Mooring Boat ownership 5 year plan

[nancypro]

Thinking about doing Mooring boat ownership program. 444 leopard Sunsail out of Tortola. Any thoughts about this? A little nervous. Anyone that can share their experience positive or negative really would like to hear from you.

[matauri500]

We have had a boat in the Moorings program for ten years. It is a larger (62') crewed boat and our experience dealing with Moorings has been excellent. They have done everything they contracted to do and the deal has worked out financially for us as well as a lot of personal and family usage over the ten years.
The five year program you mention is a bare boat program in most cases although they offer crewed boats if you buy a 48' cat. More money but the boat will get better treatment with a crew on board.The five year deal is quite different from our program but we have talked with many owners in the bare boat program and they seem to be quite satisfied with the deal.
They key here is to get on their guaranteed return program and make sure you or your family and friends use all the owners time that is available to you. There is real value in doing this and in addition you are permitted to sell some of your weeks to third parties and pocket the rental fees for yourself.
It is recommended that you pay down the debt on the boat as quickly as you can to avoid any surprise at the end of five years as there is always the possibility that your debt could be more than the market value of the boat when you sell it at the end of the program. If this happened you would have to make up the shortfall to pay off the debt.

The other concern is that the boats are very heavily used and possibly abused by bare boat charterers. If this is a concern and it should be you might want to get a boat that is based at one of Moorings locations where there is less activity thus keeping your boat less used.

The big base is Road Town in Tortola where they has hundreds of boats. The base management and operations team there is quite good. Keep in mind that it pays to inspect your boat every time you go to the base and be the squeaky wheel where maintenance is concerned. Push them to keep the boat well maintained and to provide you maintenance logs. They hate to do this but if you yell enough they might do it.

All in all we would recommend this to anyone who wants to sail but does not want to put the work or time into their boat themselves. It is lots of fun being an owner without the responsibilities of being one. You can also exchange time to their bases around the world. This works very well and you get to sail in lots of great places. We have been to every island in the Caribean, Turkey, Greece, New Zealand and Tonga.

Go for it. You will enjoy. Talk to Katy Buckner in their sales office in Florida and tell her that the owner of Sea Leopard sent you. She will treat you right.
Doug

[nancypro]

Doug-thanks for the thorough response. We are in the debating stage. Can't decide---wish I knew more of the the pros and cons of boat in Abacos or Tortola. Do you know if is there a forum where people can advertise their possibly unused weeks?

[matauri500]

Nancy we just spent three weeks in the Abacos on our Lagoon 500. We had a great time but found the sailing to be less than interesting. The water is beautiful but the distances are very short and the water is extremely shallow. The people were great.

The Bahamas are great especially down island in the Exumas. We have moved our lagood down to Georgetown in the Exumas now. Good sailing (but still can be shallow if you do not go outside)but long sails and great islands and weather. Very little shore life so if you are looking for shore entertainment for you and your guests the BVI area is the place to be.

If it was us we would own the boat in the BVI's but it does not matter much because of the Moorings very good reciprical use program. You can go anywhere. I strongly suggest a cat rather than a monohull but that is just our opinion. We have both kinds of boats but like the cats much better.
Doug

[Captain Dare]

Look into Charter Caribe in St Thomas. Small company, great service.