Wrinkles Boat

[pasley]

If I may offer a procedural suggestion? Many will say yes when asked, fewer will part with the $$ when the time comes. Best way to take a meaningful poll on chartering a boat is to make your best stab at estimated size of group. Find a boat, negotiate the deal. Take total price and divide it by 80% of the estimated group. Now if 20% don't book, you still have enough money for the boat. If you sell 100% you can either refund the difference (no one ever complained about getting money back) or agree on some other use of the money.

Now to be a wet blanket. As drifting Dan has taught us, you charter the boat, you hire the DM, you may also be buying some liability if something goes wrong.. Got insurance? Perhaps we should also consult with the attorneys about chartering a boat. So how about it attorneys, is there any issues here we need to consider if we charter our own boat?

 

[headhunter]

If I may offer a procedural suggestion? Many will say yes when asked, fewer will part with the $$ when the time comes. Best way to take a meaningful poll on chartering a boat is to make your best stab at estimated size of group. Find a boat, negotiate the deal. Take total price and divide it by 80% of the estimated group. Now if 20% don't book, you still have enough money for the boat. If you sell 100% you can either refund the difference (no one ever complained about getting money back) or agree on some other use of the money.

This sounds reasonable and makes sense. I like the idea of refunding the difference.

Now to be a wet blanket. As drifting Dan has taught us, you charter the boat, you hire the DM, you may also be buying some liability if something goes wrong.. Got insurance? Perhaps we should also consult with the attorneys about chartering a boat. So how about it attorneys, is there any issues here we need to consider if we charter our own boat?

I would imagine that as long as we are just a group of people getting together and chartering a boat and not an actual business entity that this would not be an issue.

Of course, I'm not in an attorney. So, I could be wrong.

Christian

 

[xSandman3]

What fun is boat diving? You don't even get to wash sand outta your gear later. And yeah, the vis rocked at Casino Point last Saturday. Was cool meeting Roy and Christian...hope to be able to dive with you guys soon.

 

[headhunter]

What fun is boat diving? You don't even get to wash sand outta your gear later. And yeah, the vis rocked at Casino Point last Saturday. Was cool meeting Roy and Christian...hope to be able to dive with you guys soon.

Boat diving is fun! Even if I never seem to do it.

Actually, I probably spend more money on the Wrinkles Dives than I would for a boat dive after spending the night in hotels and going out to eat at nice places, etc. :11:

That's probably just me though... and maybe ShakaZulu and Dr. Jet and snakedr and....

It was nice meeting you too. Hopefully, you can make it to the next Wrinkles Dive in April!

Christian

 

[SNOBORDJON]

The name is fine...and the idea sounds cool (but I still need to see if it will work schedulewise).

Erik

Im down for boat dives

John

 

[SoCalAngel]

If I may offer a procedural suggestion? Many will say yes when asked, fewer will part with the $$ when the time comes. Best way to take a meaningful poll on chartering a boat is to make your best stab at estimated size of group. Find a boat, negotiate the deal. Take total price and divide it by 80% of the estimated group. Now if 20% don't book, you still have enough money for the boat. If you sell 100% you can either refund the difference (no one ever complained about getting money back) or agree on some other use of the money.

Now to be a wet blanket. As drifting Dan has taught us, you charter the boat, you hire the DM, you may also be buying some liability if something goes wrong.. Got insurance? Perhaps we should also consult with the attorneys about chartering a boat. So how about it attorneys, is there any issues here we need to consider if we charter our own boat?

Pasley has a very good point, here. I do the boat coordinating for the SOCDC. It is not easy. Even with our club base of 200+ people, I sometimes have difficulty filling the boats some months. You also need to remember that every boat charter wants a deposit up front. Costs for them have gone up ALOT with the increase of gas prices. Last, most good boats are already booked up for the summer months. I made the SOCDC's reservations in Dec 2004 for summer 2005.

ALWAYS hire the boat DM. It takes the insurance/liability issue off the charter booker. Even though you are not a corp entity, the booker of the charter DOES have liability in case of any accidents.

If you get more money than needed for the boat charter, you can always put it in the tip jar, versus giving $4 or 5 bucks back per person.

All scubaboarders are welcome to come on any SOCDC charter for the member price, BTW! As Mo2vation said earlier, you can find Ann Marie, Jan, and even the great Ken himself on the charters. Oh, yeah, me, too! You are all my friends! *batting eyelashes* :gorgeous:

 

[shaxs]

ohhhh....boat dive..... wohoo. Im in

 

[headhunter]

I've been thinking a bit about the logistics of the boat dive and have a couple of thoughts.

Would it make sense to pick a weekend?

I'm thinking that the 4th weekend of the month would put some space between the Wrinkles dive and Mo2vation dive each month. I think that the only 2 months in which this would conflict with major holidays would be November and December and it could just be moved to the 3rd weekend for those 2 months.

Once the weekend is picked then a different boat could be picked for each month for variety. This could run on sort of an opposite schedule from the Wrinkles Dives. For instance, if we have the Wrinkles Dive in San Diego maybe the Mo2vation Dive can go on a boat from Ventura. Likewise, when we have a Wrinkles Dive at Leo Carrillo, we can have a Mo2vation Dive to Los Coronados out of San Diego.

Instead of trying to Charter a boat right away, maybe it would make sense to simply pick a boat and see how many people actually commit and follow through with that commitment. Once you have a certain number of people that consitently follow through, then you can count on this core group to actually charter a boat and hire a DM to shift liability.

This is simply a quick collection of my random thoughts on the subject since this thead started.

The ideas and participation have been great, so far! I think it's safe to say that this is something that people would really like to do. I'm interested in hearing what ideas others have, so let us know what do you think.

Christian

 

[Ann Marie]

Why charter our own boat? Wouldn't just be easier to say something like:

"I've signed up to go on the Horizon in May to go to San Clemente. You board on the 6th (at 9pm), dive San Clemente (one of my favorite sites!) on the 7th, return to dock around 7pm. I booked it through Sport Chalet for $130. Whoever wants to go sign up at any Sport Chalet or call 800-diver94 to make your arrangements."

We could do this with Reefseekers, Dive Connections, etc... I only gave the example above because I really am going on this trip and anyone that wants to join me would be more than welcome, though I do already have a buddy!

This way we don't have to worry about anyone saying they are coming then not showing up. No hassels for anyone to book everything and leave a deposit and no worries about hiring our own divemaster.

Lets make it easy.

 

[ScubaSeanMaui]

Why charter our own boat? Wouldn't just be easier to say something like:

"I've signed up to go on the Horizon in May to go to San Clemente. You board on the 6th (at 9pm), dive San Clemente (one of my favorite sites!) on the 7th, return to dock around 7pm. I booked it through Sport Chalet for $130. Whoever wants to go sign up at any Sport Chalet or call 800-diver94 to make your arrangements."

We could do this with Reefseekers, Dive Connections, etc... I only gave the example above because I really am going on this trip and anyone that wants to join me would be more than welcome, though I do already have a buddy!

This way we don't have to worry about anyone saying they are coming then not showing up. No hassels for anyone to book everything and leave a deposit and no worries about hiring our own divemaster.

Lets make it easy.

I agree with Ann Marie. I would think her suggestion would be perfect for the 1st boat dive. What a hassle it will be for whoever puts up the deposit. Make it simple. Find a good boat with plenty of open spots, and whoever gets on it is part of the boat dive. Also if someone can't go, SC or the chater has a timeframe they can get their money back. ScubaLaurel has some very good boat trips which would probably be perfect for this venture...

Just my thoughts,