So I played hooky yesterday afternoon and went to a boat dealer. I
wanted to know how much a new boat cost. I know, "if you have to
ask..." The last time I'd been to a dealer I was looking for a live-
aboard in Southern California in 1984. Even though I was young and
poor, I was treated with respect and consideration. Much has changed.

I went to Leader's Marine, on M43 in Kalamazoo. There were only a
couple of boats to look at, no sales people, no prices. We crawled
around a couple of show boats, then walked through the used boats in the
back guessing at length and price. Finally someone noticed us and told
us that the inventory and salesmen were at a free boat show at Wings
Stadium, and that we were looking at the boats there for service.

Boats seem to go in for service a lot.

It turns out the two dealers next to each other (D&R and Leader's) put
their inventory in a parking lot of the stadium and put colored flags
around the area. No bathrooms. BUT we got to look at a bunch of boats.

Including the Wellcraft Martinique 2400. Sigh. SWMBO* loved it.
Finally a new price for a boat I want: about $40K

We started rationalizing: "OK, if our payments are $350, and our yearly
budget for the boat is $10K, we can still dock it, insure it, put gas in
it, and buy some safety equipment." I'm trying to pretend that the
Durango can pull it, since the dry weight is at the maximum tow weight.
I'd need to loose a couple of hundred pounds or wear helium in order to
meet the GCVW criteria, but we're rationalizing here.

Then I met the dealer. Feh. We were walking away from The Boat and
looking at the pontoon boats. I said to SWMBO, "They're not for Lake
Michigan, but they would be great on a smaller lake if we had a house on
one."

The sales guy introduced himself by arguing with me. "You can take
those out on Lake Michigan". "In the chop?" "Sure."

OK buddy. I see lots of those from my house.

Then we discussed The Boat. At this point he could have probably
steered us to the financing table... but instead he wanted to argue.

"It weighs 6K dry" "But I just read the specs and they said 4500"
"You're wrong."

JEEZ. Guess those documents in the boat are all wrong and you're Mr. I
Know Everything and You Don't.

So here's a couple looking for a boat late in the season, and maybe we
won't buy till next year, and maybe we'll buy the 77 Sea Ray 240 SRV
hardtop that we(I)'ve been drooling over all summer ($7500, but really
nice), and maybe they could have made a sale that night.

Whatever we do, it won't be from Leader's Marine. If I want rude
arguments I'll talk to MY customers. Not someone I'm looking at
spending 40K + accessories from.

(* - She Who Must Be Obeyed)

PS -- I couldn't find the Martinique on the Wellcraft website, but I did
find the 240 Walkabout which has a dry weight of 3600 lbs.