How to share expenses with multiple crews?

[Halberdier]

Hi:

I am planning a three month coastal cruise to northern Labrador. There will be myself and two or three other crew on my boat. There will likely be several crew changes. Some can only sail for a few weeks.

The plan is to share expenses for food, fuel and marinas. We will purchase most of the food and fuel before the voyage and buy perishables as needed. Food and fuel purchased in isolated communities is 20 to 50 percent more expensive than in southern areas.

The problem is how to fairly and simply share the expenses?
-- Charge a flat rate. Not really sharing expenses, more like a restaurant. Not fair as someone who consumes "cheap" food in southern areas as opposed to isolated areas.
-- First crew purchases food, inventory food at each crew change and credit old crew for inventory and charge new crew. This is a good idea for inventory control.
-- Captain purchases all food and record consumption. Not likely accurate.

What worked for you?

You can check-out our plans and pictures on Krazysailing's Blog

[scottyt]

probably the easiest but not so fair is figure a daily rate and charge everyone the same per day. now you can slide an extra 10 % on or off as needed for those who eat more or less. that is probably what i would do, but it does make it subjective.

[sailingdog]

Generally, the crew on most boats are fed by the captain, who is also responsible for paying for fuel and marinas.

Since this isn't the case on your boat, what you should probably do is figure out what your average daily cost for food, marina, and fuel will be, then divide that by the number of people aboard the boat and have people pay that times the number of days they're going to be aboard.