Hello all-
I have a client who’s in an interesting spot. I won’t bore you with the details, but essentially they do 15-20 charters in the BVI’s each year with at risk
kids. For understandable PR reasons, they don’t want to own a million dollar yacht in the
Caribbean so I'm looking at starting a private
charter company with them as my main client. Once the
boat is paid for, I can drop the rates and help them stretch their dollars. I'm still a ways from
retirement per sé, but it would be a great option for me to have a
boat down there plus I'd love to support the awesome
work they're doing. They've been doing the trips for years and will continue to do so, so the rough numbers seem to
work pretty well.
I wouldn't be competing with the big companies, pretty much just there to serve this non-profit and maybe do a few other charters for friends. I've been researching ancillary costs and was hoping to get some harder numbers from the good folks here who have been there, done that and got the tee shirt.
I'll rattle off my questions in order.
1) If everything moves forward, we'll probably buy a new or close to new 5
cabin Lagoon 52. I'm estimating a $1.3M
purchase with a 25% down payment and a 7 year mortgage. Does that sound about right?
2) The next thing I need to know is the cost to register the boat and where to register. I was thinking of setting up a local company in the BVIs. I don't have any plans to bring the boat stateside. All transactions and
income would happen there, so that seems to make sense. But this is new territory, so if anyone has any wisdom on that, I'm all ears. Also, what do I need to
budget annually for boat
registration,
taxes, etc.? I know there are no
taxes in the BVI's but if I have state side liabilities, I want to make sure they're covered.
As someone pointed out on another thread, I also need to know what work permits are required. As a US Citizen, would it make more sense to register in the USVI and just operate in
BVI when needed?
3) I've estimated 2% for
insurance ($26k annually) $4k for
cleaning ($200 after each charter) $5k per year for scheduled
maintenance for the first three years since the boat will be new or nearly so, then $6k for years 4&5, $7k for years 6 and 7. Do these numbers seem reasonable?
4) Dockage. Here's where things get nebulous. I'm planning on keeping the boat on a
mooring ball most of the time with a few day rates when we're island hopping on the charters. In the interest of planning for worst case, I took a $35 day rate and multiplied by 365 for a total of $12,775 per year. What are some real world numbers for long term
mooring / dockage?
5)
Fuel. What can I plan on spending on
fuel each month or year? I sail a
Jeanneau 409 out of Marina Del Rey and the fuel costs are pretty minimal. But I know a cat has two of everything and I don't have a good feel for how much motoring we would be doing in a typical week of island hopping.
6) What am I missing?
Thanks in advance for your help and guidance!
Best-
Chris