An Interview with Philippe Le Goff

Posted by Alan Sorum Jul 10, 2008

Philippe Le Goff, the junior partner in See My Sea took time to speak with Suite101.com.

How did See My Sea concept begin? - "It was Jacques Moy, our principle, who came up with the idea. He owns a boat and, every now and then, he goes sailing with his family and friends. Although Brittany is a very nice area, with plenty of interesting stopovers, he started to feel like dropping the anchor somewhere else, at least sometimes, why not once a year..."

Are there any other boat swapping programs in place like yours? - "Our next logical step was to check on the Internet if there was something similar for boats. Jacques found two or three websites displaying limited lists of boat owners keen on swapping. Although it was already something, these websites looked very amateurish compared with those dealing with home exchanges."

Can you describe the See My Sea website to our readers? "It did not take long before Jacques decided to create a website with a professed professional approach. By "professional", he included features like a built-in search engine that could find location, boat type, berths, and availability dates, with a "swap alarm system" that allows members to express their desiderata for one or several swap projects and that sends notifications of any matching offer, automatically."

How did you get involved in this venture? "As Jacques is a convivial person, he asked his two most adventurous friends, Bruno Maschelein and myself, to join him in this venture. We gladly did so mainly because we thought that the concept was worth the effort when you consider what has been achieved in the field of home swapping. It is an opportunity to establish a link between boaters and we hope to eventually create an international community which loves contacts and values trust."