Water Sports Rentals

MITOC’s boathouse (building N52) has equipment for canoeing, whitewater, sea kayaking, and surfing. Get on the paddle mailing list to hear about awesome trips! If you want to rent a boat or two for your own trip, read on…

Boathouse Training

To rent from the boathouse you must be a boathouse keyholder and have deposit checks (frequent flyer) at the MITOC office. The Boathouse Manager offers boathouse keyholder training monthly during the warmer months, announced on the paddle listserv. Keyholders must be MITOC members and must provide one hour of service to the boathouse once a year to maintain active keyholder status. If you became a keyholder last year, you can rent boats up to May before renewing your keyholder training. Boathouse training is not required for official MITOC trips.

Approval Process for Rentals

1. To rent restricted gear, email the activity chairs (boathouse-mgr@mit.edu) as early as possible. Include where you want to go, any prior relevant experience, and your method of transportation. Some activities also require you fill out a float plan:
   1. All sea kayak trips and canoe trips which include transportation by car: float plan form.
   2. Surfing trips: surfing float plan form.
2. Once approved by the activity chairs, make an online pre-payment for your equipment and send your receipt to the boathouse manager at the same email (boathouse-mgr@mit.edu). The boathouse manager will check your deposit checks and provide access to the boathouse lockbox. The boathouse can only be accessed by non-MIT affiliates on weekdays 6am to 7pm.

As with other MITOC gear, each member can rent gear only for herself and one other person. Boathouse keyholders may borrow more than two boats so long as there is at least one MITOC member in the group for every two boats rented. Official MITOC trips also take precedence over individual rentals, so check that there are no conflicting trips scheduled on the MITOC trip page. If you end up NOT taking out your boat because of “prohibitive weather conditions”, let the chairs know as soon as possible, and you will be able to use the payment made for any future MITOC rentals (NO refunds will be processed).

Gear Pickup and Return

1. Go to the boathouse and pick up your gear. Use the paper rentals form to sign out all the gear you take. Remember to leave the key in the lockbox for other renters. Have a fun, safe, trip! Respect the boats and don’t let them get stolen.
2. Return and clean your boat and gear at the boathouse. Make sure to return all the gear you took and sign the rentals form.
3. Email the chairs (boathouse-mgr@mit.edu) and tell them how your trip went, about conditions of the boats and gear, especially if any boat problems or damage is noticed.

If the boats were used in saltwater, please rinse them off before returning them. Many rivers in New England have invasive species that should not be brought from one river to another, so please clean your boats (bleach allowed on WW boats and canoes). There is a sponge and bucket available in the sea-kayaking room. Also, please try to brush off any sand on the exterior of the boats. Life jackets and skirts also should be returned dry and have any salt or sand rinsed off. A late fee of $25/day will be charged if you forget to leave the key in the lockbox.

Boats

Two VHF radios, marine flares, and hand bilge pumps are also available with sea kayak rentals. It it your responsibility to ensure that the batteries are charged for the radios (bring spares). Carts are available at no cost to transport canoes or kayaks to the Charles without a car. Bilge pumps, cam straps, float bags, and other gear are also available at nominal cost.

Surfing

Approver is the Surfing chair for the appropriate gear (boathouse-mgr@mit.edu)

Paddleboarding

The inflatable stand-up paddleboards and PFDs can be found in the MITOC office, and one does not need to complete the boathouse keyholder training to rent them. For approval to rent the paddleboards, email the Paddleboarding chair via mitoc-approval@mit.edu with details of the planned paddling trip.