Monthly Subscription Boat Rentals

[Shawn1112]

Spinning this off PANDA Polaris thread as they are similar. Long story short, my brother has been saying he was going to buy a boat since he retired from the Army 3yrs ago.
He bought a house in McHenry to be close to the water. He hasnt bought the boat yet and last year I offered to split it with him as I wouldnt mind having a boat as well. So he said he still wasnt ready (issues at home I think)

Last night he calls me and tries selling me the dream on below. Said he talked to the guy and its a great deal blah blah blah. I said the dude is a fucking salesman, of course he made it sound like a great thing. My brother is like, "when you take your car down to Miami, you can get a boat as well". I told him, I have no business being out on the ocean in a boat with no experience outside of renting ski boats and pontoons in the dells lol. I skimmed thru it and I'm very skeptical of it. I think him and I buying is the better route to go.

So whats the boat dudes and financial experts at TCG say?

Freedom Boat Club

Your boat membership is waiting for you at Freedom Boat Club. We are the world's largest boating club.

www.freedomboatclub.com

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[PANDA]

We had a thread about this a while back.

Boat clubs (Freedom Boat club)?

I know they are scarce up in the midwest, but I know freedom has boats in chicago you can take out. But since we moved to Tampa, its boat city out here and we are feeling the itch. We were out on a friend's 34" SeaRay in the gulf a few weekends ago and it was a blast. We are thinking about...

www.thechicagogarage.com

 

[PANDA]

I think a bit has changed in 3 years since that thread. We now have sky-high used boat prices and a lack of availability if you want to buy any recreational vehicle. Not to mention a ton of new users/buyers.

What does it cost? It looks like the fox lake location only has only two pontoon boats as of now with 4 more coming. They say unlimited usage, but with a limited number of boats in a popular area what are the chances of you being able to take one out at the time you want?

 

[Shawn1112]

I think a bit has changed in 3 years since that thread. We now have sky-high used boat prices and a lack of availability if you want to buy any recreational vehicle.

What does it cost? It looks like the fox lake location only has only two pontoon boats as of now with 4 more coming. They say unlimited usage, but with a limited number of boats in a popular area what are the chances of you being able to take one out at the time you want?

I saw that and is one of the the things I plan on bringing to my brothers attention.

 

[frank]

Been going back and forth on this myself down here in Florida. Have a few friends that use freedom boat club and have good things to say on it, book a boat, boat for the day drop the boat off and in the car they go, no clean up, fueling, taking it out of the water, storage etc…

For us down here it’s a $5000.00 buy in, $450-$500 a monthly fee. We have about 15 or different place to get a boat on the coast.

Bookings can be an issue from time to time , but that’s what’s nice to have multiple freedom clubs to pick from and grab a boat, ( drive 20 -30mins to a diffent location and grab a boat ) boats need to be in by sunset, for us only certain boats can go in the gulf. Bookings work off a credit system per week, “x amount of credits used for full and half day rentals and then weekends.

For my wife and I we have looked at it several times for me it’s the do I have enough time to use this service as much as I think I will to re-coup the fees for the first year being 10k. Can’t always be on the water, kids sports, other events going on, trying to stay off the water on the weekends, etc…but as a realtor and my wife owning her own business we have some free time during the work week.

If I was to get a boat to own it would cost me a boat 12-20k, plus a 400-500 a month for dry dock at a marina, or 100 a month for lot storage, then maintenance etc… then I would need to get a truck to tow the boat, My HOA doesn’t allow boats overnight or storage on the property so that’s no good if I want to work on it myself.

I keep thinking freedom is the way for us to go!

 

[1quick]

It probably works out well for some people that don’t have room to store a boat and can’t do maintenance on one, personally I own 3 boats they are all older, I pay to store one of them it’s 100 a month inside storage, the other 2 are at my house, all 3 combined I have less than 40k invested in them and that’s including the 15k I paid for a new motor and install on my performance boat last season, 3 of them is a bit much, something is always wrong with one of them lol but I live on the water and use one of them almost every day when it’s warm out

 

[Yaj Yak]

Dr. Jimbo