The budget that buys a modest boat outright buys a share of a considerably better one. The interesting part is what happens to the other 51 weekends.
Every buyer starts in the same place: a number they are willing to spend, and a mental picture of a boat that costs rather more. Sole ownership resolves that by shrinking the picture. Syndication resolves it by dividing the number.
In the BSA fleet the entry point is around $19,500 for a 10 per cent share of a Garnet Offshore 270, and the top of the range is about $625,000 for 12.5 per cent of a Longreef 90SX. Between those sit the Rivieras, the Belize 52 and 54 Daybridges, the Sunseekers, the Schaefers and the rest. The point is not that a share is cheap. It is that the same capital lands you on a materially better boat than it would buy outright — one with a proper master cabin, a flybridge you would actually sit on, and the range to leave the harbour.
Be clear-eyed about the trade: you get more boat and less exclusivity. If having the boat to yourself every day of the year matters more than which boat it is, buy a smaller one outright and enjoy it.
The purchase price is a single event. The running cost is a subscription you did not realise you signed. Berth, insurance, scheduled servicing, antifouling and slipping, cleaning, safety gear that expires on a schedule, and management of all of it — that bill arrives whether the boat moved in the last twelve months or not.
In a syndicate it arrives once a year, as one levy, split between the owners. Berth, insurance, servicing, cleaning, antifoul and management all sit inside it. There is no phone call from a yard in October about a job you did not budget for, because the schedule and the money for it were agreed before the year started.
The honest flipside: that levy is payable whether you use your days or not. A share is not a pay-as-you-go arrangement, and if your genuine usage is three days a year you will do better chartering three days.
Every boat in the fleet has 33 professional maintenance days a year — servicing, cleaning, antifoul, the scheduled work that keeps a vessel presentable rather than merely floating. They are blocked out before day allocation runs, so they never collide with an owner's weekend.
This is where sole ownership quietly costs the most, and it is not measured in dollars. It is the Saturday you spent on the boat rather than on the water: chasing a slow bilge pump, waiting for a mechanic, scrubbing a waterline that grew a beard while you were busy at work. Owners who move from sole ownership to a share almost always mention this before they mention the money.
Do the exercise properly. Count the days you spent on the water in the last twelve months. Not the days you were free, or the days the weather was good — the days you actually went. For most working people with a family, the number is smaller than they expect and smaller than they would admit at a dinner party.
Once you have that number, a share stops looking like a compromise. BSA allocates days in four-month cycles: you rank the days you want before the cycle opens, the allocation engine balances everyone's preferences rather than handing the good weekends to whoever booked fastest, and your calendar for the next four months appears in the app. Bookings run one to five consecutive days, which is the shape a real trip takes — a Saturday, a long weekend, a week between Christmas and the new year. When plans change, you swap days with the other owners directly.
Four things, and they are worth naming before you sign rather than discovering in year two.
You cannot leave the boat set up as yours — no permanently installed gear, no fishing kit living in the lazarette all season. You cannot modify her: repowering, restyling and refits are collective decisions, not yours alone. You cannot take her away for six weeks in a row, because bookings run to five days. And you plan a season ahead rather than deciding on Thursday night, which suits people with calendars and frustrates people without them.
Swaps take the edge off the last one, but they do not eliminate it. If pure spontaneity is the thing you are buying, sole ownership of a small boat on a swing mooring near your house will beat a share of a 55-footer every time.
The pattern is consistent enough to state plainly.
Between four and eight, depending on the share sizes on that vessel. BSA shares are 10, 12.5 and 25 per cent, and the number of days allocated to you reflects the size of the share you hold, so a 25 per cent share carries a considerably larger allocation than a 10 per cent one.
The berth, insurance, servicing, cleaning, antifoul and management — one payment a year rather than a stream of invoices. Ask what sits outside it, typically fuel you burn and crew you book, so you can budget the whole picture. Note that it is payable whether or not you use your days.
No. The 33 professional maintenance days on each boat are scheduled before allocation runs, so they are never taken from an owner. It is also why the boat you step onto in April looks like the one you left in October.
Not in one booking. Bookings run one to five consecutive days, which covers a weekend or a week broken into blocks. Most owners use their days as single days and weekends spread across the year. If long continuous cruising is your main plan, a share is the wrong structure for you.