The Cost of Sailboat Insurance for Cruising

This was one hot topic for us over the last couple of weeks. What does it cost to have proper insurance for your sailboat? Since we are planning to do extended off-shore cruising, the perfect insurance for our boat should not only be a general liability insurance but we also wanted a full comprehensive yacht insurance that would cover any damage on our boat, no matter what would happen. Tough task.

From my experience with my previous 37 foot sailboat, which I sailed for one year in Florida I know that there are a lot of variables to look at when it comes to get insurance for your boat. Such as hurricane season, region and or country you are sailing, ocean passages, single handing, charter business and so forth.

One thing was very obvious from the very beginning: We wouldn't go for the cheapest boat insurance and neither did we like to sign some sort of online boat insurance with a broker or company that we wouldn't know. A lot of research showed that this isn't working out for most of the cruisers out there. Pretty cool to pay less if nothing happens, but if the worst comes to the worst you are most likely lost with one of the budget insurers.

Well, what does it actually cost to get the perfect insurance for your sailboat? The following quotes that I have received are tailor-made for our particular boat.

The first company I was looking at was the one the previous owner had her insured with. The cost for one year with general liability insurance and a full comprehensive coverage was EUR 1,500. Not bad I thought. The covered area was Northern Europe including the UK and down to France. They were asking the same amount for anything south of France including the Western Med and off-shore to Madeira, the Azores and Canary Islands. This was a large insurance company specialized in yacht insurance.

My internet search on topics like boat insurance, yacht insurance quotes, average cost of boat insurance or boat insurance companies returned a lot of search results and I spent the better half of a day on the phone to get even more quotes. I turned those down, who wouldn't give me a price indication over the phone straight away. I have spoken to boat insurance companies in the US, the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Prices for a combined package with general liability (+/- EUR 2 Mill coverage for the liability part) and full comprehensive coverage brought back offers in the region of EUR 1,200 up to EUR 1,900 for the European region.

Funny enough these so called specialized boat insurance companies were the most expensive ones with the most exceptions on the part of the comprehensive coverage.

Now comes the fun part. Over the last couple of weeks I was also trying to remember the name of the yacht insurance broker that I had for my boat back in Florida. I remember them as a small German-based company with global reach, which tailor their boat insurance offers to the specific needs of long-term cruisers.

Last week I finally remembered the name and called that lady straight away. Guess what? She remembered me. I found this very impressive as our last contact was like 6 years ago. Within an hour I had a comprehensive offer in my inbox, which covered everything I wanted for the price of EUR 960. A week later I signed the papers.

The best part is their reputation among the cruisers. Something happens in a remote place? No problem, you call them, drop them an email and they immediately take over with no worries left over for you. Those examples have been reported more than once by fellow cruisers all over the world.

I don't want to drop names here and I am not related to this company at all... but if you are interested in a contact, please let me know and I would be happy to give you more details.

more on http://www.sailicious.com

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Top Mystery Ghost Ships

There is something about a ship lost at sea which sends shivers down our spines and evokes a sense of mystery and chilling fatefulness. Maybe because the sea can become an endless void which is instinctively unnerving. However, even though thousands of ships have gone missing at sea some have become legendary and their tales timeless.

The U.S.S Cyclops was built in 1910 and was used in World War I to transport coal for the Navy. In 1918 on its way to the U.S from Brazil it completely disappeared without a trace not even a single S.O.S call. The shocking thing about this disaster is over 300 men lost their lives and to this day nobody has found any wreck or evidence of the ship. It remains the single largest loss of life experienced by the United States Navy of a vessel not in combat. According to records it was apparently overloaded with manganese ore, which could have contributed to its unfortunate demise.

The Ourang Medan is allegedly a Dutch merchant ship that sank in Indonesian waters in 1947. According to sources two ships answered an S.O.S call. The City of Baltimore and the Silver Star which were both American vessels. The distress messages exclaimed the rest of the crew were apparently dead. When the Silver Star arrived they found the entire crew dead on board with terrified expressions. As the crew of the Silver Star investigated The Ourang Medan allegedly set on fire and sank. To this day nobody knows exactly what happened on board and caused the fire. However, some believe the ship was carrying nitroglycerin and some kind of nerve chemicals which caused the deaths of the crew and eventual fire.

The Baychimo is a story of a ship that just wouldn't sink. It was abandoned near Alaska in 1931 because it was trapped in ice. After some time the ship broke free naturally and was seen adrift. The amazing thing is it remained adrift for almost 40 years without sinking. Various crew throughout the years tried to salvage the ship without success. Over the years sightings were recorded as recently as 1969.

The Mary Celeste is possibly one of the most famous ships in history. The ship was bound for Italy in 1872 with grain alcohol as its cargo. It was found in December 1872 by the crew of a British ship called the Dei Gratia. They allegedly found The Mary Celeste completely abandoned, but the ship was fully supplied, equipped and sea worthy. After investigation it was found that a life raft was missing but the mystery of the lost crew remained. To this day The Mary Celeste remains one of the great legends of the sea. Captain David Williams is cited as having the most practical solution to its mystery. After 30 years of research he basically concluded the ship set on fire in some way, the crew entered a life raft but forgot to tether it to the ship as a result they were left stranded.

Ghost ships, the Bermuda triangle and incredible mistakes made by crew all contribute to tragic stories which ultimately led to loss of life and the ships themselves.

Yacht Insurance by Velos Insurance.

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