In 20 years........

1-2 of the companies listed in the top of this thread will be history. The boats will be status symbols like they are in Europe with only the extremely weathly owning them. You will definitely see the invasion of foreign made performance boats (China makes cars, yachts, go fast boats are next!). The higher efficiency small blocks will be more common and you will see more single motor applications as well as more outboard powerboats. You will see 40-45 year old Apaches still being sold for 200K (or more) with older straight bottom Cigs right behind them as an alternative "old school wavecrusher"

The cheap turbines and all stainless motors are fantasies, if that stuff is expensive now it always will be! Dusenbergs were never cheap!

My vision of the future is the cost of fuel skyrocketing 10 times the average inflation rate so much so that fuel cost becomes triple or more the cost of ownership. So many of us say cost of gas is one of the least expenses we face, what would you say if it becomes many times all the other expenses combined?

I predict it will end up back to basics based upon consumer demand just like automobiles. Very few buy or own the aforementioned boats above. If you look around you'll see an increasing number of smaller more practical sport boats hittin' the water. The behemoths will be looked upon (the consumer market that is) as they do the Hummers and Excursions.

LMAO!!!!!

Interesting. Certainly looks like we are headed this way.

Forcefields and hover boats running for 5000 hrs on 100 bucks worth of unobtanium

I think the big leaps forward are done. The huge funny money is what made the advances happen between the late 90's and 2008ish. Thats gone. We would have to have another equally "rich" economic upturn to fuel innovation. Thats not going to happen in our lifetimes.

Diesels, efficient hulls, alternative energy - basically the same as what we see in the auto industry.

Oh and a ton more laws especially around safety and emissions.

Speak for yourself grandpa

some of us are still youngsters

This I totally disagree with. One thing I would never do is bet against American innovation. We'll have several more bull markets in our lifetime.

As for boats, we'll see high performance diesel engines, I hope we'll see single engine surface drives (similar to the old Blackhawk but more robust) and we'll see a greater push for alternative fuels and more efficient hulls.

At a rate of approximately 8% improvement per year, I figured out it would take battery technology about 30-35 years to reach a point where a 35 foot plus performance boat powered by electric motors would be feasible with a decent range.

As for materials, I think we need to figure out how to make fiber glass without using petroleum products. The more oil goes up the more expensive the raw materials for building boats becomes.

Finally, don't be surprised to see coating that reduce friction between the hull and the water come out over the next 20 years to increase boat efficiency.

Oh yeah, and joystick docking will come to performance boats at some point in the next couple of decades.