Charter Service

[fbchristo]

My wife and I plan to start a new phase of our life when our daughters finish college and I retire in about 6 years. We have been chartering several different cats to find the right match. We are now looking at the possibility of putting a boat into charter service with the Moorings or Sunsail with the idea that 1) we can have more sailing time when we don’t have the charter fees and 2) we will be well on our way to having the boat paid to a point we can trade a house on land for a boat (provided the real-estate marked turns around in the next 5 years.) I can think of lots of negatives and positives with this but I really want to hear from those of you who may have placed a cat into charter service or considered it and didn’t.
Thanks in advance-
fbc

[Palarran]

I just talked to a woman who was rep-ing for the Moorings Power charter business while at the Miami boat show. What she kept not wanting to discuss was the depreciated value of the boat at the end of the term. In the end she half-admitted that you don't make any money or return during the period of time. Her major plus was that if made you charter and if you didn't - the sale of your charter weeks would be your return on investment. It didn't make enough sense to me. I also talked to Phil Berman with the Catamaran Company. He indicated that there would be a lot of newer cats on the market in a couple of years due to the sales of them over the last few years and the average turnover rate. So, I considered it but I doesn't seem worth it compared to keeping my options open.

[Jeannius]

The Moorings and Sunsail schemes are guaranteed to lose you money plus you'll not really have a boat fit for liveaboard at the end of the term and it'll only be worth half what you paid for it.

I've had my boat with a smaller company for five years and have been lucky enough to have all the bills paid for including a large loan out of charter income. When you factor in depreciation I would still have made a loss but since I'm not planning to sell that is for the time being, pretty irrelevant to me.

In that 5 years I've also crossed the Atlantic, sailed much of the Caribbean and generally had a great time all because I came up with a plan similar to yours but - and I think this is important - slightly different, in that I took the risk of not going with a guaranteed 'income' scheme and chose my own boat.

In a few months time Jeannius is coming out of bareboat charter and I'm retiring to liveaboard and do some crewed charters.

Happy to talk more about all this privately if you wish.

[yeloya]

I have made an aggreement lo leave my brand new boat (yet top be delivered..) to a charter in Turkey for two years. If you answer yes to all or majority of the questions below "yes", then you should go for it. Otherwise, forget it..

1-are you sure that the charter company takes necessary care of yr boat ? (how seriously they check out the boat when returned ? have you talked to owners who used this company in ? ,etc..)

2-Are you going to be able to use yr boat less than 4-5 weeks a year ?

3-Is maintenance / marina fees are high in the area you want to keep yr boat otherwise ?

4-Do you think you could at least get 50% of the boat value in Year 5 out of charter ? (that basically is yr resale value at the end of Year 5)

Good luck

Yeloya