Spent the day at the New England Boat Show at the new Boston
Convention Center - very interesting.

In general, the mood among the exhibitors is - well, no other way to
put it - depressed. A lot of the sales people were just standing
around looking bored most of the day and any time you entered a
display area and showed some sort of interest in a boat, you had three
people hanging off you discussing this and that about the boat asking
questions and making discount pitches if the boat was bought at the
show. Pricing was also a surprise - a lot of boats were deeply
discounted off of list which I haven't seen in quite a while - I'm
talking anywhere from $10K to in one case, almost $20K. One dealer
had some left over inventory that, thinking about it, must have been
priced below cost.

One of the dealers I work for with on-the-water training - small boat
division - told me that the New York show was a disaster and
Providence was an unmitigated disaster in terms of sales - never mind
interest. He said it was pretty much across the board when discussing
it with his peers in the business.

One of the exhibitors that I know from Rhode Island who does a lot of
retrofitting and fabrication said his business was down almost 50% - I
can't vouch for that personally, but I've known him for a long time
and he's not known for exaggeration. He said he's hanging on with
service and repair which is holding up the rest of the business.

I was surprised at the lack of attendees - there wasn't a point during
the day that I would call it "crowded" - plenty of room to move around
and look over, under and around boats.

With respect to the show, lots of boats in the 30' and up range - the
usual suspects, Sea Ray, Chaparral, Regal, Ocean, yada, yada, yada. In
the small boat category, plenty of them around, mostly runabouts
rather than center consoles. I noticed that a lot of the runabouts
were in the 18 to 23' class and were mostly "compromise" boats -
meaning that, in theory, they were boats that could be used for water
sports (get your mind out of the gutter) and fishing. Not to many
pure fishing boats - again, the usual suspects, Grady (which I swear
is as hide bound in style as Parker), Parker, Sailfish, yada, yada,
yada. Put a 30' Sailfish next to a 30 Grady Express and except for
the color, you couldn't tell the apart.

There seems to be a "generic" styling gestalt going on in the industry
- there's nothing that really stands out in terms of style - look at
the same size and type boat side-by-each and they pretty much all look
the same. Look at a Sea Ray in any size and they all look the same.
It seems like they are intentionally trying to copy each other.
Notable exceptions to that would be Boston Whaler and Jupiter.

I did see a couple of smaller boats that really caught my somewhat
jaded eye -

Gloucester 20 and 23 were beautiful boats - sharp bow entry, a
moderate tumble home at the stern and a very clean and simple interior
design. Easy to get around in and customizable for the hard core type
who wants a good, solid basic boat with style and graceful lines that
can be modified to suit personal needs.

They had one of their 28s there in bare hull and wowzers - that is one
gorgeous boat. The web site is http://www.gboats.com/ - worth looking
at if you are interested.

As I wandered away from the Gloucester show booth, a couple of booths
down was Seaway Boats.

I have run into these before, but they have updated their designs and
are now producing a differently styled boat. They've changed their
manufacturing process and redesigned their molds to create more
interior room in particular with the 21 Seafarer. The builder was in
the booth and I spent a very enjoyable hour with him discussing his
new design and why he made the changes from the older models. One of
the more interesting points he made was he was tired of building the
same old boat, so he canvassed his owners to see what they would like
to see changed, added or eliminated. He went through the 21 with me
stressing the changes, like the new molding method, the coaming
changes, little styling changes in the cuddy and moving the control
station to midships. He also changed the seating arrangements around
which made a nice improvement over the older models. He also said
that the same hull changes have been made to the other 21' models.

He also had a bare hull prototype there for his new 29' Open which
looked really good. He wants to ramp up tooling and production in
2009, but he's ahead of schedule - it may be introduced in the Fall.
I'd like to see it when he's finished.

His other boats have pretty much stayed the same, but he's adapting
the techniques used in building the 21 over to the older models and
changing up some of the interior designs. If he follows the same
concepts he's done with the 21, they will be better boats than they
already are.

I would consider a 21 Seafarer if I were looking for a good, solid,
all around performer for larger lakes and inshore fishing.

http://www.seawayboats.com/index.cfm...rowse&pageid=1

Probably the oddest boat that attracted me was a Fjord 40 Open.

http://www.fjordboats.com/index.php?id=740&L=gb

This was just flat out weird looking in a pleasing kind of way. Very
modern design powered by two Volvo Penta IPS 425s with that strange
pod forward dual prop design drive that everybody seems to be enamored
of. I talked to the factory rep and he allowed me to really look
around and poke my head in here and there - very nice of him to do
that. Then again, there weren't a lot of people around who seemed
interested.

Viewed from the floor, this boat looks massive. It was painted in a
flat gray "stealth" color which just increased the general feeling of
size. The interior is, well, modern - like walking into an apartment
designed by a modernist interior decorator with ambition. :)

The engine room was a surprise - there was room in it - similar to
Eisboch's Navigator - a guy my size could actually move around.

Under the boat, you could tell that somebody who knew how to build a
lifting hull designed it. Lots of sharp lifting strakes and from what
the rep told me, it corners on a dime. Moderate bow entry and zero
deadrise has got to make for a rather rough ride I would think. And
looking at those pod drives just makes me nervous. I mean they look
modern and all, but...I don't know. Probably the conservative
curmudgeon in me. :)

So, other than the usual run of the mill stuff that you see at boat
shows, it was rather - well, routine. I did get to see some old
friends from Boatwise where I used to teach and made a contact with a
builder who wants some rods made with his company logo embossed on the
blank to use on his show boats - hey, I've got nothing else to do the
rest of the month.

Sorry for the length - I'm trying to emulate Chuck. :)