Boat swap in the Costa del Sol and Cádiz: sail other waters without chartering

The Seafolk is a club of owners who swap boats for a few days: you sail theirs, they sail yours. It isn't a rental and no money passes from one to the other.

Inside the Parque Natural del Estrecho

The Parque Natural del Estrecho, in the Cádiz municipalities of Tarifa and Algeciras, is a maritime-terrestrial protected area that includes a marine strip one nautical mile wide [1]. If the boat you sail passes through, check first what the park's management plan allows; this text doesn't summarise it.

How it works

1. Sign up and list your boat.
2. When someone sails yours, you earn Knots. Knots are the club's internal credits; you earn them by lending your boat and spend them sailing someone else's.
3. With your Knots you pick a boat and dates, and propose the swap to the owner.
4. If they agree, you swap.

Knots can't be bought or sold. That's what keeps this a swap between owners and not a charter.

Where the club really stands

• It's new: 28 members and 3 boats. Join now and you're among the first.
• Founding place free until 31 Dec 2026; from 1 Jan 2027, €90 a year for life. Founding places are capped at 1,000 boats.
• Open: staying aboard at the dock, without sailing, or sailing with a professional skipper. Bareboat (sailing it yourself) is closed.
• It's for people who already own a boat: with no boat in the network there is nothing to swap.

With so few boats, I won't promise there will be a free one on the coast you want tomorrow. I will promise that the more owners join early, the sooner there will be something to choose from.

Claim my founding place

Br, Ignacio López, founder — The Seafolk

Source: Junta de Andalucía, Decree 57/2003, Parque Natural del Estrecho (BOJA no. 54, 20 Mar 2003)