OldSchool

There was plenty of buzz last night!!!!!

I'm at the show right now and it's packed. We are selling a chitload of Swipes!!!!!!

GLH

Since when is the Government in the Swipes business? You in the CIA now?

lucky strike

iTrader: (1)

No..... he is just very logical !

When GL bought a tiger with # 6 drives instead of bravos I realized how smart he actually is.

LS

FeverMike

Here is my feelings. I think people are going to keep their current boats and just maintain them or buy some upgrades.

I positively know that people are taking there boats out less this last year and this year.

On the bus ride from the water display to the convention center I sat with a lady and her husband was behind me. They are new to boating and were thinking of buying a 24-29' CC fish/cruise around type of boat. They are not going to do this once they had seen the cost of boat ownership (fuel costs, engine maintenance cost, insurance ect. Instead they are going to get a RV with a trailer to pull their ATV's and buy a house in the NC mountains.

I have found other hobby's myself instead of boating and putting up with all the hassles. I am trying to sell my current monster to down size.

JPD Motorsports

I think the OSO "buzz" is low for this year it seems "just another show" Nothing was really talked up about what secrets were going to be reveiled, what is new that everyone is guessing about, what the theme boat/boats are or who has what going.

Jupiter Sunsation

Show was slow on Sat am for sure. You could have walked around at 11am with your hands outstretched and not hit anyone in the aisles all morning.

Highlights:

NT- 39 w/ Diesels on the water- runs 82/ cruise at 60 burning a gallon per 2 miles
NT 39- 700 - Florida Powerboat King of Clubs- Nice package
46 OL with 1075's very nice- on a different note the Cat had an interior that looked unfinished/ Carbon fiber work looked hacked.
43 Sunsation looked great with the blue/ copper interior
MTI- Gino's Mercedes boat kills the Ferrari boat in the details dept.
Cigarette- Display sucked, the 42X/ 46RR/ 50 Marauder were nice but not over the top. The Black TG (listed here by Pier 57) was very classy.
AT- Both Active Thunders looked great in the water but the red/ yellow boat was over the top.
OB Highlight- 38 Fountain TE runs 80 with triple 350 Verados.

Winner at the show:

New Outerlimits 41 with the duck tail/ square transom. The 39 was stretched into the 41 and it has the transom from the 51 GTX. Very cool ride, didn't get to see much of it since it was running demo rides both times I saw it but the boat was a 10.

heavyhauler

You have to start somewhere and it seems like things started going down hill when gas jumped up, but gas is just the tip of the iceburg. Everything else went up as well (except wages) because gas went up, so if you go back to your list, you need to add some more percentage points to all your items, and then the cost of boating (generally paid for with disposable income) went way up especially for the wage earner who is now spending most of his disposable income to fill his gas tank in his car to get to and from work. 2-3 thousand more for gas alone could make a lot of people think about doing it another way or not at all especially when you factor in the additional it is going to take to pay for the other items on the list that are going to or already have increased with the cost of gas.

PARADOX

Just got back to the hotel. ( $198 for the Hilton in Ft. Lauderdale, :> for 400+ you can keep the Miami beach "locatiion)The show was OK, but I been in the Miami shows and better. In Fla, the tend is toward CC's. Offhsore Performance boats are lagging behind. I think it's an age thing plus economy/fuel issues. ther used to be a lot more Perf. boats in the water. Lot of forigner. (france. germany) The perfomance boa colors are pretty wild. Not everyone takes to them. I'm lagging a few years into catching up on my Performance boating,.(so I'm not into the perf. cruisers yet) but most of the visiters are getting out of HP boats. IMO
Teh cig boats seem to win the "best in show" for me.
and the best babes.

mjw930

Considering the number of $300,000+ boats it's not surprising that the show's numbers are down. While the builders are thrilled that the high rollers are willing to plop down stupid money for the latest in bling the reality is the under 30' performance boat market has all but dried up. The working man/woman who used to be the ones buying the 24' - 30' performance boats are either keeping what they have, buying used or simply getting out of the sport because their priorities are changing.

It's a volume thing too. You would get 10 times the number of buyers when the average price of a performance boat was under $100,000 and gas was $1.50 / gallon.

I think it really comes down to dreams. When the boats and price tags were smaller a lot more people could imagine themselves owning one. Now that the price of entry seems to be $300,000 and up a lot less people aren't willing to waste their time money ($400 hotel rooms, GIVE ME A BREAK!) looking at something they they know they could never afford.

That's just my opinion, take it for what it's worth......

otis311

$5.50 at Hawks Cay in the Keys