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Fractional ownership has become increasingly popular in recent years, and we’ve covered a wealth of examples of the practice in the past. It was until just recently however, that we came across the newly launched Nautical Monkey platform, which is now offering these same sharing opportunities to boat owners. The platform — currently in Beta — hopes to overcome many of the doubts that boat owners’ may have before entering into a fractional ownership partnership. Their “Nautical Networking” service functions much like a social network, allowing members to send messages to one another and exchange insights and tips from their boating experiences, while the “Forum” provides information on local boating events. More practically however, the network also enables owners to find potential sharing partners they trust. Once a partner has been found, the platform’s “Resource Library” provides numerous example legal documents, which can be browsed to find a contract which best suits the type of sharing agreement the partners would like to enter into. Once an agreement has been reached, the platform also aims to make the ongoing sharing of a boat as simple as possible. The built-in online calendar lets users schedule, change and cancel boating trips, and the maintenance log lets users file service and repair requests. The platform also hosts an “Expense Tracking” service which enables users to track and share the cost of items purchased for the vessel. A Nautical Monkey mobile website means that all of this functionality is also available for access via mobile phone. Users signing up to Nautical Monkey before August 1st 2011 will be able to use the beta service free for the rest of the year. After that date, pricing will be USD 9.95 per month. As far as we can tell, there seems to be no end in sight for the popularity of fractional ownership platforms — time to bring sharing possibilities to a niche of your own, or export an existing network to your own locality?