Renting out your boat through a professional

What you sign

• A management agreement, signed electronically, setting the term, the rental company’s share and yours, the costs, the insurance and the end of the agreement. The rental company drafts it with its own clauses; you read and sign it from a link, without having to travel.
• The boat’s documents: acte de francisation (French registration certificate) or certificate of registration, insurance, latest inspection. The portal reminds you of those that are expiring.

What you keep

• Your weeks: you block your dates in the rental company’s planner, and it cannot rent over them. The calendar is the source of truth for the rental company as it is for you.
• Your alerts: water ingress, impact, moving away from the port, departure without a rental, low fuel or battery, if the boat is fitted with a GPS tracker. You receive them in the portal and, if you wish, by WhatsApp.
• Your mooring alarm, which you arm yourself when the boat is at the dock outside rentals.

What you see, for each rental

• The check-in and check-out inspections, signed by the customer, with the boat’s photo plan, the inventory, fuel and engine hours; the return is compared against the departure, and anything missing or broken becomes a line charged to the customer, not to you.
• The security deposit, taken as a card pre-authorisation at the dock: the rental company withholds the damage recorded from this pre-authorisation.
• Never the renter’s name: the portal shows your boat, not the rental company’s customers.

What you see, all year round

• The maintenance log: each job done by the workshop, its date, parts, cost and supporting documents, and the upcoming maintenance plans. You can request a job from the portal.
• The payout statement: the rentals for the period, the rental company’s share, yours, the costs deducted, and the resulting invoice, issued in your name.
• The boat’s position and readings: where it is, its latest trips, its engine hours, its battery, its fuel, if a tracker is on board.

Questions to ask before signing

1. How many days was the boat rented last year, for comparable boats? Ask for the actual figure, not the projection.
2. Who insures the boat when it is rented, with what excess, and who pays the excess if there is damage?
3. How is damage recorded, and how do you see the inspection report?
4. When and how do you receive your payout, and in how much detail?
5. How many weeks can you keep, and by what date must you block them?
6. What happens at the end of the agreement, and if you want to sell?

Further reading: is renting out your boat profitable?, wear, damage, disputes. The rental operator guide also details what the law says about the security deposit and insurance.

Read next

• Is renting out your boat profitable? The real figures

  Days actually rented, a berth at €2,700 to €7,100 a year, the manager’s share, insurance surcharge, wear, tax (BIC, micro-BIC €83,600).

• Wear, damage, disputes: how a professional protects your boat

  What really protects an owner’s boat put up for rental: the signed inspection with dated photos, the pre-authorised deposit, GPS tracking.

• Owner management

  Sup shows each owner their boat and only theirs: position, planner, maintenance, alerts and income, without ever naming the renters.

• Check-in inspection

  With Check: a photo plan per boat, inventory, fuel and engine hours, the customer’s signature at departure and return, return compared with departure.