Freedom Boat Club, which claims to be the world’s largest boat club, just announced that it will open its 400th club next month in Jupiter, Florida.
Freedom now has 90,000 members in its locations across the U.S., Europe, and Australia; about one-third are women.
Cecil Cohn, the Freedom Boat Club president, said it would continue to expand its territory “as we continue to democratize boating by providing access and training to new boats.”
Freedom has thousands of boats in its fleet; most are single-engine outboards. The idea is that you pay a one-time membership fee and then a monthly fee that enables you to rent a boat at a club near you or at other Freedom clubs. You don’t have any of the costs and hassles of actually owning, repairing, docking and insuring a boat. Freedom does all that, including maintenance, repair, cleaning, insurance and storage.
There are different categories of membership. Some enable you to use a boat during the weekdays, others on any day of the week. You have to be at least 21 years old and take a safe boating class. Local captains can help you if you’re brand new to boating or just a bit rusty. Then you reserve the boat on the phone or internet, use it and just pay for the fuel you burn.
The Freedom fleet ranges from 17 to 25 feet, and includes center consoles, dual consoles, bow riders, pontoon boats, wake boats, ski boats and inshore fishing boats.
The fees vary from state to state and location to location. The one-time membership fee, for example, runs from $2,400 to $11,000. In Connecticut, the one-time fee ranges from $3,600 to $6,000, and the monthly fee from $300 to $350. In Florida, the one-time fee varies from $2,750 to $8,000; the monthly fee from $149 to $299.
To see what is available, I selected the nearest location to me from the Freedom web page. It was the club at Safe Harbor Marina in Stratford, Connecticut, and it had ten boats, from 21 to 24 feet (most were at the 24-foot range); they included center consoles, dual consoles and pontoon boats.
Freedom Boat Club was founded in 1989 in Sarasota, Florida, with the idea to provide hassle-free boating, or boating-made-simple, for members. Brunswick bought it in 2019.
Read more at http://freedomboatclub.com and see the video below:
