And Now, Uber By Boat

By land, yes, and now by sea.

Even amid turmoil at the top of its executive ranks and competitive pressures by the likes of Lyft, Uber is taking to other modes of transport. Beyond the open roads and now to the waves.

Reuters reported that the ride-hailing company has debuted its speedboat service in Croatia as of this past Friday (June 30), and this is an effort to connect tourist locales that dot the Adriatic coast — with an operational timeframe that embraces the current summer tourist season, where competition is extant with other boat-based services.

Dubbed UberBOAT, the speedboats can transport as many as a dozen people, and the newswire stated that the service has already been tested in locations as diverse as Istanbul and Miami.

In a statement, the company said that “UberBOAT offers two different services — transfer between the mainland and the island or speedboat rent for half-day or whole-day trips … There is no possibility to stay overnight on the boat nor to hire the boat without captain and sailors.”

The company also said that itineraries are flexible and can be designed by users in devising their own daily trips, or with organized schedules offered that move between destinations.

As might be expected, the service works just as would be seen with the Uber app used for cars. Users will utilize the Uber app, with initial orders from Split and Dubrovnik in the southern Adriatic, among a few other locations. The boats can be hired for roughly $400.