Wayne. B wrote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...HsE&refer=home


One of the most crucial comments in the entire piece could have been an
easily overlooked paragraph in the middle:
......

``The boating industry is not bringing in new customers,'' said
Jonathan Cramer, an analyst at Cowen & Co. in New York. He has a
``neutral'' rating on MarineMax and doesn't own the stock."

.....

Of course new people *are* taking up the pastime, but only at about the
same rate that old farts are giving it up. New boats are built to
replace old junkers that are scrapped, and as the baby boomers are in
their peak spending years there is unprecedented demand for bigger
boats than ever before. A fairly static number of customers wants to
buy fewer but bigger boats, and young people are generally a lot less
interested in boating than their parents or grandparents were. Not
healthy signs.

And it's the industry's collective fault. Right now there are more
70-foot plus boats for sale in Seattle alone than sold in the entire
state of Washington in the last 18 months. Some of these sellers will
be left holding multi-million dollar bags. Ouch. Go to a boat show and
try to find an attractive, versatile, family cruising boat ("sleeps 4")
for under six figures- almost impossible. When the industry posits each
vessel as something that will convey the aura of being among the
privileged elite, it's no wonder that pretty soon people are unwilling
to consider boating as a family pastime because it appears to be far
too expensive.

If the industry got back to the message that simply being out on the
water was the important thing and offered some boats that weren't
simply strategically designed to be missing some important feature and
thereby motivate trade-ups, it would eventually create an expanding
market. A percentage of that expansion would ultimately become
prospects for those 60-foot and larger "home runs" that the builders
all love to sell.