The Seafolk

For owners

Boat swap in Valencia: sail other coasts without chartering

Your boat sits on its mooring in Valencia 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

From Valencia you head out into open Mediterranean, with the Columbretes as the classic destination. It's a protected archipelago: the Valencian government declared it a natural park in 1988, it is now a natural reserve, and the surrounding sea has been a marine reserve since 1990. Find out what's allowed before you go.

What you don't have on hand is other waters: Galicia, the Strait or the northern Catalan coast, without paying for a charter. And the owners there don't have your Columbretes. 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: MAPA, Columbretes Islands marine reserve