BLUEMOMENT

Hi Everyone,

My husband and I work for a Christian Charity which runs gap year training courses for young people wanting to be involved with christian work overseas. We have been working with this charity on a 42 metre sailing ketch in the med for the last two years but recently left to run a similar course shorebased. We absolutely love sailing and have seen the benefits it creates with leadership development and teambuilding and we are wanting to incorporate it into our teaching weeks.

We live near Brighton, UK and have been trying to find boats to charter/borrow for a while. Would anyone be interested in either letting us charter you boat or maybe even investing a couple of days to a group of young international students.

My husband has his coastal skipper RYA qualification (commercially endorsed) and has also been going weekly to race with Brighton Yacht club on a Sunday morning. More information about our organisation can be found at http://www.ywamholmsted.org/

We only have between £500 - £600 per week for 12 to 15 people. Please let us know if your interested.

Thanks,
Rebecca

I'm not sure how much you are aware, but boats for charter have to be "coded", ie they must meet certain standards & carry certain equipment. This is not cheap & few leisure sailors bother to meet the requirements. In effect it means that casual chartering is no longer practical & only commercial charters are likely to be available.

However, it is possible that someone may have a coded boat & be able to organise suitable insurance, but it is no longer a simple matter. Good Luck with your request.

Thanks for the reply. That's very helpful to know and explains a bit more why we are finding it difficult.

You could try contacting commercial charterers (and some are private individuals using their own boat part-time to cover costs) it's just possible someone will give you a discount on an unlet week, or short notice cancellations. Of course that will create problems with your clients' availability in turn!

You could also circulate local churches to see if anyone will help you out if you fund the cost of coding their boat for "passengers".
Good luck