Have you ever thought about joining a boat share?

Consider how expensive owning, or ‘keeping’ a boat in the UK might really be, and all the work that goes into buying a secondhand boat.

On average, maintenance and running costs will set you back somewhere between 5% and 20% of what you paid for your vessel. Annually.

And in case you’re feeling smug about your ‘free’ boat – anything below £10,000 still costs between £500 and £2,000 per year.

So at what point does the boat share concept start to make sense?

I spoke with some of the key players in the boat-share-club business to find out.

Sail or power?

The majority of boat clubs are powerboat only, or heavily skewed towards offering powerboat options.

This is simply a reflection of the marine industry overall – there are five or 10 powerboats for every yacht on the water.

So what’s on offer for those who appreciate wind-assisted boating?

Fairview Boat Club, Port Hamble Marina

Fairview Boat Club is an offshoot of Fairview Sailing, a charter company and sailing school based at Port Hamble Marina.

Club members pay a flat monthly fee that converts into points for spending on preferential charter rates. There are no joining fees or other hidden costs.

The fleet has between five and 20 years old and consists of 18 identical Oceanis 37 yachts, four identical Beneteau First 40s, eight other Dufour, Bavaria and Beneteau yachts and a 7m RIB.

That’s a lot of boats of a particular type – family cruisers that can sleep six or more – but even so, there will be times when availability is limited at the highest of high seasons.

As a ‘walk-up’ charterer (a non-boat-club member), an Oceanis 37 in May–September costs £1,869 for a weekend or for up to five days mid-week.

Club members get 20% off (£373) advanced bookings, 30% (£560) off 7 days’ notice and 40% (£747) off 48 hours’ notice.

The boat club annual membership, which costs just under £6,000 per year, will therefore cover four high-season weekends (£1,500 each) booked in advance, or two weekends and a full week’s charter. Or almost six weekends’ worth of last-minute bookings.

And if you want to get the absolute most time on the water, low season weekends booked last-minute come in at about £720.

Members can top up their points on demand, says Prue Nash, a former yacht broker who has been working at Fairview for over 10 years.

“I’ve got people who happily pay monthly, they obviously enjoy it, they’ve been coming for years and years, and they just seem to use it the right amount so that they rarely top up.

And I’ve got another group that sits down as a family and absolutely plan their sailing and they get down to their last 100 points and they top up, having made the most of their sailing over the summer. Other people are much more relaxed and just come along when they want to.”

This amount of financial commitment is not for the faint-hearted, but the key baseline fact to keep in mind is that you are sailing from Port Hamble Marina, owned by MDL, where the annual berth for this 12m yacht will set you back over £12,000.

If you were to spend £12,000 annually on sailing with Fairview, you could book in advance to sail every weekend of the summer holidays and probably a full fortnight as well, without having to mend a single item or worry about replacing any worn-out gear.

FlexiSail: Cost effective boat shares

I spoke to another company’s director, Andrew Adams, who runs FlexiSail out of Hamble Point Marina, who was also quick to make comparisons with South Coast marina pricing.

“For a lot of members, the monthly cost in total is the same as what they used to pay in marina fees alone,” he said.

Owned by a powerboat brokerage at Hamble Point, its nine-boat fleet – five sail and four power – is expanding over this winter with a further six new boats.

In complete contrast to Fairview, each FlexiSail member joins a single boat and signs up to weekday-only, weekend-only or anytime access packages, guaranteeing between 30 and 66 days per year.

Each boat has between five and seven members only.

The mechanics are complicated, but the app makes it easy for members to book up to 21 of their days in advance.

The year is divided into two-month sessions with each boat’s members limited to a maximum of two weekend days and four mid-week days in each session. There are also last-minute bookable days per session.

When you do the sums, it guarantees your time will be available, but not necessarily on the weekends or weekdays you actually want.

The website details numerous ways to flex, swap, combine and maximise your time and the owner-member packages look to be extremely attractive for those with the money to put down up front.

Some of the fleet are owner members’ boats, which means the owner is paid an annual return based on the fees generated for the company by their boat.

But, in addition to that return, Adams points out that the owner pays no fees, maintenance or insurance for their boat.

Pure Latitude: Powerboat & Sailing

One further example of power and sail boat clubbing is Pure Latitude, which has two main bases: Port Hamble and Lymington, with smaller bases in Windsor and Plymouth.

The fee starts at £200 per month for the use of three boats, or up to £300 per month for the ‘Freedom’ package which allows access to 12 boats.

Members also need to purchase points, which are spent to purchase days on the water.

There is a minimum purchase of 500 points (£5,000), which typically provides 15-20 days on the water, to be taken whenever you wish.

Powerboat only boat share options

Freedom: Good for international travel

Freedom is a US boat club that has franchised into Europe, which means all its UK membership programs include four bookings at each of the company’s other bases.

The payment model is to charge a large one-off joining fee of £3,000, then a choice of monthly membership rates from £350 to £550 depending on whether you want weekday or weekend access.

Usage of the boats is unlimited for members, but limited to four bookings on the system at any one time, and the privilege extends to a single ‘family’ member as well (you don’t have to be related).

The lead member doesn’t have to be present when the second member takes a boat, although you cannot take two boats at the same time on a single membership.

This is effectively a license to share memberships, which would certainly help keep costs down.

There is also the option to commit to a much shorter contract than most companies offer: the ‘Full Flexi’ membership is a minimum of two months at £550/month.

The same £3,000 joining fee applies, but you aren’t tied into a full 12 payments.

Agapi Boat Club: Another international boat share option

Not dissimilar to Freedom Boat Club, Agapi has bases around the world and offers members the opportunity to use their privileges in some exotic locations.

From a promised new base in Patagonia to Toronto, the whole of the Americas is covered with two Caribbean bases, Cancun, Miami, The Hamptons and Newport; plus there are 10 bases in the Med, two in the Baltic, two in the UK and one in Amsterdam.

The fleet is dominated by Axopar models, but at Swanwick Marina’s base, on the Hamble River, an annual fee of £5,000 gets you unlimited use of the Ring 680 RIB with its Yamaha 150 4-stroke (this is the single Category A boat).

In Jersey, the lowest annual fee is €8,000 for unlimited access to an Axopar 22 T-Top.

Note that unlimited means you can book two days at a time only… but once those days have been used, you can book more. There is also a pay-as-you-go option with a joining fee.

The price per day varies by location, boat and time of year, but applies to unlimited members wishing to use boats outside their home base.

Christchurch: Cruise closer to home

Established in 2024 and sponsored by Bailey Bridge Marina and River Shack boat sales and chandlery, Christchurch Boat Club simply advertises its two levels of membership as single annual payments, which start at bronze level: £4,400 and go up to silver: £5,600. Gold level opens in 2026.

Bailey Bridge is Christchurch’s newest marina and boats are kept in a drystack system.

There are currently just two boats in each membership level. Waterskiing and wakeboarding require extra insurance and training, and there is no membership sharing.

Each boat is shared by a maximum of five members, and each member can book a total of two weekdays and one weekend day on the system at a time to avoid block bookings.

New Wave Boat Club

Based in Poole Harbour since 2009 and more recently at Torquay Marina, New Wave offers personal watercraft memberships as well as boat memberships.

Boats in the gold membership fleet include Beneteau Antares 7, Brig Eagle 6.7, Ribeye 785, Corsiva 595, which will cost £1,200 up front and £595 per month ongoing.

The next step up is platinum: £2,500 up front and £795 per month ongoing to have access to an Axopar 28 Cabin as well as the boats already mentioned.

Owner members are welcome as long as their boat is less than two years old with at least two years left on the warranty.

Trafalgar Boat Club

The Trafalgar Group is a drystack business and boat maintenance yard located at the north end of Portsmouth Harbour, near Portchester Castle.

The company also runs marinas, boat-sales businesses and a powerboat training centre.

The boat club has been running for nearly 10 years and now comprises three levels of membership: bronze gets you access to three boats for £480/month.

You can use any day of the week, but no overnights and no watersports allowed.

The next band up is gold (£629/month), which gives you access to four boats and permits watersports, and the final band is platinum (£750/month), which is eight boats, overnights and watersports.

All members are confined to the Solent with extra training offered to those wanting to venture into Langstone Harbour or Chichester Harbour.

All memberships include weekday and weekend access, induction and RYA Powerboat Level 2 training.

The boats are all powerboats: four RIBs and four fast powerboats including a Finnmaster T7.

Fractional shared boat ownership

Owning a fraction of a boat or buying a boat with ‘sharing’ it in mind can save you the full cost of maintenance and mooring in return for dividing the boat’s time on the water with other co-owners.

Yacht Fractions Limited is a brokerage based in Buckinghamshire devoted to buyers and sellers of halves, quarters, eighths of boats all over the world.

Managing the resulting syndicate is entirely the responsibility of the owners, but there is plenty of support and advice available on the topic.

Charter lease-back schemes run by Dream and Sunsail require significant investment up front in return for up to five years of ‘free’ chartering (conditions apply) and the chance to sell the boat at the end of its chartering life, or to take ownership.

Boat share schemes at a glance

Further boat share options:

• Boat Buddys: www.boatbuddys.co.uk
• Boat Setter: www.boatsetter.com
• Sailtime: www.sailtime.com

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