Firstly, check your syndicate agreement. Many syndicates require you to give other owners notice of your intention to sell your share.

If your boat is managed by one of the professional boat management companies ( BCBM Boat Share, Carefree Cruising and Ownashare Cruising) you will be able to use their share brokerage services and they will handle everything for you, including advertising the share for sale, representing you at shows, showing prospective buyers over your boat, negotiating the price and finalising the sale. If you use one of these companies, your share will also be included in the searchable listing on this site, which is the most comprehensive list of narrowboat shares in the UK.

Managed boats with shares for sale through their own management company may also have the opportunity to get the boat into one of the shows and open days that these companies organise, including The Boat Share Show at Braunston on 13th & 14th April 2014. Experience suggests that attendance at shows is one of the most effective ways of selling a share.

Some of the companies restrict their brokerage activities mostly to boats they manage, so your own management company would always be your first port of call when you want to sell your share.

If you are trying to sell a share in a self-managed boat, the options may be more limited. If the reason for selling your share is to upgrade to a newer managed boat, then again your best bet is to talk to the company manging the intended new boat. Even if you're not upgrading, it's always worth asking one of the mangement companies if they can help. Some offer brokerage services for self-managed syndicates on an equal footing with those in their managed boats and, of course, using one of the management companies gets your share listed on this site as well.

The alternative is essentially a DIY option. If you are doing this, you can use a specialist shared ownership website to advertise your share. As far as we know, the only one in this category is boatshare.co.uk (which is completely separate from boatshare4u.co.uk). Any shares in self-managed boats that are advertised on boatshare.co.uk will also be included in the combined listing on this site, making this the most comprehensive list of available shares to be found anywhere.

There are a number of other websites that offer shares for sale alongside other boat sales and there are also 'For sale' sections in some of the forums. Shares have even been offered on ebay. If your boat is moored in a marina with a brokerage based there, then the brokerage may be prepared to offer your share for sale. You should also put a 'Share for sale' sign in the boat windows - and encourage your fellow owners to keep it there when they are on the boat! Unfortunately, it isn't possible to include details of shares offered in such a wide range of places in the combine list of available shares on theis site.

With any of these DIY options (particularly the web-only ones) you are likely to have to show round any prospective buyers, sort out any paperwork and then show the buyers everything they need to know about the boat when they go on their first trip. You will also probably need to get your buyer to sign the syndicate agreement before they can get use of the boat.