Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On 25 Oct 2006 11:50:20 -0700, "Chuck Gould"
wrote:

New boat sales:

The greatest change in unit volume was in the smallest boat category of
under 10 -feet.
3Q05 was 871 units, 3Q06 was 975 units

Thanks - interesting.

Is this nationwide?
--

I don't have figures that are as current or as reliable for the entire
country. The WA state numbers are based upon sales reported to the DMV
for boat registration purposes, and the data is collected by a
non-profit organization call Sea Grant. I have a strong faith that the
WA state numbers in this report are very accurate.

Even though we talk about a "national" economy, most of the time it's
more accurately a connected series of regional economies. Up here in
the NW we tend to be contrarian- we often do pretty well when a lot of
the rest of the country is cooling off, and we have been known to be on
our collective enomonic butts around here while everybody else is
cutting a phat hog.

An equally accurate national survey would probably find pockets like
ours where boat sales are holding up fairly well or even increasing in
most categories. There may some places still relying on the ever
dwindling industrially based and manufacturing economic model where
there is less reason for optimism and a bit more "caution" in play.

Few people will splurge for an expensive luxury, like a new boat, if
they feel apprehensive about future income and employment. The majority
of people I encounter every day are not very apprehensive.