Anyone interested in boat shares?

[guimaras]

Gday everyone,

Boat expo is coming soon and me and my bro are thinking of getting a proper offshore fishing boat. However, with a great boat comes a heavy price tag so we are planning on putting up a syndicate. Thinking about 4 owners in total. 5 if majority agrees.

I came across a website that actually helps you manage boat shares and it's pretty well setup. (With the mods permission, I would like to post it here. Just PM me the go signal)

The plan is:

Glass Mono boat, 6-7m long, Looking at Haines Hunter Profish 625 as of the moment, but hopefully try to find a better deal at the expo...but just to give you an idea of the type of boat we are planning, check out the Haines.

Boat will be kept at dry dock facility (Sydney boat storage), undercover. This will be good since no more trailering, anti-foul, and less maintenance like anodes etc. Also, it will be in a covered facility so less UV damage. Basically, just call the dock the day before or 3 hours prior, drive there, load your stuff and go fishing...when you get back, REFUEL (refuel area near the dock...or bring your own jerry cans), dock the boat, rinse the inside (they rinse the hull and flush motor when they lift it up), get rid of rubbish, grab your haul and drive home.

Price range for the boat will be $80k-100k. If 4 owners, it will be $20-25k each... if 5 owners, 16k-20k.

Dry dock cost is around $600 a month plus normal expense like rego, insurance, etc.

Cost of repairs and on-goings would be split among owners.(Unless due to negligence like propeller damage,etc., then owner responsible will shoulder cost)

The plan is to put in 10% of the boat value every year for ongoings. This will be put in a bank account for future use...if there is any surplus, it is to be divided after syndicate agreement ends.

Share owners would own an equity on the boat. Meaning, they can sell their share any time provided they have a buyer. Syndicate agreement would last for 35 months. After that, the boat is sold and profit and whatever is left in the bank account is split among the owners...or, they can agree to setup a new syndicate agreement. If everyone takes care of the boat, I am confident it will still fetch a good price...considering it will be kept undercover, properly maintained and detailed annually.

Feel free to chip in your opinions.

[Fab1]

Going into a boat with 3-4 other complete strangers is a recipe for disaster if you ask me.I wouldn't go into it with family, let alone strangers.In saying that,if you can find others crazy enough to go into it with you i wish you all the best.

This is my opinion only as I can see issues in the not to distant future if you go ahead.

Cheers.

[Crossfire63]

Im with Fab1 on this one.

Mind you if I were interested I'd take the front end. The bit that doesn't burn the fuel .

Edited January 25, 2016 by Crossfire63

[Ric001]

Totally agree with Fab1 about the share especially with family. For the $600 a month mooring fee there are rental companies that will get you into the boat you want on an ad-hoc basis as a day rate. Good luck with the decision as ultimately you live with the result.

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[shakey55]

If that's the way you want to go so be it, but there are already boat share businesses out there.

For example you and your mates could get a 1/8th share of a Haines Hunter 625 offshore for $16000, $329 per month, secure storage and guaranteed min 43 days per year usage. Not sure how all this works, but good luck.

I'm with the others, sharing with friends or unknown, nobody will be happy all the time.

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[Welster]

I shared my last boat a 5.3 metre quintrex with two mates from school. That was in 2003 and we owned a cheap boat together for about 18 months before that. About 8 years into it two of us bought the other out as he wasn't using it. The two of us sold it about 18 months and bought another new one together.

We have never had an argument or disagreement about it between us or the other mate that sold his share to us. So it can work with the the right like minded people.

[spaners]

So what happens if next Sunday is the pick of the days for the last and next week.....who gets the boat if you all want it.

Unless you do it with really good mates it could go wrong real quick..good luck though.

[fragmeister]

I wouldn't do it but...

I have a couple of mates who have share boats and its done through a properly managed share scheme and I think this is what Guimaras is suggesting

rather than a few mates with a loose arrangement.

According to them with a professionally organsied boat share syndicate there are no arguments because everything is set up in advance.

All the fees are known.

There are legal arrangements in place for the payments.

There are pre determined formulas for exiting the syndicate

The time shares are setup in various ways but the design is generally to make sure that everyone gets a fair share in peak times and

some flexibility for ad hoc bookings.

You can sell your share.

You can buy more than one share if you want more time.

Most boat share arrangement are with total strangers... its just a commercial arrangement.

I guess if you really want a boat you can't afford or perhaps you accept that once you own a boat its likely that it will spend much of its time on dry land anyway

the a professionally run time share option may be a viable proposition.

The only thing that comes to mind for me is that I use my boat primarily for fishing (probably like most of us here) so the timing of a boat trip is that much more critical.

We often don't know for sure which day we go out and that can change the night before. My mates boats are primarily recreational boats and weather, wind, tide and fish activity are of little concern to them.

Thinking more on this it is probably a big factor.

Anyway, good luck whatever you decide.

Cheers

Jim

[guimaras]

Thanks for the replies. Sorry to chime in so late, was busy at work.

Actually, I own a boat share already but not a fishing boat (33footer sport cruiser). So far, only problem I've experienced is some owners leaving rubbish behind. We don't have that problem now since we contracted a professional cleaner in charge of cleaning the boat after each outing. If you google boatequity, that's the system we use. Basically, they put points on the days, being 50p for the weekend, 20p for weekday. My share entitles me 120p a month. That equates to either 6 weekdays a month, or 2 weekends and a weekday... If you want to use it some more, you can trade cash for points. In our case, $2 per point.

Fragmeister is right, we have contracts and all and everything is transparent.

The reason that setup is good for me is not really the cost of the boat.. But the cost of maintaining one, especially if you don't use it every week.

For the cruiser, I only pay $3000 outgoings a year...trust me, if I fully owned that boat, I'd be broke.

It's just it's not commonly done on fishing boats yet here in Oz so I'm just gathering feedback for it.

Edited January 29, 2016 by guimaras

[guimaras]

Totally agree with Fab1 about the share especially with family. For the $600 a month mooring fee there are rental companies that will get you into the boat you want on an ad-hoc basis as a day rate. Good luck with the decision as ultimately you live with the result.

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Mind you, the $600 would be split into 4 or 5... Based on our computation, monthly cost would only be about $250/month. I'm not too sure if there are similar scenarios...but paying $16000 for a Haines profish with a monthly bill of $250...and you get to take it out for minimum of 3-6 days a month sounds good to me.

Also, after the contract ends and you all decide to sell the boat, you could get around $8000 back.