Hi gang, Rick Ostler here again from North American Waterway and Used Pontoon Boats bring you news and views from the boating industry. More gas price issues slow boaters,
some take shorter trips; others ask guests to pitch in.
Gas prices slow boaters
The gauge quickly clicks past $100, $250, $300 - finally stopping right about $400."There's nothing pleasant about it," says the general contractor and owner of ACR Concrete. "But what choice do we have? Thank God we're not in Turkey where gas is $11 a gallon."
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The cost of summer boating has never been higher for the owners of nearly 40,000 power boats registered in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.
With marine fuel selling for $4.75 to $5 a gallon, thousands of owners are starting to cut back. Some are leaving their boats at home or in storage. Others are putting their vessels in the water, then partying on them at the docks. A third of 823 boaters surveyed last fall told the Ohio Division of Watercraft that they're taking fewer boating trips and going shorter distances when they do.
Nationwide, retail sales of powerboats have dropped nearly 13 percent since 2005 - to 267,300 last year.
No one's claiming a falloff in boating passion, but it's clear that habits have changed.
Ziebell, 40, says he works 12-hour days, six days a week, and looks forward to his day off on his boat. But if he and his wife Elizabeth ran their 27½ -foot Baja wide open at 60 mph on the Ohio River, they'd be lucky to get 2 miles to the gallon and they'd need to fill up again in just a few hours.
Instead of the 20 boat trips he usually makes each year, Ziebell figures he'll go out maybe 15 times this year.
"If gas prices keep going up, I'll be one of those people in line to sell," he says. "I'm almost there now. As hard as it is to make money today, you can't waste money frivolously."
Cindy Armstrong of West Price Hill owns a 23-foot Sea Ray cruiser that's "still shrink-wrapped in the driveway" from winter storage. "We're still contemplating what to do," she says.
Armstrong says her great-looking gas hog will burn up to 50 gallons of gas - or about $250 - in three to four hours pulling water-skiers or inner-tube riders on the river. Fortunately, her bank loan for the 1996 cruiser was paid off long ago.
"If we were still making payments, we'd probably feel we had to go out and put it in the water,'' she says.
She and others say selling their boats isn't much of an option, because most buyers in today's economic pinch want to buy cheap.
Her best bet? "We can hang on and hope gas prices bounce back."
'Lifestyle' changing
Despite the uncertain times, the National Marine Manufacturers Association is staying upbeat. It reports that more than 59 million U.S. adults participated in boating last summer - up 10 percent over 2006.
"Boaters aren't boating less; they're running their engines less," association president Thom Dammrich says.
Recreational boating also isn't just for the very rich, the association says.
It says that three-fourths of American boaters have household incomes less than $100,000. The average outboard powerboat sold for $17,768 and the average ski boat for more than $47,000 last year. Lenders are writing boat loans at 7 to 8 percent interest - and offering payback periods as long as 10 to 15 years.
Greg Keairns, 61, a self-employed carpet seller, keeps a 42-foot houseboat and a pontoon boat at Riverside 4 Boat Harbor in Dayton, Ky. He bought his 1993 pontoon boat used, about six years ago, for $8,000, including boat, engine and trailer. Since then, he's seen pontoon boats surge in popularity - and price.
Keairns keeps his houseboat docked and uses the pontoon for cruising. It's more maneuverable and gets 4.5 miles to the gallon compared to 1.25 mpg for the houseboat.
Keairns cut back on boating a bit last year, but plans to buck the trend in 2008. "I will be back up to 400 hours of boating this year," he claims. "With boating, you either love it or hate it."
Harbor owner Dave Bricking, who lives year-round with wife Debbie aboard a houseboat there, says he was "tickled pink" over selling all 150 dock spaces this summer. Two customers paid about $1,000 each for boat slips this summer before they even bought their boats.
Bricking says river-going houseboat owners used to invite friends aboard and would suggest: You bring the drinks or appetizers. Now it's more likely everyone chips $20 into a pot for fuel.
"It ain't nothing to have 20 people on a houseboat," Bricking says.
He says boaters are taking shorter trips from the dock and partying more at marina restaurants and bars.
"Everybody's expecting $5-a-gallon gasoline," he says. "Everybody's penciled that in."
Rivertowne Marina dock master Bill Manis says his Kellogg Avenue marina gained customers this year, thanks to a marina closing downriver.
"Boaters aren't taking joy rides as often," he says. They bring larger groups, sometime the whole family, and are more likely to draw up a float plan before heading out. The number of year-round, live-aboards has dwindled from dozens to just a few at some marinas.
Jeff DeNardi and his wife Leona of Mason took their new 33-foot twin-engine Sea Ray cruiser out for a maiden run from Rivertowne up the Ohio River on Memorial Day weekend. It's their fourth boat, their biggest yet.
DeNardi, a director with Luxottica Retail, estimates his Sea Ray gets about 1.2 miles a gallon when he opens it up to top speed of 50 mph. Tank capacity is 250 gallons. The DeNardis anchored up-river, but on future jaunts plan to cruise about 35 miles downriver to Aurora, Ind. for a little shore time at the casinos.
"A lot of people use these boats like a weekend home," he says. "They're really expensive if you didn't use them. We're doing our part for the economy."
Floating v. boating
Local boaters aren't just coping with rising costs along the Ohio River.
Ron and Denise Grause keep a 68-foot houseboat and 35-foot twin-engine Formula FASTech speedboat at Lake Cumberland, about 200 miles south in south-central Kentucky.
"Boats are still being enjoyed; they're just not used as much. The highway is still busy going down to the lake," says Grause, the owner of Ron's Complete Auto Body shop in Fairmount.
He says it's more expensive to run his houseboat generator over a weekend than it is to fuel up. Houseboat owners by the dozens now routinely tie on to each other in mid-lake and commence a fuel-free, floating party at their "trailer park on water."
Grause says he's saving $60 round trip by leaving his Ford pickup truck with double rear wheels at home and driving down and back in a Ford Focus coupe that gets 35 miles to the gallon. Some boaters at Cumberland now use rubber dinghies with 10-horsepower outboards to shuttle between docks.
Some boat owners who have to trailer their vessels wince at the double whammy of hauling their boats to water and then fueling them up.
Clint Ridenour and his girlfriend Sommer Tate of Hyde Park feel torn between transporting their 21-foot Rinker Festiva family boat to bigger waters like Tennessee's Norris Lake or compromising with short trips to smaller lakes closer to home. They save by camping aboard their boat.
"People boat because of the lifestyle," says Ridenour, a business development representative for a chemical analysis company. "They boat to get away. It's really not the same experience if you are forced to go to dinky, nearby lakes because of these ridiculous gas prices." Thanks to Tony Lang for this at http://news.cincinnati.com
Used Pontoon Boats, By Rick Ostler
Pontoon Boats-North American Waterway
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