The Seafolk

For owners

Boat swap in Portofino: sail other coasts without chartering

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

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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

Off Portofino there is a marine protected area, established by decree of 26 April 1999. It has three zones with different rules: in zone A, navigation, anchoring and mooring are banned, and for mooring there are buoys at Cala degli Inglesi, San Fruttuoso and Punta Chiappa. Rules change: always check the current ones before you go.

Someone arriving in a place like that for the first time is glad of an owner who already knows it. In a swap, that person can be your host. And you don't have other people's coasts: Sardinia, Sicily, Greece.

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

This is how yours would look in the club: a sample listing, with made-up data.

Sources: Portofino MPA, statutes and regulations (in Italian) · Portofino MPA, boating (in Italian)