Aqua-Direct Boat Club LLC MyClubDirect.com This company will falsely accuse you of damaging their boats- Part of their Ponzi scheme mentality Jacksonville Beach, Florida

As the majority owner of Aqua-Direct, LLC I can tell you that we strive to make every boating excursion fun and safe for our members. It is unfortunate that in this case the anchor line got away from this member and her guests and caused severe damage to one of the club vessels. The facts are simple:

1) The member arrived at the club April 8th with guests. As described our helpful dockhand met them, went through our traditional written point check on the boat, everything checked out fine and our team member wished them well.

2) The boat is actually a 32' (not 36' as claimed by the membersreport report) and is a 2007 vessel in which certain components of the boat are still under warranty. Twin engine boats are meant to be run on two engines and this is taught in our training sessions we do with each and every member. This vessel we call Big Blue, had been used 4 of the prior 7 days and ran and steered perfectly fine contrary to her report. Our dockhands dock the boats for the members in many cases and certainly would have noticed any steering issue. There simply were not any.

3) We recieved a call from the member stating the engine shut off and they needed assistance. Two of our team members, Jeff and Rick, headed out to help finding that the reason for the engine shutting off was that the member had unfortunately improperly tried to raise the anchor line by hand rather than the windlass (our lead mechanic with more than 20 years marine repair experience promptly checked the windlass and found it was working perfectly), they had also clearly utilized far too much anchor line and a belly formed in the line. It was obvious from the taughtness of the line that the member had been utilizing the engines in gear to try and race towards the line causing the belly and the line was quickly wrapped around both outdrives and literally busted the gimble and nearly pulled the transom plate off of the back of the boat. The engines have an auto shut-down when things are wrapped around the props which is what caused the engines not to run prompting the call from the member. 

4) I did speak to the member that evening, however there was no discussion of the details and that the boat had been damaged due to operator error. Once I found that out from my staff two days later I called the member and explained what had happened, she did not deny the damage. I explained that the membership agreement calls for a $2,500 deductible and asked if she planned on living up to her obligation. We agreed to meet the following day. We met and discussed the damage and the quote we had recieved from Isle of Palms Marine Service for over $4,000. I explained to the member that if for some reason we were able to get the boat repaired for less than the deductible we would propmtly refund the delta amount. After receiving 3 quotes the repairs were in fact $3,200+ and wesent a copyof the paid invoice and check to the member.

5) We were never contacted by any attorney contrary to the claim here. The member came in and opted to pay for the damage she had done which we appreciated very much and immediately thereafter she offered to help us set up for the upcoming boat show!! That weekend the member came down to the show and was an absolute advocate of our club and was quite vocal on that note and we welcomed her support. Again this was after she viewed the damage on the boat and paid the company the deductible.

After review of the members account it became evident she had signed up for a membership that allowed only 4 uses of a boat per year and that we missed that fact and allowed her to boat more than 15 times. We notified the member of our software error and explained she could either utilize the boats within the 4 usage guideline or begin to pay the $299 per month fee going forward for unlimited use. This is only fair to our other members that pay full fee monthly. At this point she began acting very erratic and angry and I asked the staff to treat her with professionalism even though  her words and actions were less than professional. The member never cancelled her membership as she claims in the report in fact was wanting to continue to have access to the boats for the lower fee which was not an option.

In the end we feel bad for the mishap but at the same time we have rules that have to be followed in order to make boats available and in good working order for our entire membership base. We have a solid membership group that enjoy boating with anamazing fleet week in and week out and wish that this members experience could have been betterbut unfortunately sometimes things happen.