sQuidd.io: the largest member-to-member boat rental marketplace

Q. Can sQuidd.io really help me cover the operating costs of my boat and even make some money?

Boats are one of the most underutilized assets in the world: just spend some time walking around a marina on a beautiful summer Sunday afternoon and look at the number of boats sitting in their slips. Doesn't it strike you as a huge waste of money? One of the reasons for this is that, until today, renting your boat to others was cumbersome and risky.

Certainly, you can put your boat up for rent with a yacht charter company, only to be left with a small fraction of what the amount that the boat rents for, or you can try a boat sharing arrangement with your best friend or a boat club and stress out over maintenance costs and schedule conflicts.

sQuidd.io is the leading social platform enabling boat owners to generate income by renting their boats out to people they trust, in a safe and easy manner.

Because sQuidd.io eliminates the middleman (the charter company), sQuidd.io members can rent great boats at extremely competitive rates and still enable a boat owner to generate a meaningful income.

Renting a boat has never been easier. Just follow these easy steps:

Find the boat you want
Check the boat's calendar for available dates
Obtain an instant quote
Wait for the owner to accept the request
On the beginning day of your cruise, upload or email your pre-cruise checklist from the boat
At the end of the cruise, upload or email your post-cruise checklist and leave

That's it!

(Click here for a more detailed overview of the rental process)

Yes. Whether you own a 60 foot sailing yacht in the Caribbeans or a small fishing boat on a nearby lake, as long as your boat is in good operating conditions and meets all your local safety requirements, it is quite likely that there is someone out there who is interested in renting it, whether it's for a one day fishing trip, or a two week cruise. sQuidd.io is the best way to find that customer!

Q. I am worried about the risks of renting out my boat to strangers. Can sQuidd.io help?

Yes. For one thing, you can tell sQuidd.io you do not offer bareboat charters, that is to say you want to take people out yourself or have a trusted friend act as a skipper. In this case, you can set a daily skipper rate of your choosing. Just check the Charters with skipper only (no bareboat) box in the boat charter rate plan page. You will have to specify the skipper's daily rate in the same view, an sQuidd.io will compute the total charter amount accordingly. Once you get to know your customers well, you can decide if you feel comfortable allowing them to bareboat-charter your boat.

Q. I want to be able to use my boat on specific days and make it available for charter on others. Can I do that?

Yes. sQuidd.io displays your boat's calendar to prospective renters to show when the boat is available and when not (either because you have reserved the boat to yourself, or because of other existing reservations). Because sQuidd.io synchronizes with Google Calendar, you can use the Google Calendar familiar interface to to set the available dates, either as one-time or as recurring events. For instance, you can make the boat unavailable for an entire month, or just on the first three days of each week. You can easily synchronize your sQuidd.io calendar with your Google Calendar, so that all reservations entered in sQuidd.io by users will be viewable in your Google Calendar at a glance.

Simply create a new Calendar under your Google account (don't use your personal calendar, or all your personal appointments will show up on sQuidd.io!) and give it a name you can easily associate with your boat (we recommend you use the default name created by sQuidd.io using the name of your boat in the Calendar name field of the calendar view ). Then simply create an all day event on the specific date(s) you wish your boat to appear as unavailable, and title the event something like 'unavailable', or 'gone fishing'. You can also create recurring unavailable dates. For instance, you can tell sQuidd.io that your boat is never available on Saturday, or on the first weekend of each month. When you have finished entering the unavailable periods in your newly created Google Calendar simply go to your boat's calendar view in sQuidd.io, enter your Google ID and Google account password, making sure that the Calendar name field contains the name you have given to your Google calendar, and click on the Sync with Google Calendar button. If your plans change, just update your Google Calendar and re-synchronize. Note that the sync process is bi-directional, meaning that as sQuidders create reservations for your boat, these reservation will appear on your Google Calendar after the next sync. Unlike the Unavailable periods you have entered from GC, however, if you delete a reservation in GC, the original reservation in sQuidd.io will not be deleted.

Q. Do I have to accept all reservation requests? How much time do I have to accept a reservation request?

You have 48 hours to accept or reject a reservation and no, you do not have to accept all reservations. Simply click on the Decline button if you do not wish to accept the request. A lack of response from the owner within the 48 hours period of time also means the reservation is to be considered rejected.

Q. What legally enforceable documents do I have to show the renter has properly completed the required pre and post cruise checklist and accepted all the terms of the rental?

First, at the time of submitting and accepting a reservation request, both owner and renter must check a box indicating they understand and agree to all the terms of the rental agreement (IMPORTANT: You, the Owner, need to create your own rental agreement and upload it in your boat profile. Remember that sQuidd.io is not party to the rental agreement, which is only between you and the Renter. Consult the Terms of service for additional information) . The renter will also be required to complete and sign both the pre-cruise and a post-cruise checklists that you have uploaded in your boat (IMPORTANT: sQuidd.io automatically assigns a default checklist PDF with each new boat you create. Visit your boat profile page to verify. You can create and upload your own pre and post cruise checklists as 2 separate pages of a single PDF file. You can find a sample in Microsoft Excel here, which you are welcome to modify as you wish). If the user has access to a smart phone equipped with a decent camera, he/she can photograph the forms and email them to sQuidd.io upon completing the process. You can use the sQuidd.io provided standard forms, or supply forms of your choosing in PDF format. You will be immediately notified of each checklist submission by email, you will be able to view and accept the checklist. The Renter is not authorized to proceed with the Charter unless and until you respond to the submission with an acceptance email.

First, we recommend that you do not offer bareboat charters until you have completed a hands-on evaluation of your renters' skills and level of experience. The best approach is to take the prospective renter out a couple of times with you as the skipper. Second, sQuidd.io relies on a user-generated reputation system, much like the one you may have seen on other e-commerce sites. Third, all sQuidd.io Members who intend to rent other users' boats are strongly encouraged to submit a resume of their sailing and charter boat rental experience in their profile, which should include links to online documents attesting their achievements and qualifications, such as certificates, awards, articles and blog entries. We recommend that you do not offer bareboat charters to members whose rating is undetermined or low, and who do not provide a credible and verifiable resume.

sQuidd.io Members can rate other sQuidd.io users on a scale from 1 to 5 (5 being an ace and 1 ...well... better stick to golf perhaps), by clicking on the corresponding star of the rating widget shown in the user's profile page, provided that the two users have completed or initiated at least one rental transaction with each other (a transaction is considered initiated after the owner has accepted a rental request). You can visit the a user's profile page by clicking on a user's name or picture anywhere in the application (provided the name is a live link). Renters can rate owners and owners can rate renters but, on whichever side of the transaction you are, we ask you that you please be objective and considerate!

Q. I am sailing around the world. Can I charter my boat from different locations?

Yes. Just check the Charter from current check-in box in your user preferences. All reservations will use your last check-in location (rather than the boat's home port, which is the default) as the pick-up and return location for the cruise. Remember that once you accept a reservation, you cannot change the pickup and return location, so make sure you honor all your existing reservations before you sail off to your next destination!

Yes. You can rent a boat anywhere a sQuidd.io member is offering one, whether you want to go blue-water sailing in some exotic island in the south Pacific, or simply go fishing in a nearby lake. That's the beauty of sQuidd.io: you can stay off the beaten path and avoid the crowded destinations serviced by charter companies.

There are multiple ways to find boats available for charter that meet your needs:

Charter your dream vacation

Need to rent a boat?

Boat owners:

Is your power boat or sail boat sitting idle in a marina and burning money? Did you know there are thousands of knowledgeable, trustworthy and interesting people out there who would love to rent your boat for a fee, at no risk for you? Sign up to sQuidd.io today!