The Seafolk

For owners

Boat swap in Gran Canaria (Las Palmas): sail other coasts without chartering

Your boat sits on its mooring most of the year. Another owner, on another coast, has the same problem.

Join free

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.

What you get

From Las Palmas you step straight out into the Atlantic, and you know that. What you don't have on your doorstep is the Mediterranean, with a cove every few miles, or the Galician rias. And owners who keep their boat in the Mediterranean don't have the trade winds.

One fact about your port: Las Palmas is the start of the ARC, the transatlantic cruising rally that takes around 150 yachts to Saint Lucia, in the Caribbean, every November [1]. If you're preparing a crossing like that, another owner who has done it, or who knows the area, is a good person to have nearby.

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

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.

Join the club

Br, Ignacio López, founder — The Seafolk

Source: World Cruising Club, ARC