One of the more challenging aspects of pioneering a new way of doing something is to be able to define it and differentiate it from everything else in the marketplace. The danger, in so doing, is that people tend to get the wrong idea. When SailTime emerged, the logical misconception was that it must be some sort of sailing time share. While members of a SailTime boat do in fact share all the sailing time available on the boat, the relationship is not a timeshare in the sense of partial ownership of the boat. There is only one owner of each boat. SailTime decided to stake its definition in the market as Fractional Sailing. However, it doesnt necessarily get us out of the woods. After all, there already is fractional ownership (dressed up term for timeshare in its own right) of jets and yachts and certainly luxury vacation properties. Heck, you can even take part in fractional art ! But those are all possessions. SailTime Fractional Sailing is about Doing. There lies the difference. A SailTime member gets to enjoy the benefits of sailing a new yacht at a fraction of the cost it would take to do it any other way I’ve found.

So why dont we just call it a sailing club ? Simply, we are different from a traditional sailing club. Our members pay a flat fee to sail as little or as much as they like each month. Sailing clubs usually have an hourly or daily rate depending on which boat is chosen for use that day. We only have brand new boats and always will, because a boat is only kept in the program a maximum of six years. Traditional sailing clubs tend to have a variety of boats, old and sometimes new, for members to rent.

I’m so excited ! My photo of Rainbow owner, Jerry Roth, spinnakering his boat home from Santa Barbara, shown above, was used in the recent article about fractional sailing in Blue Water Sailing magazine.

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