Firstly lets explain that most people who sail yachts do not own their own boat. Unless you want to use it a lot, the cost makes this prohibitive. Firstly there is the cost of the boat which for a new 35 footer would be around £80,000 or £7,500 a year in loan repayments. Then you have to keep it somewhere and a marina berth for the same yacht would be about £4,500 a year, on top of which you need to add insurance and maintenance that could easily add another £2,000. So you need at least £1,000 a month for your hobby, which is more than most can justify. Of course there are cheaper ways of doing things - you could buy an older boat, you could by a smaller boat, or you could keep it on a cheap mud-berth mooring. But unless its is a pleasant experience and convenient, you'll end up never using the boat at all!

But wait, there is no need to compromise. Yacht Charter with a company like Solent Sail means that you really can have it all. A newer boat, a bigger boat, the convenience of a marina berth and no worries about repairs and maintenance.

But just how can you go sailing on one of our boats? Well firstly you may not realise that you only need to have a fairly basic level of sailing skills in order to hire a yacht for your exclusive use with your friends and family. You can have a boat for a day, for a weekend, a week or longer and you can start your charter on any day of the week that you like. Whilst you have the yacht, you can treat it as your own and no one will know that it is not. (This isn't true of all companies because in many cases the yachts are floating adverts with the company name plastered all over them. You may not mind but if you do, ask the question).

The freedom that sailing offers can be quite surprising. No driving license is required, you can go pretty much wherever you like and in most cases there is no speed limit. Not that you are going to go too fast. Sailing is about relaxing and taking life at a slower pace. But even at 6 miles an hour, you'll find that within a few hours sailing of our base there are all manner of places to visit. From quite nature reserves to lively city based marinas, you check the wind and the tide and you go where it takes you. Once you moor up for the evening, you can relax on deck with a cup of tea or a glass of wine and watch everyone else arrive. You may be impressed if they moor up efficiently, or you may be amused if they don't. Either way I can't think of a better way to relax.

If this appeals, you can check availability now and a 25% deposit secures your booking. Taking a Jeanneau 35 as an example, the costs for a family of 6 works out at just £233 per person for a full week in high season and five days in May (Mon to Fri) would be only £104 per person. And don't forget that these are sailing yachts so the diesel fuel you use will cost next to nothing. Plus the fully equipped galley means that you can cook and eat on board for no more than it would cost at home.

But what sailing experience do you need, and what if you haven't got any? Well if you are a complete novice, you need to do two sailing courses to get to the standard where you can take a boat on your own. The first is the Competent Crew course which teaches you the absolute basics about how to sail a yacht. Courses follow a syllabus approved by the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) who also inspect and approve all good sea schools in the UK. Once you have achieved this basic level, the next course to do is Day Skipper. This gives you the confidence to take charge of a yacht in the day and in familiar waters. You need a bit of theory first about navigating, the weather and the nautical rules of the road, but its fun to learn and all totally practical.

Of course Solent Sail provide all these courses, often on the very boat you later charter for your holiday, so you'll be familiar with its systems and the way it handles. The only problem in the past was finding the time. Typically you would join a boat on a Sunday evening for a five day course until the following Friday, using a complete week of your valuable holiday time. So to counter this, we have structured our courses over two weekends (3 days & 2 days), so you need only take one Friday off work. To check course dates and prices, check our sea school page here.

You may wonder what alternatives there are to chartering a boat on your own where you don't have the responsibility and worries of being in charge. Here too Solent Sail can help with a regular program of book-a-berth trips that run throughout the year to a variety of exciting destinations on the South Coast and near Continent. These usually take place on slightly bigger boats that are faster and more stable to sail (another five-day or two weekend Coastal Skipper course would allow you take one of these out on your own). But book-a-berth is cheap, fun and very sociable as you sail with a professional skipper and a group of people like you who just want to get out on the water. In many cases, people who meet on these trips have stayed friends afterwards and it can lead to more as at least one dating agency uses our boats to help singles socialise in a relaxing environment. You can check dates, prices and logs of previous charter-a-berth trips here.

So you can see how sailing can be fun, sociable, relaxing and offer a freedom that you might not expect, but what about enjoying it for FREE. There are many companies in the UK who recognise the benefits to their staff that sailing can bring as there is nothing quite like sailing a yacht for building team spirit. We offer specially tailored packages for corporate charters that really will bring benefits. And of course if you suggest it to your boss, you'll get the credit as well as the sailing.

So there's lots of suggestions to get involved, what are you waiting for?

For more information please contact us anytime, we love talking about sailing!