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14 Multihulls Quarterly • Issue Three

charter

A CharterCat’sMeow

MQ interviewsthe owner o aLagoon 380 thatwas ve yearsin the Sunsailcharter feet andis now cruisingthe East Coast

MQ was curious how charter catownership really works and if it canmake sense for other cruisers whohave long range plans so we satdown with Bob to hear his story frombeginning to end.

–

How did you go about decid-ing which charter company to workwith?

Bob

– We knew all along that wehad a bigger cat in our future, andwe had a pretty good idea of whatwe needed in a cruising boat. Sowe spent quite a lot of time charter-ing in the Caribbean so we couldtry out different designs from differ-ent builders and boats of differentsizes.Once we had homed in on theLagoon 380, we contacted all ofthe companies that had this boat

in their eets so we could collect

their sales and contract informa-

tion for comparison. The points that

were really important to us were:

ob and Kathleen Child

of Tiverton, R.I. knew from the start

that they wanted a mid-sized cat-amaran for their primary cruisingboat when they had the time to

do some serious sailing. They had

started with a beach cat and had,over the years, chartered everytype of cruising cat available in theCaribbean.Bob is an optometrist and Kath-

leen is a software consultant. They

are good planners, savvy investorsand like doing research beforemaking big decisions. Knowing thatthey were several years away fromsemi-retirement and would haveonly a few weeks a year to sail,the concept of buying a boat in

a charter eet appealed to them.They could sail several times a year

in the Caribbean or other destina-tions where their charter companyhas bases and they could own aboat that is earning its keep andpaying the boat mortgage alongthe way.

www.MultihullsQuarterly.com 15

1) guaranteed income that wouldcover the mortgage, 2) length ofthe contract, 3) the size of the initialdown payment, and 4) the number of weeks of charter that would beavailable to us. With both of us stillworking full time, the most impor-tant of these was the income theboat generated through the life ofthe contract.

This was some years ago. We nally

decided that the deal offered bySun Yachts was to our liking so webought the boat through themand signed the charter contract.Not long after that Sun Yachts wasbought by Sunsail who honoredall of the details of our Sun Yachtcontract.

–

Did you make a cost compar-ison between buying a new boat in

a charter eet versus buying a used

cruising cat?

Bob

– We did research the usedboat market for a couple of rea-sons. We wanted to compare theoverall costs of the two possibleapproaches and we wanted tosee which of the cruising cats wereholding their value best in the usedboat market. Back in 1999 and2000, there were not that manymodern production cats on thebrokerage market, not like today,so our choices in used boats wassomewhat limited. Even so, the wayour schedules and the overall costsworked out, buying a new Lagoon

380 for a charter eet made more

sense to us.

–

During the ve years you hadyour cat in the charter eet, how

many weeks a year did you actuallyuse it and where did you charter?

Bob

– We were allotted six weeks ofcharter a year and could chooseto use an equivalent boat at any ofSunsail’s charter bases worldwide.As it happened, we used the boatthree to four weeks a year andturned back the unused weeks tothe company so they could gen-erate extra income for us with theextra charter weeks.We always intended to get toEurope for a few weeks of charter

in Greece or Turkey but busy work

schedules and other obligations gotin the way. But we did get to cruiseall over the Caribbean and had alot of fun exploring places like theGrenadines and the Windward andLeeward islands.

–

What was it like owning a boat

in a busy charter eet?

Bob

– You know what it’s like in an

anchorage in the B.V.I. at the endof the day. Kathleen and I like to

sit in the cockpit where we areanchored enjoying a sundowner and watch the charter boat folliesas they try to pick up moorings or set the anchor. And it really madeus wonder what was happening toour boat when we were not there,knowing that the information onsome charterers’ sailing resumesmay not be as accurate as wewould like.Our biggest concern was howwell the boat would be maintained

over the ve years. It was in the

charter company’s interest to keepthe boat running smoothly so theengines, refrigeration and all ofthe pumps were always regularlyserviced and repaired. We are notsure we always knew what wasbeing repaired or when and thereare a few places on the hulls that

16 Multihulls Quarterly • Issue Three

charter

have some slightly discolored gel coat that look like repairs. But in general, the boat was alwaysin good condition whenever we used it.

It is important when you enter into a deal like

this that you remember it is a business for you andthe charter company and that you have to betolerant of the company and expect that therewill be repairs along the way.

–

At the end of the ve-year contract what

happened?

Bob

– We owned the boat ourselves through-out the deal so we simply took possession of it

when the contract expired. The company hadspecic obligations to make sure the boat was in

good order and they lived up to all of our expec-

tations. The boat was surveyed and any faultsnoted were xed. As it happened, the sails, the

trampoline and the Bimini had been replacedin the fourth year at the company’s expense, so

we were all set there. The company replaced

the anchor chain, upgraded the primary anchor,replaced one alternator and replaced the liferaft, which had come as original equipment.Since then we have cruised the boat in theCaribbean and then back to the East Coast.We keep it in North Carolina in the winter and in

Rhode Island in the summer.

–

On the nancial side, how did you make

out with the boat and what were the taximplications?

Bob

– While we had the boat in the charter eet,

all expenses were covered by the charter com-pany and we were guaranteed income to offsetthe mortgage so the ownership was cash neu-tral. Plus we got up to six weeks of charter free.

After ve years we owned a ve year old boat

___

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Multihulls Quarterly Magazine -- Sunsail Yacht Partnership Program; an owner's perspective.

A former Sunsail owner provides his personal insight into why the Sunsail Yacht Partnership program is a great ownership solution. Featured in the 3rd edition of Blue Water Sail... (More)

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