It's an old marina joke: A boat is a hole in the water that you fill with money. But no other investment delivers the romantic appeal of charting a course, hoisting the sails, and listening to clinking halyards and the distant carousel sound of a steel-drum band as the waves lull you to sleep. Still, that money-in-the-hole image is tough to shake. As vacations go, sailing is usually thought to be up there with heli-skiing on the expense scale. But consider this: A week on a sailboat entails zero lodging costs. And you get to visit multiple destinations without rental cars, ferry trips, or connecting flights. Plus, the beverages -- which can be one of the more expensive components of any vacation -- come in the form of a $10 bottle of local rum, rather than $10 watered-down cocktails at the hotel bar. With some accounting that's only a little clever, owning a boat can start to look -- dare we say it -- economical.
Even with pesky school loans to worry about, yacht ownership is not as far-fetched an idea as it may sound. Thanks to a few enterprising charter boat companies who are reeling in a new generation of sailors, there's now a way to live the dream without the nightmare: a pristine yacht docked in paradise without the hassles usually associated with boat ownership -- maintenance, insurance, mooring fees, hurricane-induced anxiety attacks.
Charter ownership works like this: You put down 25 percent on a 15-year loan to buy a new sailboat through a charter company. The company moors your boat at one of its bases in Tonga, Belize, Greece, or elsewhere, and takes care of all dock fees, insurance payments, deck-swabbing, and barnacle-scraping. You get to sail the yacht for up to ten weeks a year. The company rents out your boat an 25 additional weeks or so and gives you either a percentage of the revenue or a flat monthly fee. Though you're free to put your vessel on the market at any time, after three to five years, your contract with the charter company ends and you can sell the boat, finish making the payments yourself, or trade in your craft for a new one.
"A lot of people have put plenty of money into stocks and lost every year. So they put it into a sailboat and they get some free sailing along with a 10 percent annual return," says Josephine Williams, manager of global yacht sales marketing for The Moorings, a charter company based in Clearwater, Florida. "And that income is guaranteed." In other words, even if the company can't rent your boat out when you're not using it, you'll continue to collect the revenues -- and use them to pay the mortgage -- as if it had.
The Moorings and Annapolis-based Sunsail are two of the key players in the business. Each offers similar ownership plans for hundreds of boats around the world. The yachts range in size from around 30 to more than 60 feet (some boats can sleep as many as 12 people). They're outfitted with special heavy-duty hardware and rigging designed to withstand five or six months of annual charter use by honeymooners and families with rambunctious kids.
The purchase price of a 33-foot Moorings yacht is $119,000, putting your down payment at a tidy $29,750 (unless you sign up at a boat show, where the company sometimes offers substantial rebates). After that, you're typically guaranteed at least enough annual revenue to cover the loan payment. And you won't get bored: Say your boat's docked in Corfu. Corfu's nice, but after a couple of pleasant winters there your wanderlust nudges you to test new waters. You can trade for dates on a similar yacht owned by the same company at another port -- from Baja to Nice, the Seychelles to Palma -- as if it were your own. And no matter where you are, for a little extra, you can have a captain and a cook on board during your trip.
Can't you just rent a boat when you want one, rather than take the ownership plunge? Sure, but if you become serious about sailing, an ownership program is the better tack. Sunsail estimates the value of the six weeks available annually to an owner of its 41-foot Beneteau at $18,000; for a down payment that's just slightly higher, you'd be on your way to owning the boat. Read it out loud this time: You could own the damn boat. Less-savvy vacationers would shell out their $18,000 and have nothing to show for it but a tan. You, meanwhile, would have paid only for travel to the charter site and a bottle of Pusser's Rum.
The best way to perform due diligence on a charter company is to book a vacation on the type of boat you'd consider buying (all the firms rent charter boats by the week in addition to the ownership programs). You'll be able to try out the boat and get a first-hand look at the service, cleanliness, and value that the charter company offers -- after all, you'll be renting a boat that someone else bought through the ownership program. Company staff can even teach you how to sail, which is another little detail you may need to take care of.
