the shared scenario is the optimum arrangement.

Regards

Paul