Many sailors dream of owning their own boat, with heady dreams of a seafaring life, but the mundane reality is that many yachts sit unused for the majority of the year, with a few weekends and weeks of cruising here and there. It can be difficult to justify the return on investment of money, as well as the time needed not only to go sailing but to maintain your pride and joy.

That’s where shared boat ownership comes in. Get the details right, and you could have all the benefits of owning your own boat for a fraction of the cost and time of being sole custodian. It’s satisfying to know the boat is getting properly used too, and maintenance will be shared out between a number of people. You may get lucky and even make some good friends along the way.

Approaching shared ownership needn’t be daunting. There are different ways of owning a portion of a vessel. It’s a question of discovering the most suitable one for you, according to price and circumstance. The concept of fractional shared boat ownership goes back to merchant shipping during the industrial revolution, when up to 64 individual shares could be held by investors in a single ship as a means of spreading risk.

If you’ve ever bought a yacht, you’ll know that ownership is still expressed in fractions of 64 on the standard bill of sale. If you’re the only owner, you’ll own 64/64ths. The UK small ships register theoretically imposes no limit but shares in yachts are usually far fewer.

Fractional shared boat ownership

For Brits looking to own in the UK or in the Med, the personally managed syndicate model has been a popular choice. While these syndicates are agreements between private individuals, the company Yacht Fractions has been brokering syndicates for years, bringing potential new owners into new or existing syndicates, and
helping those syndicates buy and sell their shared boats.

Denis Lyons, owner of Buckinghamshire-based brokerage Yacht Fractions Limited, himself a fractional owner, says his business brings together buyers and sellers of yacht shares.

‘As a concept,’ he explains, ‘it’s where a number of people own a yacht together. The owners make decisions together on where the boat is to be, what maintenance or improvements are required and who sails the boat when; however, each individual owner has the right to sell their share at any time.’

Yacht Fractions claims to be the only business of its kind in the world. Most of the boats whose shares are dealt with are in the Ionian Sea (Corfu, Preveza, Lefkas) or the Solent. Most customers are British and either retired or self-employed.

Managed syndicates & clubs

Does the fractional scheme have serious advantages over other forms of sharing? ‘With yacht sharing clubs, there will typically be an annual fee and a fee whenever you use a boat. Quite often, this is not that much less expensive than chartering,’ says Denis Lyons.

A management company-run syndicate is the model for Ancasta Shared Ownership, FlexiSail and others. Customers can sign up to a subscription yachting service such as Pure Latitude or boatfolk’s Beyonder Boating (aimed at powerboaters), as they would a mobile phone contract.

‘There’s no joining fee,’ explains Beyonder’s Managing Director, Piers Covill. ‘We provide a fully maintained boat, take care of berthing insurance, and clean the boat. All the clients have to do is book and return it full of fuel. A bit like a hire car.’

Beyonder has a fleet of Merry Fisher 795s based at boatfolk’s UK marinas only (Haslar, Portland, Conwy). The service is targeted at newbies (Covill says more than half of clients have started boating from scratch.)

PB2 is a requirement, and subscribers are encouraged to get their VHF qualification as well. Covill feels that the service attracts a younger clientele who like to try different outdoor activities and see boating as one option in that wider field, including cycling and skiing.

In the spirit of a pathfinding business, Covill says: ‘If we lose clients – a number go on to buy boats – then our work is done’.

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Charter lease-back

How does fractional ownership compare with boat ownership through a charter company such as Sunsail? While you don’t necessarily get to use your specific boat until the scheme matures, in typically five years, owners have the right to use a host of other boats in the fleet during the scheme.

Sunsail’s well-established (its half-century is upon us) charter lease-back scheme will be very familiar to many Yachting Monthly readers. A yacht is purchased and then the owner receives charter income.

Owners – as Sunsail’s advertising proclaims – ‘enjoy up to 12 weeks of use… [at] various bases on sister yachts during this time… At the end of the five-six-year programme, you can either keep your boat, resell it through our Brokerage service, or trade in and start a new programme.’

Julian Adams, spokesperson for the Sunsail Yacht Ownership Programme, spells it out: ‘Essentially what we offer is additional charter usage without more cost. For the first couple of weeks a year – if you’re flexible – chartering works out.’ Adams says the programme suits owners who have more time available. ‘If you’re retired it really works…’

Sunsail’s uniform models are, Adams says, at the high-spec, premium end of the market.

Other models include Fairview Sailing’s ownership scheme, which gives you a big purchase price discount, eight weeks of usage a year and a fully maintained boat with everything, including berthing and insurance, paid for in the price, and some earnings too.

But for Yacht Fractions’ Denis Lyons, there are ways of getting more for your money. ‘You can get the amount of sailing you want for a fraction of the cost of chartering, and at the same time, you have an asset which can be sold when you want to change.’

Fractious meetings?

Consider then we’ve taken the plunge with Yacht Fractions. How do you confer with your fellow owners? Well, meetings can take any format and consensus decisions are the norm, although majority voting is not unheard of.

‘It’s up to [the owners]… however they want to do it,’ says Lyons. He’s owned fractions himself for 10 years. ‘It’s evolved because of Covid. Occasionally we have Zoom calls. We try to meet up annually for a proper annual general meeting. We have three WhatsApp groups; one is for informing the accountant when you’ve spent some money on the boat; another for maintenance issues, another for general chat.’

Coming to a decision is detailed in the syndicate agreement. ‘With five or six owners,’ Lyons concedes, ‘it’s hard to get unanimity. If there are only three owners, it does have to be unanimous.’

Questions such as sailing location and major capital expenditure have to be unanimous, he adds. After all, you’re committing people to spend money.

Unlike management company examples such as Ancasta Shared Ownership or FlexiSail, Yacht Fractions have no involvement in the running of the syndicate. They simply act as a broker to bring buyers and sellers together. ‘We leave it to them to manage their boats,’ says Lyons.

How is this different, then, from a ‘timeshare’ scheme? Well the fractional co-owners own the boat outright, with no involvement of any other party. Employing a management company – as would be the case in a timeshare – sometimes occurs with Yacht Fractions, but it’s rare.

Divvying up

Fractional ownership sounds like a lot of financial calculations involving the decision button. Making payments seems relatively simple. The Yacht Fractions administration is a model for syndicates they broker.

‘We have a client account,’ explains Lyons. ‘The buyer sends money to us. Then depending on the complexity of the transaction, when a signed document attesting ownership is sent to us, the money is received by us. We notify all parties of the completion, then send the proceeds, less our commission, to the seller.’

Within the running of syndicates, some have a specific boat account. ‘This deposit account might be in an accountant’s name,’ says Lyons. Everybody pays into this. In other syndicates, particularly small ones, money is collected and then paid out by an accountant. Most boats have a dedicated account.’

Too many cooks?

There’s no surprise that the minimum number of owners is two. This is a relatively popular choice for Yacht Fractions at least. ‘We have one boat on our books where a 50 per cent share is for sale at £1,500,’ says Lyons. ‘At the other end, we have [another] 50 per cent share for sale for £80,000.’

Typically, though, a Yacht Fractions-brokered boat based in the Ionian will have four or five owners. With a May-October season in Greece divided up among
them, with five owners, each would have approximately four weeks of that season to themselves.

‘It’s the sweet spot,’ says Lyons, of the four-to-five ratio. ‘There are shares with 12 or 10, but not much more than that… If you get more than five [owners] it becomes a bit more like a charter boat… There are a few that have 10 owners, giving each owner two to three weeks [of the Ionian season].’

Finding a good fit

‘It is not important to be best of friends,’ Yacht Fractions’ website declares, rather ‘good business colleagues’. How does Lyons look at priorities when fitting buyers to ownership groups? Would Yacht Fractions put a family with three kids (who might only want UK school holidays) with say, three retired couples? How do you make a good fit?

Lyons is sanguine: ‘Whilst we don’t try and act as match-makers, we do find out what a buyer’s requirements are in respect of size and age of boat, size of share to be bought and sailing location. One of the questions asked on our enquiry form is whether school holidays are needed… If the share that is being sold has a benefit where the other owners are happy for a new buyer to take school holidays, that is a selling point and will be highlighted in the listing.’

Syndicate agreement

With Sunsail, not being fractional, everybody has their own agreement and there’s no negotiating with other parties. With Yacht Fractions, the syndicate agreement is the crucial document which forms the basis for all further discussions.

‘As regards sales the syndicate agreement will require an owner who wants to sell, to offer the share to the other owners before advertising it publicly,’ explains Lyons.

‘The syndicate agreement template that we provide to new syndicates says that any unresolved dispute between owners should be taken to an independent arbitrator appointed by the RYA.’ This also covers maintenance.

‘Each syndicate runs itself independently and will have edited the template syndicate agreement to suit the way the owners want the syndicate to run, which will include maintenance. Some syndicates, like the one we are in ourselves, allow for owners to perform small items of maintenance, from servicing the heads to performing oil changes on the engine. Larger and more complex issues will normally be outsourced to a bigger yard.’

The scenario of one owner being dissatisfied with a repair commissioned by the previous fraction-holder is avoided with the syndicate taking up the issue directly with a repairer or boatyard. That is, disputes would be resolved syndicate vs boatyard as opposed to owner vs owner.

Choose your model

A 50-year track record, with 5,000 owners to date, represents an unarguably good credential for Sunsail. Their selling point is perhaps the variety on offer from different bases. Every single trip, a different adventure, they boast.

But perhaps the same could be said of a Pure Latitude club boat, or a Beyonder Merry Fisher on excursion from Haslar one day and Portland the next. And equally a syndicate share, say a managed one from FlexiSail, or a personally-managed Yacht Fractions one from Lefkada or Corfu. The Fairview model of no stress ownership also appeals.

There are certainly affordable options to help everyone have their time on the water.

Boat sharing options

Boat Buddys: www.boatbuddys.co.uk
Band of Boats: www.bandofboats.com
Boat Affair: www.boataffair.com
Boat Setter: www.boatsetter.com
Borrow a Boat: www.borrowaboat.com
Click and Boat: www.clickandboat.com
Get my Boat: www.getmyboat.com
Sailtime: www.sailtime.com

Boat club membership

Flexisail: www.flexisail.com
Solent and East coast UK-based, founded in 2004, offering ‘ownership without buying’

Pure Latitude: www.purelatitude.com
Annual membership with flexible bookings available in the Solent, Plymouth and Sardinia

Fariview Sailing: www.fairviewsailing.co.uk
Solent-based partners with Dream Yacht Charter to give access to 1,000+ charter boats for a monthly fee (£495)

Employee sailing clubs

John Lewis Partnership Sailing Club: www.facebook.com/groups/JLPSC

Civil Service Sailing Association: www.cs-sailing.org.uk

Metropolitan Police Sailing Club: www.mpsc.london

Lloyds Yacht Club: www.lloydsyachtclub.com

Royal Navy Sailing Association: www.rnsa.org.uk

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