The Yacht Insider: AquaPalooza Going Strong
Even in a tough year, Sea Ray's worldwide marine festival is drawing record numbers. Could the marine industry be turning a corner?
It wasn't long after my $56 fill-up that the radio announcer said oil was pushing $140 a barrel with panicked heads of state scheduling meetings in Saudi Arabia. I drove home downright despondent about the economy, only to learn that Boston Whaler has become its latest victim. Some 250 layoffs are coming to its plant in Edgewater, Florida. This, just three months after Boston Whaler's parent company, Brunswick Boat Group, announced 400 layoffs at its Sea Ray plant in Merritt Island, Florida. Brunswick is continuing to reduce inventory, a sure indicator that we haven't hit bottom (and you can bet those gas and oil prices haven't topped out, either).
Nevertheless, I found news to celebrate on this latest of dark days, and it happened to also come from Sea Ray, which announced that registration for its third-annual AquaPalooza is up a staggering 395 percent over last year.
Boaters, it seems, are still eager to go boating. And in the face of $5 diesel, that's worth celebrating.
As of June 8, according to Sea Ray, more than 22,000 people had registered for July's AquaPalooza, a multi-event marine festival that takes place worldwide. On that same date last year, fewer than 5,000 people had registered. That's a heck of a lot of boaters willing to bear current fuel prices in exchange for a great time on the water. As Sea Ray's president, Rick Stone, put it, "I'm almost speechless."
I've never been accused of having that problem, and thus am happy to say unequivocally that this news indicates a healthy attitude toward boating-an attitude that will ensure the industry recalibrates just as soon as boaters' monthly expenses do. It's not that boaters don't want new boats. They just can't quite afford the ones of their dreams right now.
But they are still dreaming, which makes it hard to see the current situation as a complete nightmare. If you, too, are eager for brighter days, head over to www.aquapalooza.com and join everyone registering their intent to see the light despite the goings-on of light, sweet crude.
