On the Rocks

The current financial crisis, perhaps more accurately described as the erosion of credit failure, obviously has hit many corners of society - - mortgages,  lay-offs, grocery prices, to name a few. Not good, so painful to millions here and abroad, and a stark example of corporate and governmental greed. To quote a line from a great 60's song, "When will they ever learn?"

A smaller corner, but one that impacts many of us is the recreational boating industry. One instance. Olympic Boat Sales is in bankruptcy, in fact, most all the West Coast offices have been closed. Just a week or so ago I was sad to see the Seattle Bayliner - Meridian dealership at the foot of Alison St., just next door to our Lake Union moorage, was locked up tight. No floating inventory. A few days later the trailered inventory disappeared. Good people now gone.

I called the Olympic dealership in Tacoma - - Kurt Kingman and Bob Berglund are great guys - - but all I got was a  disconnected message. I mention Kurt and Bob, not because they made many referrals to CruiseMasters over the years, but more for the many strong and very positive comments I heard from their customers. They looked after their clients well.

Just today the Marine Retailers Association of America asked the Feds for financial relief to help customers obtain financing so they can purchase boats and to help the dealers so that they can purchase inventory. MRAA said the credit freeze is having a severe adverse impact on the marine retail business with sales of new boats down 38 percent this year from the already depressed levels of 2007.

Overseas, reports were that last month's large international boat show in Genoa, Italy, was one to forget. Now the European boating market is looking ahead for some hope to the next show in Amsterdam in November.

CruiseMasters has felt the impact of the slump. When buyers can't get financing they can't buy boats/ And if they can't buy boats they don't need boathandling instruction. Our last customer completed mid=October. Being a retirement career, the lack of business is not crucial. I miss the opportunities to meet new boaters and help them master their boathandling skills. I do miss the "ah ha's" that are the real stuff of instruction.

On the flip side, my friend at Seattle's Ray Rairdon Yacht Sales, Richard Ashton, says that sales are going well there.

And that's good!