A few tips from the pre-UM days when we had 1/5 of a boat. 1) Decide how to fund the variable costs - we operated on the base of 2 streams of income paying X per night of use and Y per hour of engine time. This worked very well though I can't remember the values of X & Y but something like £5 per night and £2 per hour would seem about right. Fuel and gas reimbursed from central funds.
2) Keep a comprehensive log on board - ours worked really well and all shareholders could review and audit what was happening 3) Think very carefully about keeping on board domestic kit down to the real essentials or the boat will become very cluttered very quickly. Each owner needs to keep a couple of big plastic boxes of their own preferences which can be quickly and easily installed and removed. I was chastised because I chose to leave another shareholder's onboard roof garden behind at the marina rather than tend to it during my 2 weeks holiday. 4) Consider the changeover time carefully. Our group operated on a mid- day Saturday start which we didn't actually appreciate. To get better use of our 10 weeks availability we would have preferred Friday so we could have slotted in several long weekends. A Saturday start required us to book out a 2 week slot to get the middle weekend afloat. It's going to be interesting seeing how "private share" activity evolves. Anything which torpedos the half baked quasi-economic idealism being trotted out from certain quarters is worthy of support. Beeky
