Having recently returned from a last minute owner use sailing holiday in Tahiti, I wanted to take a moment and share some more details on why we invested in purchasing our boat with Dream Yacht Charter, and the benefits of owning a boat that is managed by a charter company. For us, it was all about the owner use time and the ability to sail for 6-8 weeks each year with our friends and family. Two of those weeks are "last minute" and can only be booked 10 days prior to chartering. It certainly involves some planning, but using the weeks has never been a challenge for us, and we prioritize our sailing time each year to ensure we maximize our low season weeks and get the most sailing time we can. We believe the true value in this investment is our ability to actually use the majority of our owner time weeks, and to be flexible enough to take advantage of low season bookings to extend our owner time. If you are not able to take 6-8 weeks off each year to sail, than investing in a boat that is in charter for five years does not have that added value for you.
We haven't been able to utilize the last min weeks every year, but we did this year and took a last min two week trip to Tahiti. For us, it is a simple five hour flight from Hawaii and probably the closest DYC base to our home. For others, this is probably a bit exotic and far from home. However, we were able to make it work and enjoyed a bonus sailing holiday! Honestly, having those two weeks aboard this Christmas was exactly what our family needed. It is amazing how recharged you can become even after two weeks aboard. With limited wifi and idyllic, uncrowded anchorages, the Society Islands are the perfect place to disconnect and unplug. Usually we have to wait a whole year to get aboard again, but this little getaway is certainly going to make the next four months pass by much more quickly.
We have also used last min weeks in Croatia. We had flights booked in advance, but there are so many bases and boats we knew we would have at least one for our weeks. Greece is also similar in the sheer volume of available bases and boats in the DYC fleet with over 100 yachts. If you are trying to use last min weeks in more remote or smaller bases, it may be more challenging to find the boat that you want last min as the number of yachts and availability are more limited.
For me, making the most of this investment means using as many of our allotted weeks each year as we can. I book our weeks usually a year in advance to ensure we get the boat we desire and the dates locked in. If you want to own a yacht and go sailing without all the hassle of actually maintaining it yourself, than I highly suggest looking into the various owner programs DYC offers. It is definitely one of the best decisions we have made for our family! In the three years we have owned so far we have been to six different bases and will be sailing in Thailand and the Seychelles this summer. The ability to take out yachts all over the world and not have to actually traverse oceans in your own boat to sail there is so unique to this form of yacht ownership. For anyone seeking more sailing in their lives and a solid investment, look no further than the countless destinations on the Dream Yacht Charter website and start day dreaming of where you will sail on your DYC yacht.