The Seafolk

For owners

Boat swap in Sanremo: sail other coasts without chartering

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

Join free Preview your boat, no sign-up

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 Liguria you sail inside the Pelagos Sanctuary, the marine-mammal area that Italy, France and Monaco created with an agreement signed in Rome on 25 November 1999. It covers 87,500 km² and 2,022 km of coastline. Among other things, the agreement bans intentional capture or disturbance of marine mammals and regulates whale-watching.

What you don't have on hand is other waters: southern Sardinia, Sicily, Greece. And an owner on those coasts doesn't have your Riviera. That's where the swap idea comes from.

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.

Source: Italian Ministry of Environment, Pelagos Agreement (in Italian)