Doc Turner wrote: > I remember that everyone was getting into the sailboat marker after the gas > crunch of the mid-70s. Even Bayliner. A lot of people dumped their power > boats and purchased sailboats. I figure that something like that will > happen again, but this time, people will be looking for used boats. Mainly > because even small sailboats cost a small fortune! > Doc REPLY A lot of things have changed since the seventies. I too bought my sail boat back then. However, today's boaters are not of the same mind set as they were back then. I do not see a large scale shift into sailboats by today's power boat crowd. They are not going to be willing to put up with displacement speeds, and less roomy space compared to their power boats. In the past there was still a lot of disposable investment income which seems to have evaporated this time around. Demographics have changed. The people who moved into sail back in the seventies have shifted to trawlers now because of their age. Somehow I don't see many of them going back to sail. The much younger generation are more into going fast in power boats. If fuel costs prohibit that, they are more apt to find a less expensive recreational pastime,
Concerning today's boats. By now people are accustomed to having freezers, fridges, ice makers, and air conditioning on board. Even when a sailboat is equipped with all these things, it is going to be expensive just to run a genset to drive these things when at anchor. Its been my observation that many of the existing sailboats do not have as quiet a genset installation as power boats do. And because of rising fuel costs everywhere, it takes away from disposable income that might otherwise have been spent on boating. What boating that does continue will be very different compared to what we have been accustomed to. regards Arild _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
