My First Boat Rental Experience

View of Barcelona skyline from a boat across the sea during sunset

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My First Time Renting a Boat

My name is Octavi Uyà, boat owner and co-founder of Nautal.

The issue I encountered resulted in the birth of Nautal. As I counted the number of days I’d sailed in the last year, I realised that it amounted to 34 days. This consisted of one weekend per month and two weeks sailing during summer. 34 days out of 365 days in a year. That represented less than 10%, even though I’d always considered myself an avid sailor!

The view of Port Olympic from the Sea
The view of Port Olympic from the Sea

My boat represented a big expense, but I had never thought about renting it. The options that I had available were not very convincing. As a boat owner, I didn’t want to lose the privilege of having my boat in my mooring. I still wanted to be able to use it whenever I wanted to. However, I really wanted the extra income that would allow me to keep it in perfect shape. And so Nautal was created!

When Nautal was created, I was obviously the first one to list my boat on the platform. The Spanish market has some requirements, but it only took me a couple of weeks. Then, my boat was ready to be rented! So I uploaded all the information on the platform, and my beloved sail boat was ready to go.

How it all began

After two weeks, we made the first booking. A young guy that looked very responsible was interested in renting the boat for a couple of days with his friends. I went ahead with the rental, planning to use this income to pay for the upcoming motor inspection. The first day of the rental arrived, and I went to pick up the young man and his friends. They were quite nice people, so this put my mind at ease! When we got to the boat, I took some time to explain exactly how everything worked: batteries, motor, sailing manoeuvres, radio, locations, etc… Then we went to get some gas. This was a way for me to check how capable they were. It was comforting as I could see that they had experience. After checking that their licence was right, we signed the contract, the deposit was paid, and then they set sail on their trip!
 
 
Sailboat at sea during sunset in Barcelona
 

How it felt leaving my boat with a stranger

It was a strange feeling, as I had never seen my sailboat leave without me, and I felt a bit unsettled for the two days of the rental. If I saw that the wind was blowing outside, I was scared for my boat. Yet if there was no wind, I was concerned that the guys were not going to be able to enjoy the boat at its best. I wondered to myself if everything was going as planned?
 
On the last day of the rental, they guys came back to port and I met with them. I felt relieved when they arrived with my boat in what seemed to be perfect condition. I helped them moor the boat and checked that the boat was in perfect condition, then I returned the deposit and we said goodbye.
 

Though surreal, it worked!

I had earned 600 euros in 2 days and even though I had some doubts, it was easy money going into my pocket. After only a month and a half, I’d earned the amount needed to cover all the annual expenses of the boat, including the rent of the mooring.  This of course made me feel very happy that I had made the decision to rent my boat.
A surprising point that I didn’t expect was that several of the rentals had been from families with children, looking for different ways to spend their holidays, and who, just like me, were in love with the sea!
 
What’s stopping you from renting your boat?  It doesn’t matter if you have a sailboat, a yacht, catamaran, motorboat or a jet-ski, give it a try! It’s better than you would expect.
 

Check out the Nautal blog for more stories and sailing information.

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