We want to sail 3 months a year but how?

It all started when I was a 29 year old and quit my job to go sailing with friends in the Bahamas on their C&C 27 for 6 months. That 6 months was one of the most memorial periods of my life - freedom, sailing, friends, adventure, fishing, exploring...the list goes on. Fast forward 20 years and I am married to Sue with 2 high school boys and a successful career going. I knew I wanted to share the amazing experience I had with my family but how? We chartered every second year so in the Abacos, BVI's & Exumas and completed 5-10 charters. The family really enjoyed it but I knew it was not the same as living on a boat for an extended period of time. It was not able to step out of my career at this point as I would have loved to taken a year and sailed the Caribbean with the family but that was not an option. Sue also enjoys sailing but it is not her passion. The idea of spending more than a few months on a boat did not have a lot of appeal to her given her strong connection to friends and family at home. I had a number of constraints and was trying to find an intersection point that met my passion and dreams, Sue's reasonable parameters, and our financial realities. Below was the situation as I saw it:

• I could not financially leave job before retirement age

• Sue was open to shorter trips of 2-3 months at most

• Sue & I both love the space, comforts, and ease of sailing a catamaran

• We live in Dallas, Texas 5 hours from the ocean

What do others do?

Through my research it became evident to me that many cruisers do one of two things:

1) They retire or leave their work, buy a new or used boat, sail for a year or two, sell the boat at the end and return to normal live

2) They own a boat and sail it 3-4 months a year during the winter (often in the Bahamas) and then bring it to a local marina or in a few cases put it up on the Hard in a boatyard for the offseason.

Neither of these worked for us. I could not afford the cost have having a very expensive sailboat sitting at a marina 5 hours away or in a Yard for 9 months a year

What about a charter boat?

We own an Airbnb in Florida so we knew a bit about renting out your assets for others to enjoy and pay off the cost for you at the same time. So a charter boat seemed like a great option. Buy a boat, put it in charter, generate some income when you are not using it and take it out when you want go sailing! The reality was more complicated as almost every charter company has strict limits on when you can use a boat and for how long. I could not find a company that would provide the flexibility I wanted and still allow us top charter it.

Along came TMM...

Through my research I came across one company time and time again in the BVI's - TMM Yacht charters. If you ask anyone in the know they will tell you they have the most well maintained boats in the BVI and it is a small boutique charter company that treats you like family. Even better they have a flexible business model that provides owners flexibility to get their own bookings, take the boat out as long as you would like, and provide full service bookings and management when your boat is in Charter. I met with Barney the owner and his amazing staff and was sold! I finally had a plan that worked for Sue and our family.

The Solution:

We would buy a boat through TMM, charter it out when not being used by us, and take it out 2-3 months a year when I retire! We had a plan that worked financially and personally for our family!