Is anyone involved in the moorings "yacht ownership"? We have been looking in to the program but it seems to good to be true! Any feedback would be greatly appreciated;)

Welcome, Boatwidow! As most will comment, the decision to enter a charter program is not generally a good or bad idea. It's a personal one. It will help the group to better understand why you think it's a great idea and too good to be true. How much time per year will you spend sailing? What are your longer term sailing plans 3-4+ years down the line. Why are you excited about the idea? Again welcome to TTOL!

Certainly worth comparing the Moorings program with other programs... especially if your preference is sailing in the BVI, as opposed to other locations. Small outfits, local to the BVI, give more personal service!

I am a Moorings owner. There is an active Moorings owner group on Yahoo that you can asked to join. You can read about the experiences of real owners. Although, I am not sure they will allow a non-owner to join. In addition, you should also read the postings on the cruisersforum.com (use the search function on the site before asking any questions)

TrackingAg's response is accurate. you have to do the math to look at it purely from a financial point of view. Then look at it from a personal point of view. Keep in mind two thoughts: A) nothing in business is ever "too good to be true". You are missing something. B) Why doesn't Tui/Moorings finance the boats themselves?

Take your time. They are always looking for new owners. I suspect the further you get from a boat show event the better the prices get. Last year, I was offered the lowest price (that I saw) during the summertime. It was lower than any "boat-show special".

Most people determine it is a fair deal if you can really use all of your owners time. If you can only take 3 weeks of sailing vacations a year - then it doesn't make sense. The real benefit of Moorings over smaller outfits is the ability to user your owners time all over the world. Last year I used my time in the BVI, Croatia, and French Polynesia. I sailed about 7 weeks in total.

After the charter program you're stuck with the boat and it still owes about half the purchase price.
If you plan on doing a lot of sailing you might be better off purchasing a charter boat that just finished its 4 or 5 year program and you have a choice of dozens of different boats to choose from.

Mike Beswick might chime in here..he is the one person I know who really planned everything out and it worked perfectly. He bought a new Privelege 435 cat..sailed it to the BVI's..put it in charter with TMM for five years..Capt chartered it with his lovely wife Jean for two years..sailed it around the world..sailed it all the way up the east coast and sold it in St Augustine for the right price after having ten years of amazing sailing adventures ..and taking some of us lucky ones along!

My favorite quote is. "putting a boat in bareboat charter is the cheapest way to tell your friends you have a boat in the islands". It is really hard to consistently make any money or wealth on hobbies. If the finance numbers where in any way compelling the commercial banks and bond markets would finance the industry. Those numbers do not add up for those that do finance for a profession. The charter boat operators rely on the cash, credit, and sometimes tax benefits of individual families to finance the corporate business of renting boats.

B) Why doesn't Tui/Moorings finance the boats themselves?

because boats lose value every year. A better question is why doesn't Moorings buy their own boats. Because buying a boat is a losing proposition. Think about how much is it going to cost a year, not how much you are going to make. After your first 5 years, you could be in big poopy, unless you put down a significant deposit.

and that significant deposit can be severely impaired after consider the end market value of the boat and the commission to sell the boat.

When we looked at Mooring, the thing we liked least was, for the first 5 years it is not your boat. You can not store personal items. The alleged 12 week usage is more like 3 or 4 weeks unless your chartering in hurricane season, as they are units of vacation, not weeks.

Very True. Some owners rent storage space on the island. We just haul a couple of big bags since it doesn't cost us anything. The owner's time is allocated in "points". In high-season a day is two points (Dec 15 - April 15 in BVIs). We prefer the shoulder seasons since the sailing areas are less crowded. So we didn't mind using "less expensive" time.

One of the items that is often overlooked in discussing the Moorings program is the phaseout process. Included in the contract is an agreement to repair or replace any broken or damaged items at the end of the contract. You hire your own surveyor to generate the list of items to be repaired. This generally ensures you have a boat in decent condition after the 5 years is up. This doesn't make your boat brand new or take the hours off your engines. But it helps fix it up. Of course a big down-side of owning any charter boat is the negligence and poor seamanship of the charter crews. Several Mooring boats are run aground every year.

Do you know where they find on island storage space?

Hey Snowdog - Any chance I could get an invite to that Moorings owners group? My husband and I have discussed owning a boat through the Moorings program and I'd love to hear what it's like from those that have.

Thanks,
Kryssa
email - blake at ods dot org

If anyone buys in with the Moorings put me down as a reference.. I could use another check or two for 1% of your purchase price
Owning with the Moorings is different for everyone I suppose, some get in the program and have some complaints, and others are on their 3rd go around and happy as a lark.

Here's a thought. And just another thought to consider.

Think about buying your own boat...maybe even a boat just out of charter, that's perhaps five years old. You will pay about 1/3 of the cost new, and you will definitely be in the driver's seat at purchase time. There are a gazillion boats coming out of charter each year, with one owner more panicked than the next.

Pay cash. Keep the boat at a modest marina in the BVI. If you can sail her 12 weeks or more a year, you will definitely be ahead of a charter contract after five years.

And you don't have to worry about finding a stranger's toenail clippings in the salon.

If you could find me a nice catamaran 5 years old for 1/3 the price of new.. I'm all in. Are you sure you didn't mean closer to 2/3 the price?

Nuhuh. Do a little negotiating.

You have to ask the group moderator on Yahoo. I have nothing to do with granting access.

Been a sunsail/moorings owner for about 5 years now. One thing I have learned is that when this question is asked, the opinions are all over the place. Best advice I can give you is that you need to figure out what you are looking to get out of the program and see that your expectations match reality. As far as that is concerned, the Moorings will give you the straight details with one possible exception - the final value of the boat - that's a big variable. And unless they are willing to guarantee buying it back at a specific number, I'd plan on it being less then you own - at least if you go by their numbers.

Best advice I can give is to go with as short a mortgage as possible, largest down payment possible or pay extra on every payment, or if possible, all of the above

Big plus for us was that we rarely used our boat or exact sister boat - we primarily upgraded to catamarans (we own a monohull) so we got great value out of it.

As far as the 12 weeks - they are in points. You use double the points in the high season, so it can be less then 12 weeks. Moorings can provide you all the info on this though as well as upgrades..etc.

Write out a comparison between different types of ownership programs. Pros and cons. Also include a column for chartering with you low/ high usage. Then if you want to proceed, enjoy. If not, you are probably doing the right thing financially. But all decisions are not made with financial sense alone.

Be interesting to see where prices are for boats coming out of charter in the next 18-48 months.
Was on island for the month of February and there was no shortage of boats out on charter. Drove by the Moorings several times and was stunned by the number of boats they had sitting there. It was pretty obvious there is an overabundance of boats.

There are lots of opportunities to by boats out of the charter fleets for less than elsewhere. I'm seeing phased out Moorings boats on YachtWorld in Annapolis for about what they get listed in the BVIs. They don't turn over rapidly, but they are listed for a good bit less than a non-charter boat. The Moorings boats are built to their spec to be less expensive than the standard production boats. You need to check the details to understand what you're buying with your particular model.

The Moorings phaseout process has a good reputation. They fixed all the items that our previous owner pointed out in their survey, including some that were relatively minor. A year later, we found major items in our survey that the previous owner paid to have repaired, including new spars. A year and half into our ownership, we replaced a transmission with 3500 hours after multiple repairs due to charter abuse.

Cheers, RickG

I think people overlook a very important point. To make this work you are committing all your vacations for the next 5 years (or more) to this boat. Said another way, you are pre-paying for your vacations for the next 5 years whether you go on them or not. My $0.02 - You have to be really solid with this concept to go any further.

You should consider your health in this decision, and the health of your significant other, or whoever else you are counting on to join your adventures.

If you or spouse hurts their back shoveling snow and you can't sail for an entire year (or ever again), how's that gonna work out for you?

We have been happy chartering 10-14 days a year for the last 32 years. We love it. We have skipped lean years when kids were in college. Now we could even see going to 30 days a year. That's what I consider as roughly the break even point for the rent/buy decision.

So the trade-off for us at 30 charter days a year is balancing flexibility of lifestyle, risk of not being able to use the boat (i.e. paying for a vacation I can't take), and the opportunity cost of tying up the money. Remember that as part of this equation you need to add travel costs getting to your boat: hotels, rental cars, flights, taxis, airport parking fees, etc.

Your risk aversion factors in. I'm personally risk-adverse, and having a nest-egg in the bank to cover an unforseen crisis helps me sleep better at night. Others may not have this issue, or have more 'disposable' capital so their risk is covered.

Finally... there's an intangible that is hard (impossible?) to quantify. Owning a boat in the Caribbean may well mean a lot to you. It can generate a sense of pride. A sense of commitment and belonging to a place you love. That may be worth factoring into the equation somehow. It's a person choice and only you can answer that question.

So far we've been very happy to charter every year, and keep our money in the bank where it has grown and helps pay for our next charter. Perhaps when I finally retire this balance will change.

Twanger: nice way to sum it up.