Sky High Sailing from Skylla Club

by Lisa Mylchreest on 23 Oct 2006 Even in the marine industry, there’s always an entrepreneur out there somewhere thinking up yet another brainwave to make a dollar: So if you would like to go ocean sailing in real luxury, don’t want the problems of owning your own yacht and are a little time (but not money) short, then there’s another dreamy-sounding solution on offer.

It’s SKYLLA.

Skylla is a sort of time-share club that offers people round-the-world expedition yachting, together with the kind of adventuring that you associate with remote destinations – snorkelling, diving, hiking.

However, this is no normal time-share arrangement. This one asks you for a cool US$180,000 for a five-year period. For this you and one guest get five annual excursions on a US$5m 70-foot (21.34-metre) mega-catamaran that is continually sailing the world’s oceans. There are 18 planned excursions to choose from each year.

Of course, you don’t have to do the sailing yourself if you don’t want to – or the cooking or cleaning or maintenance or refuelling. There’ll be a Captain, a chef, and crew. There’ll be kayaks, diving gear, a motor boat for shore excursions, and on-deck hot tub, along with lots of pampering bath products and fine linen.

With only the best in crew on board, the mega-cat will travel the world’s oceans only in the best times, avoiding hurricane seasons, monsoons, and will not transit piracy zones like the Red Sea.

Year One will see you in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, Year Two will take in the western Pacific including Australia and New Guinea, Year Three Micronesia and Indonesia. Year Four will take the yacht through the Indian Ocean, past South Africa and up to the Canaries, while Year Five will be spent sussing out the most succulent parts of the Mediterranean like Croatia and Turkey.

At the end of the five year period, members, who can sell their memberships at any time, receive their share of the sale of the yacht.

And why the catamaran?

Well, the Skylla Club says there are five good reasons that this makes the best sailing:

1. Comfort: two hulls mean more stability - no heeling back and forth (this means a more comfortable ride and less likelihood of seasickness)

2. The French catamaran, designed by Yacht Industries, has a wider design for more deck and cabin space than a comparable single-hull boat

3. Added stability on a catamaran tends to avoid seasickness, which is why they are often used as ferries

4. Speed: Skylla's catamaran is 20% faster than a single-hull boat of the same size

5. Anchoring:- the boat's shallow draft allows it to sail or anchor closer to the coastline

It all sounds too good to be true – and maybe it is. There are 54 memberships on offer, three members’ cabins on the yacht, and the boat will sail on 230 days of each year. There’s no mathematics prize for guessing how many days a year on average you will get to go sailing. It’s worth noting, too, that unless you purchase three memberships (giving you six places for six sailors), you will never get exclusive use of the yacht.

And Skylla? – no it’s not the initials of the entrepreneurs, it’s the name of a legendary sea monster from the Homer’s Odyssey, who swallows six sailors in the story. Let’s hope the allusion is accidental.

To get more information about the Skylla Club, or enquire from Skylla themselves, go to their website www.skyllavoyages.com