|
It’s always risky
announcing that you’ve spotted a trend, and it’s a wise man–or
one mindful of his image–who waits until the bandwagon is half full
before jumping aboard. Nevertheless, I am told that spotting trends is
part of what they pay me to do here, so after carefully perusing the landscape,
I can say I think I’ve spotted one.
What I sense is that
for an increasing number of people, recreational boating has taken on
a new meaning. It’s no longer just the means for having fun on the
water or affirming one’s success. For a lot of Americans, boating
has become the means by which they have rediscovered some basic values.
Over the last seven months, boats have become for many people the only
way to escape an increasingly frightening and often crazy world by drawing
around them the people they love and cherish and going somewhere private.
Boats are becoming refuges.
Lord knows we could
use them. Daily we witness threats to our security the likes of which
we never dreamed. Tragedy has become frighteningly random and brutality
incomprehensibly pointless. Anyone who reads a paper or watches television
cannot help but be struck by the fragility and evanescence of life. We
are constantly reminded that life is precious, and like everything precious,
it can be stolen without warning. Boating, I think, is providing not only
an escape from such pervasive anxiety, but perhaps more important, also
providing a safe haven where people can congregate, commingle, and connect
on a deep and personal level.
Two things have led
me to this conclusion: boat show attendance and boat sales. As I write
this, I am told that attendance at the fall and winter boat shows has
been flat, although my sense is that it is actually down. That’s
not terribly surprising given the fact that we’re in a recession.
Yet sales of larger boats have been surprisingly strong and in some cases
shockingly good. Take January’s New York National Boat Show. Attendance
was reportedly up slightly, but in the midst of what may turn out to be
the depths of the recession, boats sales were way up. According to the
show’s management, Silverton reported its best New York Boat Show
in 34 years, and Surfside 3, the local Sea Ray dealer, reported selling
206 boats. Likewise a representative of The Sunseeker Club at Castaways,
the local Sunseeker dealer, reportedly characterized sales as "exceeding
all our expectations." I’ve confirmed this myself to varying
degrees in speaking with dealers and manufacturers at shows in Norwalk,
Fort Lauderdale, and London.
In a time when car makers
were forced to offer no-interest financing to keep their heads above water,
boats–even expensive ones–were selling briskly. And every dealer
and builder I spoke to offered the same reason: People are tired of waiting
for tomorrow. They are realizing what is really important, and it isn’t
their career or a bigger, newer SUV. It is the desire to experience the
love and companionship of friends and acquaintances now, while they still
can.
We all yearn for a return
to the days when we could conduct our lives free of the threat of random
violence. Some say they will never return, that we have crossed some cultural
Rubicon and must learn to live with pat-downs, metal detectors, and shoe
searches. Regardless of whether that is true, we will hopefully always
carry with us the belief that among life’s pleasures great and small,
none can match that of spending time with people you care about and who
care about you. And arguably, nowhere is that pleasure more rewarding
than on the water.
|