Boat Share Your Views Requested

[KenK]

In September we sold WinterRose, the narrowboat which we owned for slightly less than fourteen years. Our original intention was to cover all the English and Welsh canals / rivers which we had not cruised once we had retired, that is now complete. Then to purchase a new boat and cruise the European waterways however that 2015 plan didn't take Brexit into account, even if we eventually achieve a trade agreement with the EU there is no guarantee that we will have the access we do now. Worst case will be 90 days in Europe and then leave for 180 days unless you can acquire a longer stay visa, not straightforward.

Now the question.

 

A friend suggested looking for a boat share, my first reaction was "no way" however it does seem to have some advantages, the boat would be used throughout the season and the costs shared. So anyone have any views either for or against, obviously anyone who is actually in such an arrangement would hopefully have a good idea of the pros and cons.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Ken

[Onewheeler]

We're in a boat share on the more civilised side of the channel. There is a share for sale still - see the for sale page, circa March. (PM me if interested!)

 

Advantages: it costs much less. With the right mix of people most of the skills needed for maintenance can be covered (we could do with a painter / decorator and a carpenter).

 

Disadvantages: one needs to fit in with the others and leave the boat tidy. Also need to find where other people have hidden essential things like the cafetière.

 

Martin/

[frahkn]

I was in the "ownership" scheme for 11 years before retiring and buying my own boat. I had no difficulty with the scheme and left only because retirement meant I could make fuller use of the boat than allowed by the scheme.

 

There are two points to watch:-

 

Every scheme has some method of allocating your weeks of use - you need to be sure that whatever method used suits your needs.

 

The extent to which individual owners are involved in deciding (or actually doing) the various admin and maintenance tasks differs between boats. Again you need to be content that these arrangements suit you.

 

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by frahkn

[trackman]

We were founder members of a private boat share that's still going strong some 17 years later.

We left to buy our own boat when I retired & had the time to justify that, but would happily have remained otherwise.

A couple of friends who founded the scheme with us are still members, and another couple, who had their own boat at one time, have sold that & joined the share.

A good share scheme is a great way to own a boat if you don't want to own one by yourself. As well as keeping costs down & sharing the hassle when things go wrong, it has another big benefit. When you are not on the boat, it doesn't have to get left in the same place, someone else in the share can be on their turn, moving it to somewhere new. When your next turn comes around, you can start in a fresh place & cruise a new part of the system.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

I often wondered if owning a share in a boat is more economical than renting as and when you want? 

 

[ditchcrawler]

2 minutes ago, Goliath said:

I often wondered if owning a share in a boat is more economical than renting as and when you want? 

 

It was for me, 4 weeks share for less than the cost of 2 weeks hire. 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

17 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

It was for me, 4 weeks share for less than the cost of 2 weeks hire. 

Ok. Fair enough. Makes sense 

 

Is a share easy enough to sell on once you’ve had enough? 

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

2 minutes ago, Goliath said:

Ok. Fair enough. Makes sense 

 

Is a share easy enough to sell on once you’ve had enough? 

 

 

I dont know, as others left we absorbed their shares until there were 4 of us for several years, in the end one couple gave up boating, one couple bought a boat to live on, we bought a hull to fit out and the other couple bought all our shares and became sole owner for a few years

[The Dreamer]

4 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Is a share easy enough to sell on once you’ve had enough? 

If you are in the 15 to 20 year old market, where shares sell for £1 to 2k, they move on like hot cakes.  We sold our share last year in two days.  Be ware though you are responsible for your share of the sink fund, often around £800 per year, until it sells.  All in though, two weeks hire in the summer is around £2k, so this is a cost effective way of owning, without owning!

[Richard T]

We were founder members of the same share boat as Trackman. We were part of it for 10 years and then bought our own boat. The share worked for us to start with but in the end we decided for various reasons to buy our own boat. What being part of the share did was enable me to work out how boats work. I have no experience of share boating in Europe but there may well be similar schemes to those operating in England.

[MtB]

Never understood the point of a boat share. Seems to bring all the disadvantages of hiring and none of the benefits of owning.

 

 

[frahkn]

11 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Never understood the point of a boat share. Seems to bring all the disadvantages of hiring and none of the benefits of owning.

 

 

The main advantage is fully utilising your share of the boat. When I was at work, I was not self employed, I had 6 weeks holiday. I could not use the boat outside these 6 weeks so it made little sense to own it for 52 weeks.

 

Of course, even now that I'm retired, I only own one boat so I'm in a different position to yourself as I cannot see how I would use multiple boats.

 

So the "strokes and folks" phrase seems to apply.

[Rob-M]

7 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Never understood the point of a boat share. Seems to bring all the disadvantages of hiring and none of the benefits of owning.

 

 

This is why we didn't go down the share route, plus we never paid full price for a hire boat. We wanted the flexibility to boat when we wanted and to not have to take all our stuff home at the end of every trip.

[MtB]

42 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

and to not have to take all our stuff home at the end of every trip.

 

This is IT!

 

Having all your own stuff already in your boat, cupboards stocked with your own food, own clothes in the drawers in the bedroom, own wet weather gear hanging in the engine room, makes for a totally different boating experience. You just think to yourself oh I have a few hours or a day to spare now, the weather forecast looks good, lets go to the boat, and you just GO!

 

Simply not possible to boat this way when hiring or share boating. 

 

 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

10 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Never understood the point of a boat share. Seems to bring all the disadvantages of hiring and none of the benefits of owning.

 

 

I guess affordability is a big factor. 

 

 

 

[cougie]

We've just bought into a boat Share. It's cheaper than hiring and how much stuff are you taking with you ? We only need a couple 

 

As has been said until we retire we haven't enough time to make it anywhere near worthwhile buying one. 

[robtheplod]

Boat shares are great if you just want to use the boat 4 weeks a year and don't want the hassle of maintenance/mooring fees etc. The only downside is you have your 4 weeks booked well in advance and don't have the choice of if the weather is good/bad (I suppose renting doesn't give you this either!). We bought our own boat as we wanted to use the boat more and I fancied getting into the maintenance a bit more. Our syndicate had a different way of sorting costs/allocation in that a fund was never built up on purpose, so members never paid into something they didn't get back and also have a very fair list system so all owners get to try out all seasons on the boat. Look at Aurora's website as it has lots of info on a boat share - www.nb-aurora.co.uk

 

[trackman]

MtB has a dim view of shares, but we found it brilliant for us when I was working full time.

The cost was probably not much more than that of a quarter of the boating time we got each year.

In addition, as I said before, we didn't have to start from & return to the same mooring every trip. We'd hand the boat over to another member of the group at the end of each trip, at some convenient mooring wherever we happened to get to. At the start of our next turn we'd meet the boat at a new place, wherever it had reached. That way we saw far more of the system than if we'd had our own boat at a fixed mooring, & weren't restricted to starting/finishing at a hire base.

Finally, we made some new friends through the share.

[KenK]

It has been a while since I first posted this thread,thank you for your comments. 

My wife and I are now the owners of one third of a Luxemotor Dutch Barge, currently moored in Ghent in Belgium.

We thought long and hard about purchasing a share in a boat rather than buying our own but given the issues re Brexit the positives outweighed the negatives.

It helps that we only have two other couples as owners as that makes decisions about the boat and its use more straightforward.

We expect it to be very different from cruising the UK inland waterways both because we are sharing and also because Europe has real rules and regulations regarding its waterways and how they are used. 

We will be cruising in the Netherlands this year, they have some serious waterways and very large commercial boats, lots of bridges but not many locks.

 

Ken

[frahkn]

43 minutes ago, KenK said:

It has been a while since I first posted this thread,thank you for your comments. 

My wife and I are now the owners of one third of a Luxemotor Dutch Barge, currently moored in Ghent in Belgium.

We thought long and hard about purchasing a share in a boat rather than buying our own but given the issues re Brexit the positives outweighed the negatives.

It helps that we only have two other couples as owners as that makes decisions about the boat and its use more straightforward.

We expect it to be very different from cruising the UK inland waterways both because we are sharing and also because Europe has real rules and regulations regarding its waterways and how they are used. 

We will be cruising in the Netherlands this year, they have some serious waterways and very large commercial boats, lots of bridges but not many locks.

 

Ken

Congratulations, I wish you well with your new venture. Thanks for getting back to the forum with news of the eventual outcome.

[Mrs Trackman]

12 hours ago, KenK said:

It has been a while since I first posted this thread,thank you for your comments. 

My wife and I are now the owners of one third of a Luxemotor Dutch Barge, currently moored in Ghent in Belgium.

We thought long and hard about purchasing a share in a boat rather than buying our own but given the issues re Brexit the positives outweighed the negatives.

It helps that we only have two other couples as owners as that makes decisions about the boat and its use more straightforward.

We expect it to be very different from cruising the UK inland waterways both because we are sharing and also because Europe has real rules and regulations regarding its waterways and how they are used. 

We will be cruising in the Netherlands this year, they have some serious waterways and very large commercial boats, lots of bridges but not many locks.

 

Ken

Thanks for the update. Sounds a flood solution. Would be good to hear how it works out for you. 

[Alan de Enfield]

1 hour ago, Mrs Trackman said:

Thanks for the update. Sounds a flood solution. Would be good to hear how it works out for you. 

Its always handy to have a boat in a flood situation.

[jeddlad]

On 22/02/2020 at 21:46, KenK said:

It has been a while since I first posted this thread,thank you for your comments. 

My wife and I are now the owners of one third of a Luxemotor Dutch Barge, currently moored in Ghent in Belgium.

We thought long and hard about purchasing a share in a boat rather than buying our own but given the issues re Brexit the positives outweighed the negatives.

It helps that we only have two other couples as owners as that makes decisions about the boat and its use more straightforward.

We expect it to be very different from cruising the UK inland waterways both because we are sharing and also because Europe has real rules and regulations regarding its waterways and how they are used. 

We will be cruising in the Netherlands this year, they have some serious waterways and very large commercial boats, lots of bridges but not many locks.

 

Ken

Thanks for the update. I'd be very interested to hear how you get on. Please can you give us another update after your first trip?