Our declining hobby...sad days
06-12-2016, 07:32 PM
#11
Gold Member
Gold Member
Offshore powerboats are expensive and selfish.
I love 'em but they keep going up in price and most of them can carry 5-6 people with little room to move around on board. Truthfully, all they are good for is motoring around, often at high speed, burning fuel.
Every other style of boat has a more useful purpose. Cruisers carry a few more people slowly with loads of luxurious amenities for entertaining. Sports boats for wake boarding and water sports. Toons for relaxing in groups and meandering around the river. Centre consoles for fishing and now adapting to a cross-over role.
The offshore stuff has the most expensive power plants with more expertise required on costly maintenance. Love them or hate them, they are the most impractical of all. Couple that to the younger generations having more interest in hi-tech phones, social media, throw in the anti cancer brigade (I am a minor victim of skin cancer), add the number of jobless, allow for the general state of the economy worldwide, it's not surprising boat numbers are going south with offshore performance stuff hardest hit.
The forum will either adapt or get smaller. My bet, it will adapt and I think the first stage will be sections for centre consoles. Every CC related thread on here reveals more and more CC owners coming out of the woodwork.
Times are changing, practical low maintenance boats are taking the market share.
My 2 cents worth....
RR
I love 'em but they keep going up in price and most of them can carry 5-6 people with little room to move around on board. Truthfully, all they are good for is motoring around, often at high speed, burning fuel.
Every other style of boat has a more useful purpose. Cruisers carry a few more people slowly with loads of luxurious amenities for entertaining. Sports boats for wake boarding and water sports. Toons for relaxing in groups and meandering around the river. Centre consoles for fishing and now adapting to a cross-over role.
The offshore stuff has the most expensive power plants with more expertise required on costly maintenance. Love them or hate them, they are the most impractical of all. Couple that to the younger generations having more interest in hi-tech phones, social media, throw in the anti cancer brigade (I am a minor victim of skin cancer), add the number of jobless, allow for the general state of the economy worldwide, it's not surprising boat numbers are going south with offshore performance stuff hardest hit.
The forum will either adapt or get smaller. My bet, it will adapt and I think the first stage will be sections for centre consoles. Every CC related thread on here reveals more and more CC owners coming out of the woodwork.
Times are changing, practical low maintenance boats are taking the market share.
My 2 cents worth....
RR
06-12-2016, 08:20 PM
#12
Member #154
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: SW CT & Long Island Sound
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The answer is simple- globalization... there's no real middle class any more and boating is an expensive hobby.
Without access to good paying jobs, boating is only a dream for many.
Corporations rule, and they know that to improve their bottom line jobs need to be done in other countries by people willing to work for much less.
If the jobs are done here they are mostly automated.
Without access to good paying jobs, boating is only a dream for many.
Corporations rule, and they know that to improve their bottom line jobs need to be done in other countries by people willing to work for much less.
If the jobs are done here they are mostly automated.
It has to be scary for young people these days.
06-12-2016, 08:26 PM
#14
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Can a moderator delete this thread ? Too damn depressing.
06-12-2016, 08:29 PM
#15
One would think if the hobby is so depressed, nice clean boats would be at "giveaway" prices. The exact opposite is the case as far as I can tell.
We see this downturn of interest in the musclecar hobby talked about on a weekly basis, but.so far nobody is giving those away either.
Weird.
We see this downturn of interest in the musclecar hobby talked about on a weekly basis, but.so far nobody is giving those away either.
Weird.
06-12-2016, 08:32 PM
#16
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Wear that. If I was black and saw another one of "my" people wearing that I would tell them what a fu!k they were. I can't imagine what it would feel like to be at my prime, have put on a ton of good years to a company only to watch a under qualified minority take my job because the white vs minority ratio was "off".
06-12-2016, 09:44 PM
#18
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Location: Killeen Texas/Fort Hood
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I hate life without being on the water. I have contemplated buying a small something or other just to get me out there. Heck, even thought about an inflatable fishing boat from Academy. I think people would like to be able to boat, but having to work multiple jobs or the type of jobs that pay enough, well there is just no time. Only time will tell where things go. I like the CCs, but the wife does not. Care to guess what I won't be buying?
