Our video: 
When you charter a sailing multihull, the time spent getting to grips with it, figuring out the recommendations for its use and, above all, going through the inventory, can be pretty tedious. Usually, you’ll be casting off for a long weekend or a week, but that’s not too serious: such rental periods correspond, say, to a weekend joined up to a public holiday, or a short vacation that you can organize well in advance (you might often book 3 to 6 months ahead). But to be able to sail whenever you want throughout the year, you need to be an owner, which is not an option for everyone. There are, of course, sailing schools and clubs, but these lack autonomy and privacy. What’s more, you have to stick to pre-established programs and schedules. All these frustrating options limit the possibilities of “à la carte” sailing.
Grégoire Guignon has made this observation throughout his life as a yachtsman. Having inherited the sailing bug from his father, and begun a career in civil engineering, he often chartered sailboats with family or friends to enjoy some fun cruising. But not being a racing sailor, shorter trips were very rare. In 2012, he decided to retrain for a new career at Kedge Business School. As part of his MBA, the latter half of his studies focused on the collaborative economy, where he identified the lack of a more flexible, fast and user-friendly sailboat rental system. Then, discovering there were just 250,000 registered sailboats that hardly sail at all (some just a few days a year according to statistics), yet four million active yachtsmen, he decided it was high time to react. He presented his charter fleet-sharing project, and this met with great interest. This type of initiative already exists among manufacturers such as Bénéteau, with its Boat Club, or Dream Yacht Worldwide, which has made an attempt in this direction, but Grégoire’s concept was refined around key ideas: ultra-flexibility on a half-hourly basis and the support of a team of professionals there at either end of the users’ vacations and who deal with fleet maintenance. With hard-hitting arguments such as a highly tailored hourly rate and an annual sailboat usage rate multiplied by 30, meaning boats are no longer stuck to the pontoons, he had what it took for a convincing project. Bingo - the city of Marseille showed interest and allocated three berths in its Vieux-Port to the young entrepreneur. In 2015, with this pilot project, he created SailEazy.
A Winning Formula
The timing was just right in a global market reaching maturity in terms of shared use. We were well into the era of self-service bicycle and car rental, and the digitalization of online reservation systems. Firmly rooted in this dynamic, SailEazy was winning over customers and expanding. In 2018, a round of fundraising enabled the structure of this new service to be developed. A smartphone booking app was created, and the purchase of a few units, including the famous Tricat 30, grew to more than a dozen units moored at the commercial yard in the Vieux-Port. Other bases were created in the same vein, but Covid left its mark: Grégoire retained only La Rochelle and La Trinité-sur-Mer in addition to Marseille. In fact, the concept lends itself particularly well to dynamic maritime areas. “Port cities and sailing meccas are the spots with the most potential,” explains Grégoire. SailEazy’s accessibility and flexible pricing, combined with its self-service sailing formula, appeal to a younger clientele, not necessarily familiar with the stuffy surroundings of yacht clubs. SailEazy is helping to democratize yachting.
With just a few clicks, you can reserve the multihull you want on the date and time that suits you - subject to availability, of course. Want to sail for an afternoon? It’s no problem at all, even if you book that morning. Some of the yachts on offer belong to owners who don’t feel the need to use their boat exclusively, 24 hours a day. As a result, they log on to the app as well, and can use it when their multihull is free, or at the times they’ve set aside for their own purposes.
Supervision Remains Essential
To test the formula as if in real life, we booked the Tricat 30 (without paying for it, though) via the app, which takes just two minutes to download. Having gone through just a few windows, it’s booked for a customized half-day - and it’s even quicker if you subscribe to SailEazy. The real bonus of this service is that our timeslot was not limited to the traditional morning vs. afternoon choice: we were able, without any restrictions, to opt for an 11 am to 3 pm slot. And another customer, on these long summer days, could leave with the Tricat as early as 5 pm.
Romane Venier, the assistant manager, and part of her team welcomed us to the professional area in the Vieux-Port. As we climbed aboard the Neel 43, which was to serve as our photo boat, she told us all about SailEazy. A dedicated team takes care of maintenance, inventory (yes, there’s no longer any need to go through that long and tedious process!) and any repairs, though it’s up to the customer to leave the multihull clean when they’re done. Another team, made up of coaches (state-qualified instructors), works with the skippers of the day or week, getting them up to speed and validating their skills. The first captains targeted are the 700,000 or so amateur skippers in France, who have enough boating experience to take responsibility for a sailboat at sea. An initial outing enables the coach to check the skipper’s skills, and once “validated”, the customer can sail fully autonomously on their next trip. Monohulls up to 40 feet have a common validation procedure. For the fleet’s more specific multihulls, each model - such as the Tricat 30 and the Neel 43 – has a unique presentation process adapted to its own characteristics. There’s nothing to stop an inexperienced customer or a skipper wishing to brush up on his or her skills from following a training course with the coach until the green light is given. In this sense, SailEazy also trains skippers with an à la carte formula that adapts to the student’s schedule. In our situation, we signed up to a formula with crew and skipper - perfect for a 100% relaxing trip. Romane and Justine, one of her colleagues, boarded the Tricat with me. Throughout our sail, the atmosphere was very friendly, characterized by a relaxed sailing attitude, but nonetheless rigorous and with no concessions to safety.
In light airs experienced on the day, we even had the pleasure of overtaking the Neel 43... but the big trimaran hadn’t hoisted its gennaker.
International Development
SailEazy’s “connected” fleet can be shared via the mobile app for bookings up to an hour before departure, with no time constraints, for any duration and all year round. Once autonomous, customers can easily sail on their own, with friends or family. This “à la carte” formula offers a number of advantages, as well as very reasonable rates - our session on the Tricat 30 would have cost just over b 100, and that on the Neel 43 around € 160, with coaching fees added (around € 35 per hour). It’s even cheaper with a subscription, which pays for itself after the third outing, with more flexible cancellation conditions. On arrival at the pontoon, the customer or owner boards the multihull ready to go out, cleaned, sails set and tank(s) full. You can even call on a crew exchange to put together a team. “This formula reconciles the benefits of chartering with those of ownership,” explains Romane. Many owners don’t have the time to maintain their boat, or don’t want to sail on their own. Too much maintenance time for not enough sailing, in short... Other important points for the owner are the maintenance taken care of, the berthing, and the charter income. In this way, the owner can rent out his boat yet still sail himself when the schedule is free. A mix of time-share and Airbnb, in short, but at sea. As proof, the Tricat 30 belonging to SailEazy has since been sold to an owner seduced by the advantages of the program.
Having validated his concept in France, Grégoire now wants to export it with a network of partners. The U.S. market is familiar with Wiziboat, a sharing system for small motorboats, a platform which has since been established in Europe. But the know-how required for sailing is a little more specialized than the simple requirements of an outboard motor... no doubt that SailEazy is already a boat-length ahead!
What Does It Cost?
On the app, you can book in just a few clicks, up to an hour in advance. How long? A few hours or a few days, it’s up to you...
For the Tricat 30, a day and a half will cost you just over € 1,000. As for the Neel 43, the rate starts at € 623 for three hours - plenty of time to enjoy a beautiful sunset at the end of the day.
