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Entitlement Time
Entitlement time proportional to ownership share
For the scheme to work, it is critical to develop an equitable system for setting out who has exclusive use of our Suitable Yacht, how often, for how long, and at what times of the year.
In principle, a good way to organize how the yacht is available to partners should be related to the proportion invested into the yacht ownership. The bigger their contribution towards the initial outlay, the greater should be their share of yacht use. Let's call this their 'Entitlement Time'.
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In practice, some other factors will need to be taken into account. For example, the number of weeks the yacht is 'in commission' - in other words, in the water and available for use - in comparison to the number of weeks the yacht is ashore for winter maintenance.
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A workable solution is to divide the calendar year into segments:
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The sailing season - principally the warmer months from mid Spring until mid Autumn;
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Winter maintenance time;
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The 'shoulder' periods, at either end of the sailing season, both before lifting our yacht out of the water for winter maintenance, and directly after re-launching but before the sailing season commences.
So how to divide entitlement time? It seems fair to take the winter weeks out of the equation. Clearly the sailing season will be the most popular period to divide out. Which leaves the shoulder seasons, possibly to share out on a simple, first-come, first-served basis but still in proportion to a partner's share of the yacht.
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But all of this is open to negotiation, and previous experience in yacht partnership showed that retaining flexibility about who is on board, when, serves to keep the partnership on an amicable footing. It'a all about a little 'give and take', and a partner who perhaps doesn't get their best option weeks one year, will obviously be due for compensatory consideration the next.
A proposed working model
How could the Entitlement Time model work throughout a calendar year?
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Here is one possible solution:
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Weeks afloat = 40; divided into a 32-week sailing season with 8 shoulder weeks, likely to be divided equally on either side of the sailing season;
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Weeks ashore = 12; for maintenance and upgrades.
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So for a partner who invests a 25% share in our yacht, their Entitlement Time to exclusive use of our yacht would be 8 weeks in the sailing season with two additional weeks in shoulder period.
Entitlement Time would not include any of the weeks ashore, as these would generally be 'remote' maintenance periods where we would engage boatyard staff to carry out necessary work. Some partners may be keen to be involved however, and spend some winter time at the yacht helping out, or even undertaking some of the minor tasks. It seems fair that this is unaccountable time rather than counts as part of Entitlement Time.
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We would have to work out an equitable way for deciding how sailing weeks and shoulder weeks are assigned to partners in the calendar, but previous experience of a yacht partnership scheme has shown that reasonable negotiation, which includes some compromises from time to time, generally leads to everyone getting good use of the yacht at the times of the year that suits them. We could vary this from year to year and decide the best solution for the following year at the annual owners' meeting.
