On the water in Brooklyn. <\/span> (Photo: Freedom Boat Club)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nUp to four reservations can be booked at a time, each for around three to four hours, and yes, double booking is allowed so you can enjoy the whole day on the water. Aside from a few popular water days (think Fourth of July or Labor Day Weekend), boats typically don\u2019t need to be reserved more than a few days out, and to date, around 670,000 trips are booked a year.<\/p>\n
The boats themselves are leased through Brunswick Boat Club (the parent company of Freedom Boat Club), and include myriad styles for all types of outdoor activities: smooth Boston Whalers and pontoons perfect for family trips, zippy bow riders, inshore or offshore boats perfect for fishing, sailboats and plenty more. Some of the boats require additional training, but as Will Sangster, the President of Business Acceleration at Freedom Boat Club, tells me, it\u2019s only about 10 percent of the fleet. Best of all, the boats are new. The club cycles out boats after about three years, so you won\u2019t be getting any sort of water jalopy.<\/p>\n
Of the roughly 400 locations in the U.S., the club occupies space in a variety of waters: open ocean, lakes, rivers, bays, so wherever you want to get outside, there\u2019s a boat to help you do it.<\/p>\n
The idea of getting more people out on the water is the central message for Freedom Boat Club. In fact, the club aims to bring a new wave (pun intended) of boaters to the scene. The club\u2019s membership base is clustered in the late 30s to mid-40s, much younger than traditional boat ownership, which is somewhere between the 60s and 70s, according to the National Marine Manufacturers Association.<\/p>\n
Roughly four out of every 10 members of the club are new to boating altogether, and according to Brenna Preisser, the President of Brunswick Boat Club, women make up nearly 30 percent of the club\u2019s membership compared to around 12 percent of traditional boat ownership.<\/p>\n
For me, reading a book under the sun while gently bobbing on the deck of a pontoon on a lake in Upstate, New York is as close to utopia as I\u2019ll ever get. What I love most about that feeling is how nothing feels so big or scary out on the water\u2014it\u2019s as close to a moment of pure peace as I\u2019m capable of having.<\/p>\n
As much as I love it, boat ownership is not for me. The maintenance, fuel, docking, and storage fees amount to a bill I never want to see. What I yearn for is far simpler: the open water, sunshine, a fresh breeze, and of course, my book sitting on my chest, dog-eared. No room for the angst of individual boat ownership or the vague hope of getting an invite onto a friend\u2019s boat. Instead, I\u2019m just a reservation, and a few intro to boating courses, away from my perfect summer day.<\/p>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Freedom Boat Club is treating access to the water less like a purchase and more like a gym membership, breaking down the high barriers to entry for a new, younger generation of water lovers.
(Photo: Freedom Boat Club) Published October 26, 2026 08:42AM Two things about me are true: I love spending time boating, and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wild-living"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}