Refueling with co-owners

[jhartt3]

Why even come own the boat at all if you two paid for 75%. Sounds like you're sweating some really small stuff now and pinching pennies. None of this is worth the fights it could start 

[carguy79ta]

Not boats, but I had a college buddy years ago want to live in my duplex while he went on to med school.  We were great friends.  Didnt work. He was too anal and picky for me. I was too much of a slob for him...i guess...it was MY place..fast forward 1.5years, he went to med school, I was dam glad to see him go.  basically screwed up a good friendship.

[TallRedRider]

4 hours ago, jhartt3 said:

Why even come own the boat at all if you two paid for 75%. Sounds like you're sweating some really small stuff now and pinching pennies. None of this is worth the fights it could start 

Not so much, IMHO.  That is why I asked what boat he is referring to.  It is an older boat, so his gas expenditures are going to be a significant part of his overall expense.  

When I see guys worried about gas in a 100K boat, I always call BS, and think they are stretching themselves too thin, or being too anal.  This is not the case in a boat that I am guessing is worth 25K, and he doesn't have the funds or desire to spend enough to own it outright. 

The only fair answer is to fill it up after you use it.  Everything else is too much effort, or will never work out fairly.  

[Cole2001]

Maybe try and figure out how much fuel the boat burns and say for every hour that goes on the boat you put in a 5 gallon gas can. 

[JustinHarrelson]

Boat is alway stored with a full tank. At the end of the day, who was in the boat, splits of the gas bill. This is the only way I have seen it work out well. Keep it simple and if anyone in the equation is very particular--they need to go buy their own boat.

[kerpluxal]

You need to treat it as business... Set up an account for it... Rent it wet (renter never pays gas) and charge an hourly fee that covers wear items and fuel... 

Then when one of the owners uses it.. pay per say $25.00 per hour (motor time not actual day time, and this number is made up, did not figure out yearly cost)... if he puts 2 hours on boat then he contributes $50.00 into the account... the boat fuel always comes the account... and if something happens, you have money for that as well (maintenance/repairs).

[Michigan boarder]

1 hour ago, kerpluxal said:

You need to treat it as business... Set up an account for it... Rent it wet (renter never pays gas) and charge an hourly fee that covers wear items and fuel... 

Then when one of the owners uses it.. pay per say $25.00 per hour (motor time not actual day time, and this number is made up, did not figure out yearly cost)... if he puts 2 hours on boat then he contributes $50.00 into the account... the boat fuel always comes the account... and if something happens, you have money for that as well (maintenance/repairs).

This is a great idea.  Except, who actually puts gas in the boat?  Probably the 75% couple.

I like this idea to supply fuel cost but also to set aside $$ for repairs, because that is potentially a huge argument waiting to happen.  Example: the impeller goes out.  What do we do?  Well, the shop says it's $250 to replace the impeller, and they are 2 weeks out.  Option 1)One owner can then volunteer to fix it.  If the parts are $50, then the person pockets $200 for their labor.  Option 2)Everyone fixes it together and shares the $200 labor, or agrees to leave it in the fund.  Option 3)the shop gets paid to do it, and you guys pay them $250.  The good news here is that the $250 is already in the account, and not a surprise expense to bear.

[05hammerhead]

2 hours ago, Cole2001 said:

Maybe try and figure out how much fuel the boat burns and say for every hour that goes on the boat you put in a 5 gallon gas can. 

or 8-12 gallons...

[Ryan1776]

22 hours ago, kerpluxal said:

You need to treat it as business... Set up an account for it... Rent it wet (renter never pays gas) and charge an hourly fee that covers wear items and fuel... 

Then when one of the owners uses it.. pay per say $25.00 per hour (motor time not actual day time, and this number is made up, did not figure out yearly cost)... if he puts 2 hours on boat then he contributes $50.00 into the account... the boat fuel always comes the account... and if something happens, you have money for that as well (maintenance/repairs).

You've gotten a lot of ideas. I came here to say almost the exact same thing. 
Setup an account. Everyone has paypal now. Figure out your hourly rate and deposit it into the account at the end of the day.
If you're sitting on the sandbar and you used 0.1 hours. At that 25/hour you deposit 2.5 bucks. 

Everyone has a card linked to that account. 
I don't necessarily like buying fuel at the end of the day to replenish it. Sometimes you get off the lake at midnight. Well I do, and I certainly don't want to go get fuel. It would be easy to know how much fuel was used by the previous outing. 
"Hey we ran for 4 hours today, we burned about 20 gallons I deposited 100 bucks" 
Then when the next owner goes out he picks up 20 gallons of fuel and fills it. I ALWAYS fill my boat at the start of the day/weekend. Never at the end too tired. 
The only way this really sucks is if one guy uses way more than the other, than the low usage guy has to lug around more fuel all the time. If that happens too often, maybe the way it works changes. 

But the single account everyone drops money to seems to be the best way here.

[05hammerhead]

6 minutes ago, Ryan1776 said:

You've gotten a lot of ideas. I came here to say almost the exact same thing. 
Setup an account. Everyone has paypal now. Figure out your hourly rate and deposit it into the account at the end of the day.
If you're sitting on the sandbar and you used 0.1 hours. At that 25/hour you deposit 2.5 bucks. 

Everyone has a card linked to that account. 
I don't necessarily like buying fuel at the end of the day to replenish it. Sometimes you get off the lake at midnight. Well I do, and I certainly don't want to go get fuel. It would be easy to know how much fuel was used by the previous outing. 
"Hey we ran for 4 hours today, we burned about 20 gallons I deposited 100 bucks" 
Then when the next owner goes out he picks up 20 gallons of fuel and fills it. I ALWAYS fill my boat at the start of the day/weekend. Never at the end too tired. 
The only way this really sucks is if one guy uses way more than the other, than the low usage guy has to lug around more fuel all the time. If that happens too often, maybe the way it works changes. 

But the single account everyone drops money to seems to be the best way here.

4

Not too bad an idea.  Make every gallon $5 instead of $2.5 and Im sure peoples minds will change at wanting to fill it up.  If I had to put gas in every time I drove the boat Id be pissed as it adds another 40 mins to my outing, between getting the cans, stopping at the station, filling, carrying, dumping, storing cans.  You use the gas, you fill the gas OR pay me a HUGE premium to do it for you. 

[Ryan1776]

1 hour ago, 05hammerhead said:

Not too bad an idea.  Make every gallon $5 instead of $2.5 and Im sure peoples minds will change at wanting to fill it up.  If I had to put gas in every time I drove the boat Id be pissed as it adds another 40 mins to my outing, between getting the cans, stopping at the station, filling, carrying, dumping, storing cans.  You use the gas, you fill the gas OR pay me a HUGE premium to do it for you.

Well, like I said that'll depend on the amount of usage each person goes out and drives it. 
If each person uses it equally, then there's no issue. BUT if one person uses it disproportionately then yes, the other person would always be bringing far more fuel. 

BUT I think the takeaway is, everyone will always bring fuel. Whether it's 5 gallons or 20. Once you're at the station, what's 10 min to fill up 3 more cans? 

Like I said, that logistical point might need some polishing. 

 

You could event take it one step further where everyone put's in their portion of the boat payment. And just auto deduct it from there. 

Edited May 4, 2018 by Ryan1776

[riot138]

My last two boats were splits. Everyone always left enough gas to get you out to the swim hole or for a quick cruise but if I knew I was going to be riding that day I would fill it with that much gas (a few hours of riding was usually $100 worth of gas from what I can remember) .  It's a little different because we would leave it in the water on a busy lake that was never calm enough to ride so I would be trailering making it easier to gas up.  Obviously the best option is to leave it full all the time but that isn't always the easiest to do.

Edited May 4, 2018 by riot138

[04 VLX WINDERMERE UK]

We run a spread sheet, fill it up before we go out, and it is put as a charge on the sheet against the person who used it last. Works well for us. The most important thing is that both my co-owner and I are equally fanatical about keeping our baby in pristine condition, which really helps. What also helps is been able to fuel where we keep the boat and quite often we use the boat together.

[Raimie]

When I was in college on a club waterski team we had a similar situation with gas. Bottom line, park it full or people will be pissed off. I always had 4, 5 gallon gas cans in my truck and would fill them up on the way out (I paid). After the outing, the members that were there retrieved the cans, filled up the boat. We knew what we used based on that and split the cost if you were pulled. If someone brought a friend for a spotter that didn't get pulled, we never had them chip in. Everyone who used the boat followed this system and it was never an issue and there were no conflicts over gas.

Getting in at midnight and not wanting to fill up is a poor excuse when the other owner is showing up for a morning set only to find the boat empty.

Edited May 4, 2018 by Raimie

[Ryan1776]

20 minutes ago, Raimie said:

Getting in at midnight and not wanting to fill up is a poor excuse when the other owner is showing up for a morning set only to find the boat empty.

Depends on the precedent that has been set. We're not talking a pool of 15 people. It's 3. Two of which are together most of the time. So it'll be easy to know if the boat is on E or not. 
What difference does it make if you bring fuel when you show up or have to go out and come back after the day? The difference to me is two trips, but either way, you're getting fuel. 
Again, not up to me, but I'd MUCH rather show up in the morning fresh and happy with hot coffee. Take 15min to fuel the boat while the ballast fills up. 

[Raimie]

1 minute ago, Ryan1776 said:

Depends on the precedent that has been set. We're not talking a pool of 15 people. It's 3. Two of which are together most of the time. So it'll be easy to know if the boat is on E or not. 
What difference does it make if you bring fuel when you show up or have to go out and come back after the day? The difference to me is two trips, but either way, you're getting fuel. 
Again, not up to me, but I'd MUCH rather show up in the morning fresh and happy with hot coffee. Take 15min to fuel the boat while the ballast fills up. 

We did a lot of slalom back then so there was not ballast filling time. Skiers like that morning glass and it doesn't last long... so, that 15 minutes is pretty important.

Not sure what you mean about 2 trips. Fill up the cans on the way to the lake and leave them in the truck while using the boat, fill up boat when done.

I'd MUCH rather show up in the morning and have the boat ready to go. Currently my boat is on a hoist, and even though I am the sole owner, I still always fill it up at the end of the day (using the same 5 gallon cans) because I want it to be ready to go for the next trip out....and just in case its actually calm, I want that extra 15 minutes of hard to find glass...

[Ryan1776]

9 minutes ago, Raimie said:

We did a lot of slalom back then so there was not ballast filling time. Skiers like that morning glass and it doesn't last long... so, that 15 minutes is pretty important.

9 minutes ago, Raimie said:

and just in case its actually calm, I want that extra 15 minutes of hard to find glass...

Agree. But, assuming the boat isn't on fumes....go out and use the glass. But you already brought the appropriate amount of fuel to replace from the previous outing. 

9 minutes ago, Raimie said:

Not sure what you mean about 2 trips. Fill up the cans on the way to the lake and leave them in the truck while using the boat, fill up boat when done.

If you're asking the boat to be full. How do you know how much you will use that day? You might get an epic day and use 30 gallons and you only brought 10. So you'll need go back out. Or your bought 30 and sat all day because the water was terrible. Now you have full cans in your truck till, whenever. 
If the next person to come out was told by the previous trip "we used 25 gallons" then you fill up 5 cans with the pool credit card. 
Either way, someone is getting fuel. Someone is filling the boat. 

Edited May 4, 2018 by Ryan1776

[JeffC]

Interesting thread.   When I was buying my first boat, I was actively looking for a partner.  Wasnt entirely sure I was going to be as addicted as I wound up being, and I have a long history of becoming obsessed with something for a few years, then getting bored and moving on with my life.   I couldnt find anyone to go in with me, so I just bought it outright (I suspect my friends were wiser than I).   I am glad it worked out that way - for a few reasons.  

• I never had to worry if the boat was available to me on any given day.   I wound up escaping for lake time on VERY short notice - a lot.  I probably could not have done that if I had a partner.
• There were some unplanned expenses that came up.  I did not have to be concerned if there was enough money in the "escrow" account to cover them, nor did I have to worry about whether my partner was able to cough up more to cover their share of any excess. 
• I didnt have to deal with getting out of a deal, or getting a partner out of the deal.    
• This thread reminds me that there is WHOLE bunch more things - little stuff that could become really annoying to my partner, or to me. 

For me, Im glad I did not find a partner.   Im not saying it cant work, I know it can, I have a relative that has a great boat partnership that has gone on for many years now.   They seemed to have talked it out enough when they started, and both brought things to the partnership (skills, storage, etc).   But I suspect that is not as common as broken boats, and broken friendships.    Mitigating the cost of ownership of a boat is not worth the RISK of ruining a friendship, at least to me. 

Now I have a nice boat, the friends go out with us all the time, and bring food, drinks, or gas.   They help with clean up.   Noone owes anyone anything.   I am finding that with the BU, I generally have more than enough space on board for anyone who wants to go on any given day out, so instead of splitting time, we just go out together - but it is a different crew every time we go out.    My neighbor does the same thing with his airplane (and no, this is not a particularly wealthy neighborhood).   

[Raimie]

46 minutes ago, Ryan1776 said:

If you're asking the boat to be full. How do you know how much you will use that day? You might get an epic day and use 30 gallons and you only brought 10. So you'll need go back out.

 

I get it, but it's easy to overcome that issue by bringing more fuel. Once you have owned/used a boat for a while, you will have a really good idea of what you need. And if once in a while, that expectation isn't met, you deal with it.

Quote

Or your bought 30 and sat all day because the water was terrible. Now you have full cans in your truck till, whenever. 

I don't see this as a problem. Just means I don't have to stop on the way out for the next trip.

 

I'm just giving my opinion based on personal experience of how we ran our team boat for the 3 years I was on the team. It worked out very well and like I said we NEVER had an issue because everyone knew the rules. Typically there were only about 5 approved drivers, so one of us was always out there. It's not like we were managing this with a ton of people. Additionally, very frequently 2 or 3 of the approved drivers were out together. So, this is a pretty similar situation to what the OP is looking at.

The first year we had the boat in a marina and were able to utilize a gas dock which was awesome. The next 2 years the boat was at a private dock of a homeowner that was being nice. So during that time we had to utilize jerry cans. I sure wish I had my high-flo nozzles back then!

 

I have only commented about the gas stuff... The owners should also set up an oh-crap fund where all 3 chip in $500-1000. In case repairs or maintenance is needed they aren't scrambling to come up with the cash.

 

[Infinitysurf]

Also suggest that in the contract you create upfront....you have an "out" clause. Terms of the buyout, how it happens, how the boat is valued for the buy-out at the time it happens, etc. Much easier to agree on terms upfront where there are zero issues compared to (God forbid) an issue arises and then everyone is mad and no one wants to agree on anything. Make sense? Hope for the best, plan for the worst and go into it with eyes wide open.

This way if a partner wants out, someone gets hurt, someone loses job and can no longer afford it....or the other 100 things that can happen, you/they are covered.

[Pnwrider]

What this thread really shows is everyone has different expectations of what the standard operating procedure should be when it comes to  their boat. Compound that across two different parties and things can get complicated. The key here is setting expectations upfront and a lot of trust and forgiveness for when things don’t go according to plan. I really wish you the best and hope it works out. Enjoy your time on the boat and don’t stress about paying too much. 

[braindamage]

8 hours ago, Pnwrider said:

a lot of trust and forgiveness for when things don’t go according to plan.

^^^this

[Screwdriver]

Thx all for your thoughts so far. Really interessting. I think we‘ll try it with a common paypal account or so where everybody pays some gas money so everyone has access to this for refueling. The gastank should be left like 3/4 full so we dont have the problem of overfilling and spilling gas into the lake. Everyone has to write down his minutes, you could doublecheck this with the boathours (more or less) and once a month we try to get even and everyone pays additional money or gets money back depending on how many minutes he did. Before that we have to figure out what the boat takes/hour and activity. On boattest.com i found a chart where they measured the consumption/hour with different boatspeeds so i would take this for calculating the approximately consumtion/minute. Wakeboardspeed (35km/h) about 25l/h, monoskispeed (52km/h) about 35l/h and wakesurf i dont know, probably also around 35l/h. This solution takes a lot of trust in everybody but it should be doable i think. Friends who also have a boat do it like this and they do fine. This would be just for gas by the way. Maintenance and costs for the buoy, winterstorage and so on we share. I also did a contract where it’s clarified what happens whith buy-outs and so on. So hopefully now it looks more stressful than it will be later on. lets see...

[BlackBluMalibu]

One way to do it is via the hour meter. We have a day book that we keeep in the glove compartment of the boat. Each trip we note the starting hours, ending hours, the number of people on board, and, the water and the air temp and note any major events, such as throwing a code or whatever happened that should be noted and record kept. It helps when dealing with maintenance issues also if you have something that is repetitive but you were told by the mechanic that it was fixed. For your purposes, keep it simple with # of people, start and ending hours and maybe maintenance issues. This can be used monthly or quarterly to divvy up all maintenance expenses based on who used for how many hours. As far fuel, fill it the first time and make it a requirement to fill it back up at the end of the day/use session. Happy and safe boating!!

[formulaben]

16 hours ago, Infinitysurf said:

Also suggest that in the contract you create upfront....

Reminds me of when I was preparing to buy a boat with a partner.  I was researching co-ownership contracts and saw a post where one guy said "if you need a contract, you have the wrong partner."  That was a eureka moment for me.  Gotta say, while it's very simplistic but it definitely worked for me...YMMV.