About Us
Who are we?
A group of people who started a sailing co-op in Victoria, incorporated in April 2014 and sailing since May 2014.
Here is a summary of how this co-op works
The goal of the co-op:
To provide a minimum of 150 hours of day sailing and cruising for skippers during the prime sailing season April-September while keeping the costs to a minimum by sharing the ownership, upkeep, and expenses of the boats.
Members are free to use the boats throughout the year and there is no extra cost if you sail more than 150 hours.
Membership:
There are three different types of membership:
- Regular Membership: A single person who, after being checked out and has "skipper" status, is eligible to sign out boats.
- Family Membership: A couple living at the same address who will be primarily sailing together may join as a family. Either member, after being checked out, may sign out a boat. Refer to the SOP for more details.
- Crew Membership: A single person who is not eligible to sign out boats but may go out on the boats an unlimited number of times with a qualified skipper.
Boat Usage:
- The co-op has the use of 3 boats, a C&C 24 “Phoebe”, a Kelt 7.6 “Rhumb Runner” and a Hunter 30 “Penelope”.
- To skipper Phoebe you must have your “Competent Crew” certificate and/or be successfully checked out by a qualified co-op member.
- To skipper Rhumb Runner or Penelope you must have your “Day Skipper” certificate and/or be successfully checked out by a qualified co-op member.
- If needed co-op members can acquire the required certification levels through a qualified instructor, using the co-op boats. Such courses are certified by the "International Sail and Power Association" .
Booking a boat for day sailing:
- Any qualified skipper can book the boats on a first come first serve basis using the online booking system. The boats cannot be booked more than 7 days in advance and are limited to half-day bookings (1/3 day during the week). A part-day booking can be extended if the boat is available.
- When booking boats a couple will be treated as 1 member, i.e.. one member of the couple cannot book the boat for the morning and the other book it for the afternoon thereby getting the use of the boat for the whole day.
- Skippers can allow up to 3 guests on a boat. These guests do not have to be co-op members but non-members can sail as guests a maximum of 5 times per year after which they will be expected to join the co-op.
- When booking online you can indicate if you are open to taking "crew" members along. If you indicate that you are, other co-op members can contact you if they would like to go out on the boat with you.
Cruising:
- During part of the year our bigger boats may be used for multi day cruising.
- Since multi-day cruising needs to be planned in advance we will have a planning meeting at the beginning of the sailing season to reserve time for members who would like to go cruising.
- Depending on the wishes of the co-op members the co-op may plan one or more cruises. The cruises would be broken into segments where different members would skipper the boat for different segments. The idea of this is to enable people to experience sailing in different waters. For example if someone wanted to use a boat for a 3 day cruise, rather than being limited to what they can reach in 3 days while leaving and returning to Victoria they could take part in a longer club cruise where they could maybe sail from Parksville to Comox for example.
- As with day use, the boat’s skipper can allow up to 3 guests along during their segment of the cruise. These guests do not have to be co-op members.
Member responsibilities:
- All members are expected to assist in the running of the co-op and maintenance of the boats. Members should plan on contributing 20 hours of work to the co-op over the year. This work can be in the form of working on the boats or performing any of the other administrative work required to run the co-op.
- To assist in this and to provide a chance for co-op members to get to know one another, every third Saturday morning in the month will be designated a boat maintenance session. This will be a time to perform whatever needs to be done on the boats and maybe get some expert advice on how to do it. Maybe learn how to splice rope or mend sails....
- Members who would prefer not to take part in the boat maintenance or otherwise contribute their time to the running of the co-op can opt out of the work requirement by paying an addition yearly fee of $400 (20 hours @ $20/hr).
Fees:
- Annual regular membership: $800
- Annual family membership: $1,100
- Annual crew membership: $300
- One time joining fee for regular and family membership: $400
- One time joining fee for crew membership: $100
Someone with a crew membership may upgrade to a regular membership at any time at which time the difference in the joining fees will also be due.