Partial charter, matching people up?

[FollowingCs]

We are looking to charter this spring or early summer, however, we can't get any of our friends in land-locked Ohio to commit.

Is there any service that matches partial charters, or cabins available?

All the best,
Ray & Cristal
future s/v ~ Following C's ~

[Cheechako]

I've wondered that also. I would worry about the odds of getting compatible people aboard though. Boats get "small" with one person who wont stop talking or has the wrong personality match. Some people want to go ashore and eat out, visit clubs, party etc. Some people are into nature etc... you get my drift.
It's a tough deal, I've tried to organize charters with people I know before, they are all gung ho at first, but in the end there are reasons they cant make it. But it can work.
*Everybody pays a deposit when they commit.
*Up front: It's not refundable unless you can fill their spot with other friends.
*Estimate the true cost of everything so no surprises.
*Investigate the area you are cruising and make an itinerary suggesting how often eat out, what to do etc.
* whoever 's name is on the contract as primary make the final decision on where to go. (weather etc)

This might make a good subject for a thread: "How to organize a group charter"

[contrail]

Festiva, part of Catamaran Company, does it in the BVI. I believe that Tradewinds does, too. The way they keep everything coordinated is to have a set itinerary. In many ways it's more like a very small cruise ship than a customized crewed charter but it seems to work well.

[FollowingCs]

Thanks for the info. I will contact charter companies directly.

Regarding compatibility, I'd imagine that with on-line tools, Facebook, Skype, etc., you could get a feel for potential shipmates easy enough.

All the best,
~ Following C's~

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha and welcome aboard!

[SailBeat]

I would recommend trade winds. Basically a crewed cruise around with a skipper and hostess. You pay for the cabin and hope you get along with the other guests. Their boats are quite big so you will get your own "private" space. Well as much as you can hope for on a boat

[BigTraverse]

I can't say that I am a prolific poster to the forum - in fact I have never posted before - but I read it a lot - most every day. I actually feel like I know many of the people here... I follow Boatie's adventures and have come to appreciate Salty Monkey's humor Anyway, your post caught my attention because I too am in land-locked SW Ohio and I plan on extended cruising some day. I am thinking about putting together a Bahamas charter trip for this coming summer. PM me - maybe we can get together, talk and help each other with the long range cruising goal.

Rod

[CaptTL]

I've done many group charters where some of the participants didn't know the others. Only one in many done turned out less than ideal. The key is to stay busy, keep things interesting, and get off the boat for a swim, hike, or a few hours at the beach bar.

By the way, my brother met his future wife on one of those group charters.

[Island Time O25]

I would suggest joining a local sailing club and then getting a charter group together. You'd have enough time to pick and choose based on compatibility, skills level, interests, etc. Otherwise it could be a costly and unpleasant crapshoot. Especially when you get people who never sailed in tight quarters before with all the resulting issues.

We did a bunch of local 7-10 days trips out of my old sailing club, sort of like a local charter and while most were pleasant and memorable in a good way, the few times we picked up people totally unknown to us before, were the few times we had those "disasters". One guy, who must've had some psychological problems, insisted on taking 20 min showers several times a day which made us waterless on the first full day of sailing and we had to make extra stops (which screwed up our itinerary) before our next destinations just to refill the water tanks. We almost came to blows with him but decided to wash with salt water and drink our beer rather than get into a physical altercation. Another time we ended up with an alcoholic couple who drank all of our hard liquor the first day out, literally they downed 3 0.75L bottles between the two of them, not including beer and wine. We had to pick up their turns on the watch but at least they were very quiet and otherwise not obnoxious drunks. Third time were some college girls who expected a fancy "yacht" and were disappointed at our, then 10 year old O'Day 39 and were either b*tching or barfing all the time, getting off for good half way through the week long cruise. So I'd say about 1/4 to 1/5 of our cruises were of those type and the rest were great trips.