Making money on the water...

Even though the economy sucks, there are no shortage of possible income streams for those on boats with the right attitude and work ethic...

Since we work in the charter business I'll start with that area of the nautical workaday world. Right now, while true that the number of charter clients are way down, it might surprise some that it is also getting a lot harder for us to find  good boats and crews for a lot of our clients who can still afford to charter these days. Fact is, we just had to remove another charter catamaran from our website as they simply did not have half a clue how to provide the sort of service that a client deserves, it being after all a service industry with a capital "S". I know we as charter brokers are always looking for new enthusiastic boats/crews with the right stuff!

While chartering is not for everyone and can be a highly demanding and very stressful 24/7 sort of job, the rewards, both personal and financial (though you won't ever get rich doing it), can be well worth the energy and investment.

By chartering I mean chartering your own boat and not working for one of the big bareboat/charter conglomerates more akin to MacDonanld's/KFC (Ya want fries with that dude?) sort of service and only missing the paper hats and hairnets. Such companies are a training ground for second and third rate crews which are something of a blight on the industry...

Then again, I'm told we are really picky about such things as putting quality and our clients enjoyment of their hard earned vacations first.