Matt Trulio's article on Baja mentions they are getting into the rental business with a boat club. So on that thought, how many OSO members would consider go fast boat rental as an alternative to actual ownership.

Pros:
1. Pay only when you use it (great for up north boaters)
2. No truck/trailer/storage expense
3. Limited exposure to rebuild/ repair costs
4. Limited insurance costs

Cons:
1. You are limited by rental program rules/availiabilty
2. No customizing/naming vessel

Now from a math perspective. Even if the boat is $1500 a day (sounds pricey right) if you took your current boat costs and divide them by the amount of hours it could be competitive. 3000 insurance, 1500 fluid/tune up/batteries, 500 trailer tags/maintenance/tires is 5K plus 9K in payments ($750 month)with nothing broken. If you put 14K out every season yet only use the boat for 25 hours a season that is $580 an hour with no rebuilds, no blown drives, no exhaust replacement etc. So if you eat a set of headers, rebuild the drives you could easily surpass the $1500 a day in usage costs for a northern boater.

So now the boats......obviously the boats would be used, light on power so your fantasy of a 47 Apache with triple 1000's is out.

30 Mystique/ 35 Café Racer/ 38 TG/ 31/35/42 Sonic type stuff - Old School straight bottom Vees, Big dockside impression, safe enough vessel to handle (no step bottoms, no superfast Fountains ). Would you pay $1500 a day to run one of these rigs? Spend $3000-4500 to run it on a poker run (Cheaper than hauling a boat out of the Midwest)?

Smaller single engine stuff (25 Outlaw, 26 Sonic, 28 Sunsation)........$1000 a day?

Center Consoles- 30 Scarab Sport, 27-33 Concept type stuff $750 a day?

Want to have a good time, drink? Add a captain to any of the boats for $300-400 a day?

Anyone see this as a viable rental business? Would Searay/Formula cruisers be viable?

Look at the carrying costs: Some of these boats could be bought for mid-30's, rent them 20-30 times and you got all your investment back. Some of the issues like accidents, theft, damage, illegal activities would be tough to manage but if it was a "club" idea where you had a pool of members then they might care for the stuff better. The boats could be moved for the seasons, LOTO summers, avoid FL hurricane insurance issues, winter boating in Florida to get more usage.

Now for the lake guys that camp on the boat all weekend or simply raft off this would be a tough sale but for someone to go out for 6-8 hours, burn some fuel (not included ), get some sun and bring it back in one piece it would be a nice day!

Nice piece for under 30K- http://www.offshoreonly.com/classifi...o53641-en.html
Stuff a pair of 502's in it and freshen the paint- http://www.offshoreonly.com/classifi...o55881-en.html
Nice piece for low 30s- http://www.offshoreonly.com/classifi...o56445-en.html
Fresh boat- http://www.offshoreonly.com/classifi...o55944-en.html
Smaller Size- http://www.offshoreonly.com/classifi...o56319-en.html

If it flies, floats or f$#ks....rent it

I can tell you I have a couple of friends that live in the north with homes in FL that have looked into the club and think for them it would make sense.

They don't have to worry about anything and just want to be able to hop in and go. If they could get what they think is a "performace" boat, so much the better.

To them a Baja with a outboard would be a performance boat.

The guys up north think that salt water melts fiberglass so it would be perfect for an up north boater who is on vacation. I think the performance niche' would be better than renting pontoon/deck boats to tourists who have never played captain before and hitting everything above and below the water!

I'd love to be able to fly to Miami and rent a 33-38' twin for a couple of days, I like singles, but in strange waters twins are so much easier

There would have to be some kind of certification or something of that sort to be able to rent one a tourist in a pontoon boat with a 50 merc scares me, let alone a tourist with a pair of 502s who has never docked a boat before. That being said I worked at a marina a few summers ago that rented the usually toons and run -abouts people about that price for a week on a crappy pon toon boat and we were booked all summer so I would said there's definitely a market but sounds expensive

what about fractional ownership like they do with planes?

not crazy big power boats but something simple and still fast with a warranty, 496 HO stuff

Good power boats but nothing over say 70 mph, warranty is useless on new boats since they would be considered commercial use.

Fractional ownership is good but it takes more of a financial commitment for someone to participate which is great for the business but a roadblock to some clients due to money factor.

Dave, the reason people choose fractional ownership of planes over chartering a plane is that you are now an "owner" and can depreciate that airplane 100% of its value in 5 years. So, say you paid $5 million for your share of the aircraft, you can write off a $5 million dollar loss over those 5 years. You obviously recapture some of this money when the plane is sold, but the thought process is that instead of paying the IRS that tax money over the last 5 years, that money was making money for you somewhere else.