Apr 18 2009
Lets Compare SailTime to Other Sailing Clubs
In Ventura County there are two sailing clubs at the Channel Islands Harbor. We are one of them. Marina Sailing is the other. To be fair, there is a very small rental operation in Ventura Harbor with a dilapidated fleet but I didn’t feel it worth any sort of comparison at all. There is another operation here called Fairwind but they seem to be more for people looking for a boat ride than anything else
I like to tell inquiring people they have three choices to get on the water here. If you are only going to sail a few times a year, Marina Sailing is fine for the casual sailor. Before SailTime came along five years ago, it was either that choice or buy a sailboat. Those are two ends of the extreme! SailTime finds itself in the middle. You get to feel like you own your sailboat at SailTime and you have the opportunity to sail more than most sailboat owners do! In fact, most people will never need to own a sailboat with the SailTime opportunity. But, we’ll leave that line of thought to another post.
Lets compare Marina Sailing and SailTime Channel Islands, so you can determine what’s right for you.
SailTime CI has 5 boats, all 5 years old or newer with every option imaginable installed. Marina Sailing has 9 sailboats with the majority 5-10 years old. Two appear to be less than 5 years old. Several are in the 10-20 year+ old range. With 5 boats, we have a maximum membership cap of about 40 sailors. Marina Sailing has no cap on the number of members they can enroll. There appears to be virtues to both of these philosophies. Marina has a perceived less expensive entry cost of $495 while ours is $2500. However, the fine print is that our initiation includes a deposit for most if not all of the insurance deductible. Not so with Marina. Our monthly club fee varies depending on the boat, from $550 to $700. Marina is $30 a month. But, our monthly fee includes 4 day sailing slots and 3 night slots that can be reserved up to a year in advance. Their monthly fee gets you a newsletter. So if you don’t plan to sail much they are a deal:-) Still, our Member can get even more sailing each month through our 24 hour rule where all unreserved space is available first-come-first-serve at no additional charge. In all cases you pay a daily fee to rent one of Marina’s boats. With our flat rate concept and their daily rate concept the participation cost lines cross very quickly. We have Members that sail 5-10 times a month for a flat rate. That would cost well over $1000 a month to do at Marina Sailing.
When it comes to lessons, our award winning ASA School offers private lessons. The current rate for ASA101/103 is $995 here. Marina’s lessons are group lessons at about $695. The difference between private and group lessons is, well, award winning!
We are a technology based company offering Members a state-of-the-art proprietary reservations system that is second-to-none. As far as I can tell, you have to call Marina’s office to make a reservations. That is just the tip of the iceberg with technology though. We have a world class web site with many advantages to the Member. Marina’s site reminds me of duct tape and bailing wire. I’ve been told by ex-members of Marina that just about sums up the shape and smell of most of their boats as well…
Want to go sailing somewhere besides here? SailTime has nearly fifty bases throughout North America, the UK, Europe, Caribbean and Australia, including 3 other bases in California. you can sail at any of these bases at absurdly low reciprocal prices via our PLUS program. Marina Sailing has six bases in Southern California and a reciprocal program with other operations but it is unknown what type of benefit is really offered there. Our Members are always galavanting off somewhere and sailing at a ridiculously low PLUS rate when they get there!
Finally, SailTime Channel Islands is a family owned local operation. We really care about your experience day in and day out. While, this is an outpost for Marina with their main operations found down South. You deal with employees who feel like they are at an outpost up here.
Whether you want to sail with your friends and family a couple times a month or head to the Islands for some cruising, SailTime wins hands down as the quality choice in Channel Islands Harbor here in Oxnard. We invite you to come down to the docks and learn more.
Just to confirm Chris’ comment that members can actually achieve more that their guaranteed 7 monthly time slots. In February Karla and I used 18 time slots on Bodacious and loved every bit of it.
Thats fantastic Larry. And to think that if you did that 18 times with a traditional sailing club like Marina, on a new sailboat, could have cost anywhere from $3500 to $9000 !
Chris,
You haven’t adequately covered the “people” aspect of Sailtime. And this not only includes the Sailtime staff but members as well. The staff always strives to keep the boats in pristine condition and if we see something wrong, all it takes is an e-mail to you and it is usually fixed (if possible) the next day.
Not all of us are expert sailors. If we have questions or concerns about sailing conditions or boat handling, all it takes is a quick e-mail to you or Captain Dan to answer our questions. In addition, members meet at clinics and the Full Moon Frolic to gain information on boat handling from the experience of other members. Last week I ran into Mike Rule on the dock, and we exchanged information about heavy weather sailing and whale watching. I don’t think you would get that kind of interaction from Marina Sailing. There are several members that have a lot of sailing experience, and they are always willing to share that with all of us.
With regard to Larry’s comment, I agree that availability is generally not a problem and I can sail almost anytime I want. I find that our allocated time slots provide more than enough time to enjoy the boat. We generally use about 10 time slots a month and could easily book another 10. I personally don’t have enough time to do that much sailing (but I wish I could). If we really had to sail on a certain day and our boat was reserved, there is a very good chance that we could use Sailtime’s PLUS program to reserve one of the other boats in the fleet. And since Sailtime uses all Hunter boats with basically the same set-up, once you are checked out on a 33 or 36, they all operate the same.