Jump to content

Buying a larger share?


Robster

Featured Posts

Hi,

I'm seriously considering taking the plunge (!) and buying a boat - I've been looking at NBs that are around the 55ft to 60ft mark, and in the £35K to £45K price bracket, but I've come to the conclusion that what I want is a little outside of my price range, once you add morrings, licences, insurance, maintenance etc..

So I started looking at shares, but I don't want to be restricted to a 1/12 or 1/24, and also, the fact that my wife is a school teacher restricts us to weekends and school holidays (unless I leave Mrs Robster at home....).

So that got me thinking, what might work is buying a 1/2, 1/3 or 1/4 share of a boat with some willing friends....problem is, I don't have any friends who share the same passion as me for NBing, so, is there a way I can meet people in a similar situation to me, see if we all get on, and potentially buy a boat together. There would be some contractual stuff to do, I guess.

Buying multiple shares of a 1/12 is one option, but with normal monthly budgets averaging £100 to £150 - the monthly spend would become more expensive than maintaining a larger share (if that makes sense!)

maybe some kind of dating site for potential boat owners is needed!!!!

Thoughts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Robster said:

Hi,

I'm seriously considering taking the plunge (!) and buying a boat - I've been looking at NBs that are around the 55ft to 60ft mark, and in the £35K to £45K price bracket, but I've come to the conclusion that what I want is a little outside of my price range, once you add morrings, licences, insurance, maintenance etc..

So I started looking at shares, but I don't want to be restricted to a 1/12 or 1/24, and also, the fact that my wife is a school teacher restricts us to weekends and school holidays (unless I leave Mrs Robster at home....).

So that got me thinking, what might work is buying a 1/2, 1/3 or 1/4 share of a boat with some willing friends....problem is, I don't have any friends who share the same passion as me for NBing, so, is there a way I can meet people in a similar situation to me, see if we all get on, and potentially buy a boat together. There would be some contractual stuff to do, I guess.

Buying multiple shares of a 1/12 is one option, but with normal monthly budgets averaging £100 to £150 - the monthly spend would become more expensive than maintaining a larger share (if that makes sense!)

maybe some kind of dating site for potential boat owners is needed!!!!

Thoughts?

There are many examples of shared ownership boats with less than the usual 1/12 etc. For a time, for example, I held two shares in a twelve share boat; 6 shares are relatively common and there are also some where a syndicate has been formed from scratch by advertising for like minded folk, and there is also the alternative of letting it be known that you may be interested in an already formed small syndicate.

Two useful websites are:-

http://www.boatshare.co.uk/

http://www.boatshare4u.co.uk/

Good luck

Howard

 

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Howard - I found those two websites about 5 minutes after posting this! Shulda Googled!

Would also be keen to hear from share owners with kids / school teachers in the family to see how they coped with being limited to school holidays...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Robster said:

Thanks Howard - I found those two websites about 5 minutes after posting this! Shulda Googled!

Would also be keen to hear from share owners with kids / school teachers in the family to see how they coped with being limited to school holidays...

Nearly all shared ownership agreements have some way of acknowledging the restrictions faced by teachers/families with children. For example, in my current share agreement, there is a facility for up to two "special" shares (some syndicates have three) to have priority choice of weeks within the school holiday period. These special shares incur a small extra charge in the share price for this privilege. I have been involved with shared ownership boats for many years and this arrangement has worked very well for those families who are restricted to school holidays.

I hope that helps

Howard

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to echo what Howard and said.

Most ex-Ownerships boats include up to three "special" shares, who effectively get first choice of summer holidays in exchange for a 20-25% premium on maintenence costs. 

Prior to buying our own boat when I retired, we had "special" shares in boats for 22 years, initially because of school age children and latterly to have a better chance of a couple of weeks boating in warm weather. We found sharing to be an excellent way to get a regular boating fix at a much lower price than hiring until we had time to make sufficient use of a boat of our own.

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Carefree Cruising offer 1/24, 1/12, 1/8 & 1/6 shares in their boats. Up to three "school holiday" shares in each boat are available at no extra charge. 

You could always have smaller shares in two different boats - the management/maintenance costs need not be higher than for a single share as boats' budgets vary. One advantage is that you could cruise different areas of the network depending where the boats are based.

No connection with Carefree other than as a very satisfied ex-share owner who caught the bug big time and now have our own!

 

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Robster said:

Thanks Howard - I found those two websites about 5 minutes after posting this! Shulda Googled!

Would also be keen to hear from share owners with kids / school teachers in the family to see how they coped with being limited to school holidays...

In my opinion the kids/holidays etc should be of no problem if setting up a new venture with other people. For instance I would absolutely never want to use the boat for my share during school holidays and try to avoid weekends boating and many other people will be able to work round your dates if like me they have built a flexible lifestyle.

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are different types of shared ownership boats out there.

At one end of the scale there are those managed by a commercial organisation, where all the maintenance and weekend handover is done by the boatyard, and you may never even meet your co-owners. When you take a week or two's trip on the boat you start and finish at the designated boatyard, and the whole experience is little different from hiring.

At the other end of the scale there are shared ownership boats where the owners all know each other, collectively manage all aspects of the boat, do much of their own maintenance, arrange handovers from one user to another wherever and whenever is convenient and sometimes go boating together.

Shares in the latter type of scheme do come available from time to time, but usually more by word of mouth than by being advertised on boat sale or shareboat websites.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This might be just me - my old boat was only 24ft - but are you sure you need a 55-60ft boat if you're talking purely about holiday use for a few weeks at a time? If you started looking at 40-45ft boats of the same age/quality, you could probably shave 25% off your budget and potentially get a lot more boating in every year than you could with shared ownership because you'd have weekends/bank holidays available as well as every school holiday week. And while your boat might be a bit smaller than you were picturing, you'd be able to have it how you want/need it rather than having to make compromises to suit co-owners. An extra 10ft of space is no use to you if it's taken up with extra berths you won't use, for instance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For anyone interested in shared ownership, either to look at some boats or to chat to people about the pros and cons about shared ownership, the National Shared Ownership Show is being held at Braunston Marina on April 22nd & 23rd- details below

http://www.braunstonmarina.co.uk/Events/national-boat-share-show-2017-april-22-23-1

Howard

 

  • Greenie 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, davem399 said:

I don't think there is a share for sale in Black Swan.  If you scroll down past the photos, it says that there are no shares for sale, it is just a template for anybody who has a share in a boat to sell.

OK ta.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.