Sailboat Chartering in Southern California
In the last few posts I’ve been talking about trying to find someone to rent a boat from in the SoCal area. I have gotten a couple of responses but nothing that really works for my schedule. People are concerned with renting to a stranger for insurance reasons and many others. So a couple of weeks ago I decided to look into joining a club just to see what the cost will be. Being ASA certified made it pretty easy as pretty much all chartering companies will required you to go through the process at an additional cost if you are not already. There are a number of companies in the Long Beach area but the one I decided to join is one called Marina Sailing.
Marina sailing is less like a club and more like a charter company. There are 6 locations all up and down the coast from Oxnard down to San Diego. There are over 20 additional sister companies that offer reciprocal memberships across the country which makes it even nicer. Most if not all of their boats are owned by individuals who chose to place their vessel with them to reduce the cost of ownership. It’s a pretty standard practice with chartering companies who do not wish to own their fleet so they can bring new boats into service without breaking their bank.
The upfront fee for becoming a member is 295 bucks plus a refundable $100 deposit. Monthly fees are 29 bucks and you pay for 3 months in advance. So that’s almost 500 bucks to get in before you even set foot on any of their boats. On the other hand, it is much cheaper when compared to owning your own yacht. Especially if you don’t go out every weekend.
Their fleet range anywhere from 25 ft all the way up to 50+ foot sailboats. Between all the locations I think there is only 1 powerboat but it might be an area they are trying to grow into. Daily rentals are from 8am to 8am with prices ranging from 150 bucks all the way up to 600 bucks a day for the big ones. During the week they will allow people to take the boat out for half or quarter days at pretty reasonable rates. Being in Ventura, I can take a boat out in the summer time after work out of the Channel Islands Harbor location and come back before sunset for a nice little BBQ on the boat before heading home.
I just joined last weekend and hopefully will get a chance to take one of the yachts out in the next couple of weeks to see how the processes works. Booking is done via a Web scheduling tool. Although not very aesthetically pleasing, it seems to be functional. If anyone in the Ventura/Oxnard area is interested in splitting the charter fee to go sailing just shoot me an email. I’m looking forward to getting out on the water this spring…