I would think dealing with a charter boat owned by 5 different individuals would be very problematic. Since few charter boats are profitable without figuring several weeks a year of the $ the owner would be spending on chartering the boat. This “phantom “ income of say sailing for 4 weeks to be worth let’s say 35,000$, makes the losses over the life of ownership much more likely to be “worth it”. Coupled with income minus expenses the rest of the year for some this is an appealing situation.

What you are talking about is quite different indeed. If all 5 parties use the boat 4 weeks a year...you are not going to have much charter income. A reputable charter company is now t likely goin towant to get involved and if they do I’d expect they would charge a premium over a single owner vessel. Generally speaking maintenance and turnaround fees in an income split charter arrangements are quite high. For example let’s say the turnaround fee is 1000$ . That’s not so bad if the charter is going out and you are getting 6000 from a charter. But let’s say you have 10 owners trips of two weeks each year, that will be 10 k in turnaround fees with no income to offset. With 5 Owners it is likely they will all want to use the boat at least a couple weeks during “high season.

There is no way in he** such an adventure will be viewed as active participation by the irs.

Finding 5 “partners” that will be wanting to do this will by necessity mean you will know little about their seamanship or how careful they are with “nice things” . Of course that is true of charter guests as well. One person would have to be the managing partner and liaison with the charter co... it will be a thankless job and likely to be disliked by other members and the charter co.

Probably a better idea with 5 interests is forget chartering and purchase a private vessel for the use of the 5 interests. .Good luck.