Who gets the jet ski this Saturday?
Splitting the cost of a jet ski with another household or two is the easy part. Then the first hot weekend arrives and all of you want it on the same day. AllDibs is a free calendar where each household has a small budget of weekend days, so the answer is already written down.
No credit card. One invite link for the other households.
The three-seater
3 households · you have 1 weekend credit left
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A summer has 15 Saturdays. Deal them out first.
A boat is still pleasant on a grey Tuesday evening. A jet ski is for the hot day, and the hot days people can take are mostly Saturdays. So before anything else, count them. From Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend in 2027 there are 15, and 4 of those sit inside a federal long weekend.
Here they are for three households, called A, B and C. The long weekends are dealt as their own pile so that no household collects them by accident, and the ordinary Saturdays are a second pile that picks up where the first one stopped.
| Saturday in 2027 | Long weekend | Household |
|---|---|---|
| Sat, May 29 | Memorial Day | A |
| Sat, Jun 5 | B | |
| Sat, Jun 12 | C | |
| Sat, Jun 19 | Juneteenth | B |
| Sat, Jun 26 | A | |
| Sat, Jul 3 | Independence Day | C |
| Sat, Jul 10 | B | |
| Sat, Jul 17 | C | |
| Sat, Jul 24 | A | |
| Sat, Jul 31 | B | |
| Sat, Aug 7 | C | |
| Sat, Aug 14 | A | |
| Sat, Aug 21 | B | |
| Sat, Aug 28 | C | |
| Sat, Sep 4 | Labor Day | A |
Assumptions: United States federal holidays, a season that runs from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend, and three households. Juneteenth falls on a Saturday in 2027, so it is a long weekend only for people whose employer gives the Friday. The dates for other years and for Ontario are on the long weekends page.
Each household ends up with 5 Saturdays. A has 2 of the long weekends and B and C have 1 each, which is why the ordinary pile opens with B and A gets one fewer of those. Next year, move every letter along one place so the household that opened the season with Memorial Day goes last.
5 Saturdays is not many. That is the honest size of a three-way share of a jet ski, and it is better to see the number in May than to work it out in August. Sundays double it, and weekdays are there for anyone who can get away.
What the calendar does with that list
AllDibs does not enforce the table above. You agree on it, and the app makes it hard to ignore. Add the ski as an item and set each household's weekend budget to two days. A household can then have two weekend days booked ahead, this Saturday and Sunday or the next two Saturdays, and nothing more until one of them has passed and the credit comes back.
Nobody can sit down in April and take every Saturday in July, which is the quickest way for a shared ski to end up with one household riding and two paying. A booking that overlaps another is refused, and each household can pull the bookings into its own Google, Apple or Outlook calendar with a private link.
The money side, with a used ski worked through at $140 an hour for one owner and $73 for three, is in the jet ski cost per hour post.
The handover, six lines
- Fill the tank on the way home and pay for it yourself. Fuel never goes through the shared account.
- Ridden in salt or brackish water? Flush and rinse it the way the owner's manual says before it goes back under the cover.
- Type the hour meter reading into the ski's chat when you pick it up and again when you drop it off.
- The key, the lanyard and the life jackets travel with the ski, not in somebody's hall closet.
- Whoever tows it checks the trailer lights and the tire pressure before pulling out.
- Anything bent, scraped or sucked into the intake gets a photo in the chat the same day, even if you plan to pay for it.
Buying one together and want the ownership and exit questions too? The boat partnership agreement checklist was written for boats, and nearly every line applies to a ski. It is a list of things to decide, not legal advice.
Questions about sharing a jet ski
How does jet ski shared ownership work?+
Two or three households buy one ski and its trailer together and agree on three things: the money, the handover, and the calendar. The money is the short conversation. Insurance, storage, servicing and registration get split evenly through one shared account, and each household buys its own fuel. In the worked example on our blog, three households pay $883 each for the fixed costs of a used three-seater. The handover is a short list that everybody follows every time. The calendar is where it goes wrong, because a ski is wanted on the same hot Saturdays by everyone, and a summer only has about 15 of them. Deal those out in writing before the first ride. For the title, ask your state's registration office how to put more than one name on it, and tell the insurer who will be riding. None of this is legal advice.
Is this a jet ski timeshare or a club?+
No. A club or a timeshare program owns a fleet and sells you access to it, and the company does the storing, the servicing and the scheduling. AllDibs is for a ski you already own with people you know. There is no fleet, nothing to rent, and nobody to call when the battery is flat except the other owners. All it does is keep the calendar for the machine in your driveway.
Can we book the jet ski by the hour?+
No, bookings are whole days. That suits most groups, since a ski goes to the ramp once and comes home once, and handing it over at a boat launch at two in the afternoon is a plan that tends to fall apart. If you are finished by lunch and another household could use the afternoon, say so in the ski's chat and sort it out between you.
How many households can share one jet ski?+
Count Saturdays. In 2027 there are 15 of them from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend. Two households get seven or eight each, which is more than most people ride. Three get 5 each. Five get 3, and at that point one rained-out day is a third of somebody's summer. Three is where the cost drops the most while everyone still rides often enough to care. Weekdays are nearly always open, so a household that can ride on a Wednesday will get far more than its share.
Does AllDibs track the hours or the money?+
Neither. It holds the calendar, a chat for the ski and a Files section. Put the meter readings in the chat and the insurance policy and the winterizing invoice in Files, and keep the shared bank account wherever it already is. The ski counts as one item, and the first 5 items are free for you and for everyone you invite.
Settle the Saturdays before the first ride.
Add the ski, set the weekend budget, and send the other households one link. It takes a few minutes.
Put the ski on AllDibs, freeSharing something bigger? See the pages for a co-owned boat and a family cabin.