‘Share’ a $100,000 boat this summer for $12,000 or less
Club members pay annual fee of $6,000 or $12,000 to make use of 3 boats on Okanagan Lake
Boat sharing has come to Kelowna. Aqua Boat Club, located at the boat launch beside the Hotel Eldorado on Okanagan Lake, has three boats it is lending out with membership.
Membership costs $6,000 a year for unlimited boating on weekdays and $12,000 for unlimited boating seven days a week.
That probably sounds expensive to you.
“But really it isn’t,” said Katelyn Steenwyk of Aqua Marine Valet, parent company to Aqua Boat Club.
“With membership, all you have to do is go boating and have fun. You don’t have to worry about paying off a boat, maintaining it, insuring it, finding moorage or storage, or even putting in and pulling it out of the water because we do all that for you. Owning a boat can be as expensive as $28,000 a year when you include everything, so $6,000 or $12,000 is pretty good.”
One-off rentals of the type of high-end boats Aqua Boat Club has run as high as $900 for a halfday.
That means you more than get your money’s worth by using your $6,000 membership as few as seven times and your $12,000 membership 14 times or more.
So, boat sharing is a option for those who want to boat but don’t want to be tied to the hassle and expense of boat ownership or rentals.
Aqua Boat Club urges you to think of it as Uber for boats or like car sharing, but with a boat.
Aqua Boat sharing comes with a smartphone app so you can reserve your outings on the lake.
You can reserve for the first half of the day, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., if you want to get out early and water-ski on calm water.
Or, you can book the 2-9 p.m. time slot for cruising, wakeboarding, wakesurfing and tubing.
When you reserve, the boat will be in the water at the assigned time, waiting for you with a full tank of gas.
The annual membership fee does not include fuel.
Every boat goes out with a full tank, and when you return someone from the Aqua Boat Team fills it back up and charges your credit card you have on file with them.
The cost of the replacement gas is cheaper than at a marina because Aqua Boat Club gets discounted gas in bulk to use in its operations.
While the membership is an annual one, the boating season is typically May 1 to Sept. 30 in Kelowna.
Aqua Boat Club is part of Aqua Marine Valet, the business that stores and puts boats people own in the water for them at the boat launch beside the Hotel Eldorado.
Aqua saw a business opportunity for boat sharing and bought three high-end new boats, each worth about $100,000.
The Mastercraft XT20 is a 7.3metre watersports boat perfect for wakeboarding, wakesurfing and tubing.
The Cobalt 24SD, also 7.3 metres long, is great for cruising, water-skiing and tubing.
The Regal 2100 is a 6.4-metre boat also great for cruising, water-skiing and tubing.
All boats come with life-jackets and safety equipment.
You can also rent tubes, wakeboards and surfboards to take out.
As of yet, there are no waterskis to rent.