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The membership model of boat clubs is significantly more affordable than buying a boat.Handout

When Michael Khan first heard about boating clubs, he thought they were too good to be true: a company that would give him access to a boat a few times a week, with zero responsibility for upkeep, repairs, storage or insurance?

“I thought it was a scam,” Khan, an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Business, says now.

Still, he was intrigued. He had earned his boating licence years before, and usually rented a boat for a day or two each summer. He would occasionally toy with the idea of buying one of his own, before the reality of ownership, and especially the cost and headache of maintenance, inevitably pulled him out of his marine daydreams.

So, he started Googling and came across Freedom Boat Club, which had opened a franchise in Toronto in 2018. After a call with Amit Kumaria, Freedom’s vice-president and general manager, Khan decided to take the plunge. This is his first year as a member of the club, which offers access to a variety of boat types, and he says he’s been able to get out on the water about three times a week.

“I’m getting exactly what I would be getting if I owned a boat,” he says. “If I think about my own lifestyle, I’m not going to be on a boat every single day. I have a job and a life and other things to do. So, this way, I get exactly what I wanted, for a fraction of what I would have paid.”

Though the model has been around for decades, Khan is just one of the many Canadians who have recently discovered boating clubs. And while he may not fit the traditional idea of a boating enthusiast – that is, a wealthy white guy with time and money to spare – he’s exactly the type of customer boating clubs are looking to reach. Boating has traditionally been restricted to the most privileged sectors of society: According to the most recent U.S. National Recreational Boating Safety Survey, about 80 per cent of recreational boaters are white, about 70 per cent have a household income of more than $70,000 (40 per cent have a household income of more than $150,000) and more than half are male. It’s also generally considered a family pursuit, which functionally keeps access within families. But interest in boating is growing among a wider swath of the population, and providing them with affordable access to the activity is good for business.

Freedom Boat Club launched in 1989 in Sarasota, Fla., and now claims to be the largest members-only boat club in the world, with 285 franchise locations throughout the United States, Canada and France. The Toronto outpost opened in 2018, following earlier Canadian locations in Halifax and Vancouver, and it has seen astronomical growth, especially over the past year. Kumaria says membership has increased between 600 per cent and 700 per cent over the past year, and the organization has added two additional locations near Toronto this year, one west of the city in Port Credit and the other on Lake Simcoe. There are also new franchises in the Ottawa area, British Columbia and Nova Scotia, bringing the Canadian total to 10, with more in the works.

Carefree Boat Club, a Virginia-based company that launched in 2002 and expanded into Canada with a Lake Simcoe location in 2014, has also seen a rise in interest, says Steve Taylor, the founder and chief executive of Carefree Boat Club Lake Simcoe. A Canadian who has spent the past two decades in the U.S., Taylor set his sights on the Canadian market after opening six clubs in Florida. “I thought it would work very well with the lakes,” he says. Before, he says, “even rentals were very sparse, so the only way to go boating was to buy a boat or have friends with a boat.”

Taylor says he’s especially proud of how many members stick with Carefree for years. “More than half of our members are five-year members, and I have members in Florida who are going on 15 years.”

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Freedom Boat Club said there is a growing interest in boating from different ethnic groups, different socioeconomic groups, as well as growth in female boaters and the LGBTQ+ community.Handout

Freedom’s Kumaria adds that in Toronto, “which is the largest sample size of our three franchises, 75 per cent of our members are completely brand new to boating,” he says. “And as a result, we’re seeing people from different ethnic groups, different socioeconomic groups. We’re seeing huge growth in female boaters being primary members and huge growth from the LGBTQ+ community. It’s just been a really positive disruption in what you would normally consider the ‘regular’ demographic of boaters in this area.”

Nance Pretto, a new Carefree franchisee who opened a Toronto location this year, agrees. “There has definitely been an increase in boating, since it is one of the few activities permitted as it is outdoors, and I’ve seen lots of interest in memberships,” she says.

Boat clubs are attractive to new boaters for several reasons. First, the membership model is significantly more affordable than buying a boat, which can cost upwards of $20,000 for a new, 19-foot pontoon, not including the annual cost of maintenance, storage and repairs. Conversely, Freedom Boat Club’s one-time initiation fee is $7,000 with monthly dues of about $350, depending on the level of membership you choose. Carefree’s dues are between $400 and $500 a month, depending on the membership tier you choose, which Taylor says works out to about $34 a day during the boating season.

Many boat clubs require members to complete in-class and practical training before they can take a boat out on the water, and provide unlimited training sessions with an instructor throughout the life of a membership. Kumaria believes that’s one of the biggest reasons for his organization’s demographic shift.

“Traditionally, people have boats in their family that get passed down from generation to generation, and the skill gets passed down, too,” he says. “But this introduces you to the activity from beginning to end of the whole process, including the teaching element of it, and I think that’s what really reduces the barriers.”

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