A thriving new marketplace for instant pay-to-play boating will shake-up how we go afloat. Toby Hodges explains the four different types of yachting renting platforms
Boat swapping
A house exchange scheme often sounds tempting. A couple of months in a wood cabin in the South Island of New Zealand would be pretty appealing at any time. But it can be argued that houses tend to be very personal, get used a lot more than boats and come with more attachments and clutter – so a boat swap sounds ideal.
Visiting places you can only get to by boat, like this spot off Cotia, Brazil, is a key draw
Adrian and Natalya Walker founded Boataffair two years ago in Switzerland as a boutique platform for yacht renting experiences. While it started as a website for owners to list or rent boats, much like the platforms already mentioned it has grown to include boat swapping.
“Our boat swapping is really getting traction from across the globe because it gets boat owners afloat easily and helps them get more value out of their boats,” Walker tells me. He explains that coding and insuring a boat for charter can be a costly process, so the process of a straight swap of private boats via his company’s site is comparatively simple.
Boataffair also has appealing VIP experiences, which ranges from a one-hour trip to a two-week bespoke cruise. Walker says boat owners appreciate the chance to be able to show what they’re able to offer, from weddings aboard, to cave diving and exploring deserted beaches.