Eisboch wrote:
I was talking to the boat broker here at Kingman yesterday. He had just
attended the boat show in Newport, RI. He reports that despite high fuel
prices, boats are still selling briskly up here.

Eisboch


Fuel prices have done very little to hurt "big boat" sales.

If you've got the $miliion plus it takes- (and we're talking throw away
money here, not net worth) to buy a larger boat these days, and you
burn 2000 gallons of fuel in a year it frankly won't make any
significant difference to you whether that fuel costs $4k, $6k, $8k, or
$10k.

The Wally Lunchbuckets of the world will be stressed out a lot more by
fuel prices.
Between payments on the F250 trailer hauler, the monthly payment on the
boat, and the monthly payments on everything else "owned" by the
stereotypical middle class family the paycheck is often stretched to
its breaking point before fuel prices go north.
For a lot of middle class wage earners, the difference of even
$300-$400 per month in summer fuel costs will keep a lot of boats on
the hard.

Based on the last couple of years, it looks like the oil companies are
establishing a
pattern of pushing prices through the roof in the summer and then
moderating during the winter months. Not so good for boating, where
most fuel is consumed during the summer.

However, boats were selling very well at the recently concluded Boats
Afloat Show in Seattle- and not just in the $1mm and up range.
Everybody I've talked to this week seems to have sold at least one boat
during the five day show, and I know for a fact that one of our local
dealers sold three (!) in a single day. (That's darn good in the boat
business).

So far, the biggest impact of increased fuel costs seems to be some
changes in the way people use their boats, not whether they own a boat
or how often they use it.
People are still getting out on the water, and are saving fuel by not
ranging as far or going as fast.