Stavros S Niarchos - For Sale

The British Tall Ship Youth Trust has published a new development plan detailing some significant changes in the organization, including the planned sale of the one remaining tall ship owned by the Trust, the Stavros S Niarchos. In September of last year the Trust sold the brig Prince William to the Pakistan Navy.  The Trust plans to sell the Stavros S Niarchos sometime over the next several years and to acquire a smaller tall ship which should cost less  to operate. Until a buyer is found, the Trust plans on continuing to operate the Stavros S Niarchos. The Tall Ship Youth Trust also operates four 22 meter Challenger yachts and one 19 meter sailing catamaran.

The Tall Ships Trust Development Plan makes for interesting reading. It reflects a realistic and prudent outlook on very challenging economic conditions. From the plan Summary, signed by the Trust Chief Executive, Christine Law:

The Tall Ships Youth Trust has a reputation for delivering outstanding work with young people and for making a real difference to their lives.

We continue to increase the number of young people sailing with us (by an impressive 17% over the last two years). We’re taking 60% more individuals to sea a year than the next biggest UK sail trainer, several times most of the others, and our utilisation is the highest in the fleet. We’ve increased the proportion of young people who are disadvantaged/disabled from 58% to 73% whilst at the same time increasing voyage income and the return per night. These are real successes, ones that set us apart from other sail training organisations and ones that we couldn’t have achieved without the support of our wonderful crew, staff and supporters.

The Trust’s primary responsibility is to ensure this work continues. To do this, the Trust must be financially sustainable, which means operating on a break-even basis or better.

Over the last few years, we’ve worked hard to achieve this. Through a major business restructuring starting in 2007/O8, we’ve replaced one of our two 60m square rigged Tall Ships with four 22m ocean going Challenger Yachts, thus enabling us to expand our work with young people whilst also significantly reducing operating costs. We’ve also implemented numerous cost cutting exercises, launched fundraising campaigns and held merger talks with other charities.

We have a strong balance sheet, including a fleet of book value, and virtually no borrowings. However, cash remains extremely tight and with today’s economic climate, we don’t see the situation getting any better.

Despite everyones efforts – trustees, staff, crews, volunteers, donors, supporters – the recession has made it much harder to raise funds and we’re currently not raising enough to cover all the costs of operating our fleet. On average, we’re short of around £30OK a year.

The mixed fleet model – a Tall Ship and Ocean Going Yachts – is a good one for the Trust, offering the maximum development opportunities to young people. Our dilemma is that whilst the brig is a wonderful setting for sail training, considerably more expensive to operate than the Challengers. We’ll continue to search for benefactors to provide annual support for these costs but in case we don’t them, we’ve now adopted a new Development Plan.

We very definitely want to have a Tall Ship as part of our fleet. So the Development Plan is a 2-3 year plan that sees us replacing Stavros with a smaller Tall Ship which will be more cost effective to operate and help us to continue developing and diversifying our work with young people. We’re seeking funding to implement the Development Plan and we believe that if we restructure in this way, we’ll be able to operate a mixed fleet at an annual break-even or better and so continue our invaluable work with young people.

Thanks to Wojtek Wacowski for posting about the plan in the Traditional Sail Professionals Linked in group.