Boat Maintenance Do-It-Yourself Club

[iBoat Skipper Doug]

BIG IDEA YOUR TAKE NEEDED


As a boater and member of this group, I’d like your take about an idea of starting a “Boat maintenance and care do-it-yourself or DYI club” targeted to trailer boaters.


I was at a social club that has shared ownership of what remains of a house, and is now a bar with light food cooking capability. This social club has been in existence for over a decade after a road construction project left a single house isolated on a micro-parcel of land. This resulted in a small group of people purchasing what remained for hundreds of dollars. Bam, the Pine Club in Sheboygan Wisconsin was formed. I was amazed how well it works for their members. That experience gave me an idea.


The concept is to have a club with a sharing of member wisdom and a shared facility with basic equipment. Membership fees would cover costs yet be lower cost then if the person was on their own and far less then having boat work done at a traditional marine service center.


With limited reflecting on this concept of a marine DIY club, the facility would be equipped for basic boat maintenance and care tasks such as oil, filter, and fluid changes, winterization, cleaning and polishing, and some minor repairs but short of a all-out advanced repair such as rebuilding motors, with no heavy tooling such as welding equipment, open flames, or heavy gantry cranes for pulling motors. Because equipment would be shared, it would be easy to justify purchasing routine maintenance equipment such as a outdrive jack, ladders, maybe even a rolling scaffold for easy, and safe boat waxing.


To be fair, the shop facility utilization would need to be rationed via a schedule system with the option to buy more time as a club members utilization dictates. Tools and manuals would be “checked-out” and returned. Facility cleaning guidelines would be clear, as well as procedures for those that break the rules, including purging repeat rule breaking members from the club. A club rulebook would evolve to address issues as they come up, with some sort of elected board and member voting.


Its possible the club could evolve to include educational marine boat maintenance DIY classes and social events. Also members would be free to help each other as they come to agreement on their own. For example, “You pull my boat to here and I’ll wax your boat at the club shop for you.” If the person wishes to bring in a helper or mobile mechanic, or work on their motorcycle or ATV or a Freinds boat and they have the time slot on the schedule, sure, no worries.

Off-season (winter) could be dedicated to fee based storage in the facility.


As the club grows in membership, it could move to a larger shop and/or expand its avaialble tooling.


Thoughts?


Have you ever heard of something similar to this for Boats, Campers, RV’s, Motorcycles, ATV’s, UTV’s, Snowmobiles, Tractros, collector Cars, Airplanes or anything else? I’d like to know what has been tried elsewhere.

 

[bobeast]

Two words. "lawyers"

OK that's really one word, but most people add an adjective.

 

[iBoat Skipper Doug]

Two words. "lawyers"

OK that's really one word, but most people add an adjective.

Is the adjective “Fine” like, “Those fine lawyers are making this country great again.”

Heard this one a few years back. 99% of the lawyers give the rest of them a bad name.

As far as liability, I get your warning. By joining a club, with a waver requirement and minimal to no assets, what would there be to go after? Like when someone goes after a broke person, they are judgment proof.

 

[Chip S]

It could work if you also provided storage space (outside in the Summer and inside in the Winter). Many people would prefer to store their boat at some place other than their house.

 

[Carpediem44DB]

The club concept sounds and looks good on paper as does socialism. If it did not have to be run by human beings with their own interests to consider it would be great. Probably a better concept would be an individual or a couple of folks put together an owner assist MX yard with a subscription format. That way rules and protocols get set and enforced by a profit motive. It would still be more cost efficient than paying a shop to do the work. I’ve seen many airplane owner clubs fail because of inequity of use and participation in support activities.
My 2 cents
Carpe Diem

 

[iBoat Skipper Doug]

The club concept sounds and looks good on paper as does socialism. If it did not have to be run by human beings with their own interests to consider it would be great. Probably a better concept would be an individual or a couple of folks put together an owner assist MX yard with a subscription format. That way rules and protocols get set and enforced by a profit motive. It would still be more cost efficient than paying a shop to do the work. I’ve seen many airplane owner clubs fail because of inequity of use and participation in support activities.
My 2 cents
Carpe Diem

Fascinating. Can you please tell me more how it works in the airplane world?

The “Owner assist” subscription idea, does that exist in the airplane world?

I’d like to find a business model that has shown a record success, even if the model is outside of boating, such as airplanes, motorcycles, ATV’s, snowmobiles, campers, RV’s, Tractors, perhaps even collector cars, etc.

That could be a model that could be replicated.

 

[JVM225]

We had a couple of do it yourself garages open around here back in the 1970’s. You could go in and rent lift space by the hour or the day.
Two things I remember That contributed to their demise.
1. Hard to predict how long something will take to do because you often find more issues once you tackle a lob.
2. Insurance costs were crushing them.

You would have to get past those two issues in a private club too.

Also, we all work differently. The boatyard owner where I winter is very good about letting guys work on their boats. There are some guys who you barely know they’re there and when they leave the area around their boat is just the way they found it. On the other hand, there are guys who are a bit less considerate.
That could be a problem.

 

[Carpediem44DB]

Fascinating. Can you please tell me more how it works in the airplane world?

The “Owner assist” subscription idea, does that exist in the airplane world?

I’d like to find a business model that has shown a record success, even if the model is outside of boating, such as airplanes, motorcycles, ATV’s, snowmobiles, campers, RV’s, Tractors, perhaps even collector cars, etc.

That could be a model that could be replicated.

I don't know of a business currently operating under this model. I did owner assisted annuals from time to time in my hangar along side of my normal book of business. I would only work with or for owners that I knew were competent and would follow the protocols that I set up. I would charge them for time and materials at my normal shop rate for the work that they required me to do but they were welcome to do the tasks that they wanted to do themselves and if required use my specialized equipment. Since I had the final authority and responsibility to return the aircraft to service I did not incur any additional insurance costs. I paid through the nose for my premiums anyway. The major issues we would run across usually was the availability of the owner to work on his plane during the normal work week. I wasn't about to give up my boat weekends to accommodate an owner assist project.
Several of the boat yards in our area have cut way back on allowing DIY work. Most that do only do so if they have a work order open for a haul out and bottom paint or other major work and allow the owner to do minor work while on the hard like polishing or deep cleaning.
As I mentioned in my PP, the concept sounds great but in the real world there are just so many ways that it becomes such a PITA that it is not sustainable. If it was easy there would be a business or club in the vacant lot next to every marina.
The best resource for something similar are sites such as this and other social media networking to join folks with similar boats and collaborate to help each other with not only advice but sharing resources.
Carpe Diem