Introduction to Fractional Sailing

Experience all the pleasures of sailing your own boat without the hassles or expenses of ownership. Our unique sailing program allows you to maximize all the privileges and enjoyment of sailing without the worries of docking fees, repairs and off-season storage costs. With Broad Reach Sailing, you will be sailing a 2007 Dufour 365 or 2007 Dufour 325 for more time and less money than you ever dreamed.

Broad Reach Member Programs

We offer two program options Broad Reach Membership and Close Reach Membership.

Points of Sail
Sail when you want to. not when you're assigned to!

The problem with other systems of sharing a boat, is that they make a lot of assumptions about what you want, and they assign you days you didn’t ask for.

- Is a Friday evening in mid-May worth as much to you as a Friday evening in August?

- If a fancy computer algorithm assigns you a time slot you can’t use, should that count as part of your usage? (What makes matters worse, if you hang on the spot just in case, nobody else will have those days available either.)

- What if you are out of town for the whole month of July? Why get assigned dates you won’t use?

Points of Sail is designed so that each participant can set his or her own priority. Using a points-based bidding system, members will be able to structure a schedule that meets their needs. If your primary goal is a week-end cruise, you can bid to spend more of your points on a block of time that allows you to do so. Similarly, if your goal is boating during Chicago’s special waterfront events, getting in as many weeknight sails as possible, or taking the family out on Saturdays, the Points of Sail program will help you get what you want.

The system is simple and intuitive, although the explanation may seem complex at first. Basically, it works like this. Each member has a Points of Sail account that begins the season with 1000 points. On the first day of each month from May until August, an additional 1000 points is added to each account. On a monthly basis, a “sealed auction” is held for the upcoming time slots. Each member can divide his points and bid on as many or as few time slots as he or she wants. A bid can be for a single half-day slot, or for a block of consecutive slots. Each month’s bidding process sets the schedule for the upcoming month, but also allows members to bid on and reserve slots for special occasions in future months. Points not used stay in the member’s account and can be used for future months, or can be spent on short-notice sailing.

The Points of Sail system will give each time slot to the high bidder and will deduct those points from that account. It will not assign members anything that they didn’t ask for. After this schedule is completed, it will be distributed immediately to all members, and a second round of bidding will allow members to make adjustments or pick up additional time slots, based on their points left after round one.

Over the course of each season, each Broad Reach member will have 5000 points to spend on the time slots. The minimum price a time slot is 100 points for weekdays and 150 for weekends and holidays. Thus, if you have a lot of flexibility in your schedule, you could end up with as many as 50 half-day time slots. However, if you really want to make sure that you have the boat on the third weekend in June, you could bid most of your points to make sure you get those dates.

If all time slots were equally desirable, and everyone picked different slots each month, each slot would be “worth” 150 points. In general, bids of 100-150 points will secure off-peak weekday slots, but a higher bid is recommended if the exact timing is critical. For weekends, the slots can be expected to average 200-250 about points, but again if a certain day is very important, you should bid higher.

Note that your account will only be charged the amount of points needed to beat out the next highest bid. So if you bid 800 points for a day you really want, and the next highest bidder bids 195, you will only spend 196 to get that timeslot. If nobody else bids, you will only be charged the minimum bid of 100 points (150 for weekends/holidays).

You can block time into a single bid – for example if you really want both slots on a Saturday, you could bid 625 points for both together. If your bid is higher than the combined highest bids (excluding, of course, your own) for both slots, then your bid will be the winning one.

In general, the calendar for each month is finalized the previous month. This suits most people, whose summer plans may not be completely known at the start of the summer. However, for those special events where you need to plan in advance, you may bid on slots in future months up to a total of three times per season. However, there is a 150 point extra per timeslot that is added to the required minimum bid for all advance months, and you can only do this a total of three times each summer.

Bidding with numbers other than round numbers is encouraged to prevent us having to use our complicated tie-breaking algorithm (i.e., a coin toss!) So, please, no bids that end in “00” or “50”!

Once the schedule is set, it will be finalized and distributed to all members. Open slots in a period that has already been through both rounds of auctions can be reserved from Broad Reach for the minimum bid amount, on a first come first serve basis.

If you have a conflict and want to trade in your reserved slot for any open slot in the current month (or next month if it’s been published in its final form), you can do so. If your scheduled slot is over a week away, you can do so at no “charge.” If it’s less than a week, you will be charged a 50 point fee.

When a slot is vacated by someone, whoever was second place in the bidding is given first chance at it – at their original bid price. If they pass, it reverts to an open slot.

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