‘Float’, like Uber for yachts, means on-demand access to a luxury lifestyle
A new start-up called ‘Float’ aims to make luxury more accessible
Yachting the French Riviera carries connotations of Champagne-fuelled deck parties, zipping around the turquoise sea on jet skis, and having a crew to spray your sun-dappled face with Evian mist – all for the bare-minimum price of US$10,000 per week.
Until now, those without five- and six-figure budgets have had a hard time living the yacht life. Either you “know a guy” who can rent you a boat for the day, or you go through official channels with a charter agency. A few hours on a small catamaran in Cannes? It can run upwards of US$1,000 after rounds of contract negotiations, commissions, and carbon-copied forms.
Or you can bypass the system and live out your booze-fuelled seafaring dreams for a mere €99 (US$117) per day.
That’s the promise behind Float, a disrupter that launched this past June in Monaco and St. Tropez – and that’s quickly expanding to other major seafaring markets. Think of it a bit like Airbnb. The accommodation site lets you rent a room in an apartment or the full apartment, depending on how much you’d like to splurge or save. So too does Float: It lets you book just one “seat” if you don’t have seven friends to defray the cost of a yacht charter, or you can gather a group of friends and buy out a sleek little cruiser. Take the former approach, though, and you may end up making new friends when you drop anchor for a swim.
How it works
“We’re more like NetJets than a water taxi,” says Float co-founder Jean-Jacques Boude, drawing a comparison between his start-up and the Berkshire Hathaway Inc.-owned pioneer for fractional private jet ownership, which took a hit during the recession but is stable and growing after 53 years of operation. Airbnb and Uber, he says, have also inspired his approach. “We sell day charters by the seat or by the cabins for a few days on board, all through a fully digital app,” he says. (The model compares best to NetJets’ jet card programme, which lets you buy “flight hours” on an a la carte basis.)
Indeed, the service is more experiential than a water taxi. Though Float will shuttle you to a buzzy beach club in Pampelonne or La Mala for the day, the appeal is more about being on the water than getting from Point A to Point B. You sail, you clink glasses, you swim in the Med, maybe even go fishing or take out some jet skis. Eventually you make your way to the destination port for a few hours before turning back around to the place where you first started.
Booking takes two to three minutes, tops: You sign up on the app or website, pick your origin and destination, select the number of seats you want to book, and input your credit card. Moments later a boarding pass is sent to your Apple Wallet. No contracts, no surcharges, and no hidden costs. (That’s a distinguishing factor, says Boude, noting that traditional charter companies liberally pile on fuel and food charges during rounds of contract negotiations.)