Once the province of the wealthy, recreational boating is being opened up by a fast-growing new world of boat clubs, fractional ownership, rentals, and Airbnb-style “ship-sharing,” complete with mobile apps.
Visualize the following scenario:
Dan McGuire left his job at Harpoon to help open a new brewery in Weymouth. He faced a daunting commute from his home in Charlestown. So, he goes by boat to the maximum possible extent. He has also cruised off Maine, around Cape Cod, out of Portsmouth, and in the Gulf of Mexico when he went to Houston to watch the Patriots play the Texans.
McGuire, aged 36, doesn’t own a boat. He doesn’t have to pay dock fees, maintenance, or storage. He belongs to the Freedom Boat Club, which means that he can borrow a boat in any of 110 locations nationwide.
He says that he has been out all over the place. He is a partner in Barrel House Z, which will serve and sell barrel-aged beers. Sometimes he stops in the middle of the harbor and take it all in.
Carl Blackwell, president of the industry association Discover Boating, says that the people want to go boating. These companies are giving them an opportunity to get out there in an affordable way. It also lets them rent the right one for whatever purpose.
McGuire, for example, takes a bow rider to commute, center-console boats to fish, and pontoon boats when he’s island-hopping with friends. He observed that there is something about being on a boat and going out to an island in the harbor and sitting there for hours. It is the greatest thing in the world. It’s the most social thing there is.
Popularity of ship-sharing provision
There are an estimated 12 million registered boats in the United States, the National Marine Manufacturers Association reports. And the $36 billion recreational boating industry is going full speed ahead, with sales up nearly 9 percent last year.
Popularity and advances in technology have given way to the boat club concept and also to fractional ownership (Sailtime), online peer-to-peer rentals (Boatsetter, Boatbound), online charters (Open Angler), and mobile sharing apps for everything from kayaks to houseboats (GetMyBoat). There’s even a new website called Dock Skipper that lets people rent out unused dock space on lakes or in marinas.
Freedom Boat Club owner John Giglio, who said his company has seen double-digit growth over the last six years, observes that this is a rapidly growing segment of the marine industry. A lot of it ties into millennials. That is the target audience for us in a lot of markets, and they don’t want to own anything.
Other ship-sharing providers said around 40 percent of their customers are under 35, and 60 percent are under 45.
Captain Matt O’Connor, the general manager of Freedom Boat Club’s Greater Boston and Cape Cod operations, says that their sweet spot is probably 35 to 55. It’s a lot of young families with children who don’t want to be bothered with the ownership expense and hassle of a boat when they’re busy running around.
Shipowners find a means of recovering exorbitant expenses.
The new on-the-water sharing economy is also a way for owners of those boats bobbing dockside in picturesque marinas to help cover the very, very high cost of them. Jaclyn Baumgarten, Boatsetter’s CEO, whose photo on the website shows her in a skipper’s hat, said that when he saw the opportunity to offset the cost of ownership for a very expensive asset like boats, it was a no-brainer.
The cost aspect of owning
A typical 21- to 24-foot powerboat costs more than $60,000 to buy, not including accessories, slip rental, insurance, maintenance, cleaning, storage, and registration ($73 in Massachusetts every two years).
CIO Bryan Petro, whose company’s 53,000 users rent out everything from canoes to a houseboat replica of the yellow submarine to a crewed charter boat for great white shark diving off South Africa , recounts that the founders of GetMyBoat, returning from a sail one day, noticed all those pricey, idle boats at a marina. They saw this gigantic opportunity.
On the whole, a thriving new business seems to have emerged providing aspects of fun and profit.
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Source: The Boston Globe
