Colin Stone has spent a lifetime chasing the water, from racing Young 88s and Young 11s out of Lowry Bay Yacht Club as a 12-year-old to owning Hobie Cats, 40-footers and power launches across the Pacific. These days he's channelling that history into Subscription Boat Club, the shared-boating outfit formerly known as Skipperi New Zealand, which became fully New Zealand-owned in 2025.
Stone's path to the top job wasn't exactly planned. He'd built a career running large telco companies before a long-time friend talked him out of semi-retirement.
"A long-time friend of mine convinced me that semi-retirement was not for me, and after long discussions with my family and the attractiveness of the model (I have spent a lot on boats that could have been avoided if I had seen this model 15 years ago)," he says. The model's simplicity, he adds, was what sealed it.
That tech background has turned out to be more useful than he expected. SBC leans heavily on technology to deliver safety and a seamless member experience, Stone says, which has let him combine both sides of his career.
The shift away from Skipperi's prior ownership was about focus, not just flags. "The change was really prompted by us wanting to be better, better for New Zealanders, aligned with the best-in-class safety processes and training, and the ability for us to focus on what's best for Kiwis vs a global customer base," Stone says. The previous owners, he notes, had done a great job setting up the business, but the team saw an opportunity for improvement.
For members, the pitch is straightforward. There are 24 boats in the water, all NZ-built for NZ conditions, bookable through an app for full days, half days or overnights, with no towing, no servicing and no berth fees to worry about. Some members use the boats more than 60 times a year.
Memberships start at $399 a month. Around half of SBC's members have owned boats before, Stone says, and describe the switch as "simple and easy" and "cost effective and efficient".
Fear is the biggest barrier to getting people on the water in the first place, according to Stone. Fear of not knowing what you're doing, and fear of buying a boat and hating it once you've committed to it. SBC's training programme, pairing theory with practical instruction, is built specifically to strip that fear out of the equation, alongside a set cost structure that takes the guesswork out of ongoing expenses.
The Hauraki Gulf looms large in all of this. Stone, who spent ten years in the Pacific Islands, still finds himself staggered by it.
"After 10 years in the Pacific Islands myself, I still get onto the Gulf and my face lights up with 'WOW', what an amazing place," he says. It's a resource, he reckons, that too few Aucklanders actually get out and use.
Looking ahead, Stone sees shared boating as the fastest-growing segment in boat usage globally, and wants SBC pushing further into new marinas and areas around New Zealand, alongside expanding its education and technology offering under the mantra "safer boating for all".
Away from the office, he's less fisherman and more adventurer, chasing Fliteboarding and jetboarding missions with his son, including an unfinished attempt to jetboard the length of Lake Taupō, stopped by an engine failure 2km from the finish line. Unfinished business for this coming summer, by the sound of it.
