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Charter your private yacht
by Tony King
How
to charter your
private fully crewed boat or yacht
Many people ask
how to put their private boats into charter. First, to tell them is,
that chartering is not a get-rich-quick scheme, especially in
today's environment of astronomical insurance rates, fuel prices,
etc., but is useful either to defray the costs of boat ownership or
to finance a healthy, outdoors lifestyle. There are worse ways to
earn a living, let's face it.
Fitting out for
charter
The first thing you need to address is the boat. Fitting it out for
charter is important, ensuring you have all the required safety and
emergency equipment, changing furniture, coverings and carpets with
heavy duty and hopefully water-resistant materials and basically
making sure that everything works and has a back-up. Then the legal
aspects; your own or your captain's credentials have to be
addressed: to charter in US waters, the captain will need a USCG (www.uscg.mil/USCG.shtm)
100 ton master's license (with appropriate endorsements for
sailing if it's a sailing boat, as well as the more recent
requirement of an international STCW certificate (www.stcw.org)
which is a "hands-on" safety and emergency equipment
certification. In non-US waters, an MCA (UK) (www.mcga.gov.uk/c4mca/mcga-home)
captain's certification is an excellent substitute.
The vessel itself,
depending on the flag, will have to be legally documented to
charter. Especially if it's a US flagged vessel and the hull is
built in the US, it will need Coastwise and Registry endorsements on
the USCG documentation. Charter insurance, as opposed to
recreational insurance is also a must, is more difficult to obtain
and is more expensive. Non-US built vessels may apply to MARAD (www.marad.dot.gov/)
for a waiver that enables them to charter in US waters.
Charter
management, promotion and marketing
Next
on the list is to look for a Clearing House or a Management Company
that will accept your boat, these terms can be synonymous but there
are some differences. For examples of professional Clearing Houses
and Management Companies, please visit www.yachtcollection.com
; www.flagshipvi.com
. A Clearing House basically holds the boat's calendar, lists your
boat on its website as well as on recognized industry databases,
distributes hard copy brochures, and generally acts as a secretarial
service while your boat is out on charter. A Management Company
performs all the above and additionally may offer promotional and
marketing services, manage your boat, perform maintenance, hire a
crew on your behalf, provision for charter, and many other functions
not offered or performed by Clearing Houses. You can expect to pay a
monthly fee and/or a % of the value of the charter to the Clearing
House.
Your own
charter boat web page
You should then create two web-sites for your boat.
Both sites can be identical and provide nice pictures of
people having a great time on your boat, menu selections,
testimonials, packages, special offers and a very basic spec sheet.
The nicer the pictures, the more chance you have of getting
customers. The difference between the two sites is that one will
have your contact information and the other will be anonymous or
"broker-friendly". This
broker-friendly site is important so that yacht charter brokers can
point their customers to your boat web-site without the fear of you
"stealing" their customer. Brokers have a reputation, not
entirely undeserved, of being somewhat paranoid anyway. More on this
later.
If your boat is
pretty large, you may wish to take the additional step of creating a
hard-copy full color brochure. This is usually a pretty expensive
undertaking and can only be justified if you are seriously planning
to charter more than 20 weeks a year or if you own a particularly
luxurious vessel. Hard-copy brochures are a must for Mega-Yachts but
are slowly giving way to the ubiquitous and easier to manage
electronic or e-brochures.
OK, let's stop
for a minute to breathe. Take a step back….. Where are your
charter customers going to actually come from?
They will come from the following sources:
- From Charter
Brokers.
- From your own
advertising and promotional efforts.
- From your
website.
- From existing
and satisfied repeat customers.
Let's talk about
charter brokers for a minute. This is the next link in the marketing
chain. Charter Brokers are like a cross between travel agents and
mortgage brokers. There are probably 400 to 600 active brokers worldwide. They
have their own marketing networks, do their own advertising, for
example on Yacht World, (www.yachtworld.com),
have existing customers that trust them, have access to all major
databases and clearing houses and management companies. When a
broker gets an inquiry, he or she will either go to an industry
database, like Nemesis Marketing, (www.centralyachtagent.com) or
Charter Index, (www.charterindex.com)
or MYBA (www.mybamembers.com)
, or, they may go directly to a Clearing House or Management Company
if they have an immediate idea of what boat would be suitable.
You may note that
the Broker nearly always goes to the Clearing House or Management
Company, and rarely to the boat directly until the later stages.
This is because the Clearing Houses carry the boats calendars and
have the availability at their fingertips. Brokers don't like to
spend time and money calling a dozen boats, most of which are out on
charter anyway.
You will pay the
broker 15% to 20% sales commission depending on the circumstances so
you must price your charters accordingly - look at your
competition and also bear in mind that there are brokerage fees and
clearing house expenses to pay. Clearly, if you don't use a
broker, you "save" 15 to 20% so you should maximize the number
of direct charters to try and get a nice "mix" that will fit
your particular charter business.
Many people ask us
how many charters to expect each year. As with all businesses, there
is a ramp-up. The first year you can possibly expect 5 to 6
charters. The second year, perhaps 10 to 12, and after a few years,
when your boat and crew are well known to the brokerage community
and you have a number of repeat customers, you can achieve up to,
perhaps between 25 and 30 charters a year. This is very exhausting
however and many boats prefer to remain at the 20 to 25 level.
All the above will
appear to be very daunting, but it pays to keep everything straight
and once you have hooked up with a good Clearing House or Management
Company you'll find them to
be an excellent source of advise.
About the Author:
Tony King offers readers the opportunity to read more articles on
Yachting Sailing Boating at http://www.boatmiami.com/resources/articlesindex.htm
or for further information and resources to visit http://www.boatmiami.com
, www.boatbvi.com
Source: www.boatmiami.com
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