Moorings Charter Program

[Privleoplag]

Originally Posted by Teknav

Would-be owners should consider this...How many days per year, are you going to use the boat? Do the number of your sailing days justify buying a boat? Would you be better off chartering a bare-boat? If you do a detailed cost analysis, you'll find that chartering a bare-boat will always be the best deal than owning; boats 35 ft and up. The only exception, to that cost analysis, would be if you're going to use the boat as a live-aboard.

Mauritz

I always like it when someone uses the word "always". Let's see.. 12 weeks charter/yr = 84 days x let's say $1000 a day = $84,000 x 5 yrs = $420,000 worth of charter fees...
Just saying..

[Teknav]

I am not sure about your accounting method; there is much more to it. On the other hand, I am not the one eyeing to buy a boat. Good luck!

Mauritz

[DotDun]

Let's see, a guy that owns an airplane is proposing that the cost of ownership of a sailboat is too high......what's wrong with this picture?

[Teknav]

Hiya Dot! I do not own an $8M USD float plane. Ten of us lease it when we go on vacation!

Mauritz

[DotDun]

Originally Posted by Teknav

Hiya Dot! I do not own an $8M USD float plane. Ten of us lease it when we go on vacation!

Mauritz

Ah, a poser.

[svlamorocha]

Originally Posted by Teknav

If you do a detailed cost analysis, you'll find that chartering a bare-boat will always be the best deal than owning; boats 35 ft and up. The only exception, to that cost analysis, would be if you're going to use the boat as a live-aboard.

Mauritz

I am afraid the statement above is too general to be valid. If someone has use for 10 weeks of low-season owner´s time (be own use or selling it to others) they will be much better off buying a boat on this program than chartering.

Do the sums (say with time valued at 40% off retail, which means about 1% of the new value of the boat per week, 10 weeks per year, 10% lease payment per year and 50% residual value) and let me know if you do not agree. You pay 100% in (assuming no loan) and get 10% a year in owner´s time plus 10% in lease payment (total 20%) for five years and then you get 50% back at the end. Without financial leverage (loan) you will get an IRR of 12% based on those tentative assumptions.

If you are keen on keeping the boat at the end of the 5 years it gets even better because you get to inspect the boat for many weeks before phaseout and can identify what needs to be done (unlike someone who wants to buy a boat coming ex charter, who only gets a few hours to do survey and sea trial).. In that scenario the 50% assumption for residual value looks like a steal!

Of course, *most* people do not have good use for 10-12 weeks of owner´s time per year and do not want the hassle of owning the boat at the end, hence they have no reason to go into the program.

C

[Teknav]

If you own the boat, you'll need to factor in around 18% of the boat's cost in maintenance and upkeep per year; 35 ft or greater. Is that included in your accounting? With leasing, I guarantee x-amount of flight hours for the duration of the lease and will return it back with fuel tanks topped off.

Mauritz

[svlamorocha]

Originally Posted by Teknav

If you own the boat, you'll need to factor in around 18% of the boat's cost in maintenance and upkeep per year; 35 ft or greater. Is that included in your accounting? With leasing, I guarantee x-amount of flight hours for the duration of the lease and will return it back with fuel tanks topped off.

Mauritz

This thread is about the "sell and leaseback" scheme run by Moorings (and Sunsail for that matter). Moorings pays for all maintenance during the five years and the one-off work at the end of the five years. Therefore the cost of that maintenance does not belong in that analysis, which is about cost/benefit to the owner, not to Moorings..

C

[DotDun]

Originally Posted by Teknav

If you own the boat, you'll need to factor in around 18% of the boat's cost in maintenance and upkeep per year; 35 ft or greater. Is that included in your accounting? With leasing, I guarantee x-amount of flight hours for the duration of the lease and will return it back with fuel tanks topped off.

Mauritz

FWIW, I spend 3-5%/year, including insurance.

I have no slip fees, and maintain most systems myself.

[muskoka]

Call me a cynic, but I suspect the charter business model has you buying the boat, financing the boat, maintaining the boat, and sucking up the depreciation. Whilst they cream off the best 5 years that boat will charter for and charge you a healthy management fee.

Let's be honest, if it were a reasonable (or even not quite crappy) financial prospect for the owner, people would be owners of multiple boats. Or massive boats. If it were even remotely good to own the boats the charter company would be the owners.

The whole thing is specifically structured to cater to the interests of the charter company - not you. And I'll bet that none of the 'small print' works even remotely in your favour - like, if they go bust, and you've financed the boat, who owns it?

Just buy an ex-charter boat.

[SeaKing]

We bought an ex charter boat and have enjoyed it here in the Chesapeake since 2005. It is a 4 berth charter version. Two years ago we got an owner's version built and it is in charter with Voyage in Sopher's hole for just under three more years until we take it cruising. So far so good. The boat is well maintained and we are going on a two week trip in three weeks. Check out Voyage catamarans, I think there boats have a better resale value as there are not as many of those built as the other charter fleets.There are a few owner's there that have more than one in the fleet, so it must work for them.

Enjoy your search Karana!

[maytrix]

Originally Posted by Privleoplag

I always like it when someone uses the word "always". Let's see.. 12 weeks charter/yr = 84 days x let's say $1000 a day = $84,000 x 5 yrs = $420,000 worth of charter fees...
Just saying..

While that makes it sound good, unless you have those 12 weeks to use, it's not so straight forward.

It is all about the numbers though and planned use of the boat at the end. People also always leave out upgrading to larger boats. We've got an upcoming trip planned and are using the equivalent of $38,000 worth of charter time over this trip. We never would have done this if we weren't owners, but we also can't overlook the tremendous value we are getting.

So it is simply a combination of factors that can help determine if it is worth doing.

And as far as why the companies don't own the boats? I think that's simple numbers as well. It's a huge amount of capital to do that. Moorings for example has about 200 boats in BVI. At an average cost (just a guess) of $300,000 a boat, that's $60 million! $12 million in down payments if its all financed, which clearly is viable, but again a lot of cash out of pocket. By having someone else own the boats, they eliminate this outlay of cash. Clearly they benefit, but so do the owners.

[FLLCatsailor]

Shoot me a pm if you'd like to discuss charter ownership. I have a lot of experience on the operations side as well as the post charter sales side.

[Khagan1227]

Originally Posted by FLLCatsailor

Shoot me a pm if you'd like to discuss charter ownership. I have a lot of experience on the operations side as well as the post charter sales side.

You going to leave us hanging?

Good or bad point of view from the operations side of things?

[FLLCatsailor]

Some negative, and some positive. I'd rather not post negative comments online, but if anyone ever wants to discuss placing a catamaran into one of the big charter fleets I'd be more than happy to talk with them. I was an operations manager down island for a number of years.

My specialty is in catamaran sales, particularly charter boats.