US sailboat industry down 7% in 2006

Last year we had a big haggle on these pages regarding what kind of boat would be a real market energizer; One that could get more young people into sailing so that the marketplace could be pumped from the small boats on up as the kids grew older.

There were the loud voices in support of hyper-technical boats such as foiling Moths and the over-worked concept of the People's Foiler. These folks said they would sell in huge numbers, get more kids involved and re-invigorate the sailing community. I said they wouldn't and the reasons were many and varied.

Well, folks, the numbers are in and total sales of sailing craft in the US have actually fallen in the year just ended. Especially hard hit was the small boat (0-19') end of the market where sales slumped 8%. Apparently the lure of a +$10,000 foiling machine held little sway over the folks who buy in this category.
http://www.ibinews.com/ibinews/newsdesk/20070119161006ibinews.html

Sailing Anarchy made a similar observation today when they said.

"The Biz

A mixed bag for the sailboat industry in 2006, according to to the annual "State of the Industry" report compiled by The Sailing Company. While total production value increased five per cent to US$129.1 million, the actual number of units produced fell to 14,945, a decade low. That simply means, boys and girls, that ya'll are buying fewer boats, but when you do buy, you're buying big. It can't be good news for the small boat industry ."

http://www.sailinganarchy.com/


I'm not real excited about all this. I design small boats for homebuilders and there is apparently only a small incentive from a business perspective to translate any of my designs into semi-production products with current climate issues staring me in the face.

Nevertheless, I'm still of the opinion that the Colin Chapman school of design thought, "Simplicate and add lightness", is the way to go for boats of this size range. Small boats that are simple to operate and own, simple to learn to sail and simple to maintain are always going to be more functionally sound investments when it comes to the youth and young adult market. I forgot to add; the boat has to be affordable to purchase in the first place.

It doesn't look like anyone is going to hit it big with a complex, fiddly boat, no matter how cool they seem to be when it comes to buzz. ( big, in this case, means enough unit sales to make a change for the positive in lost sales as shown through the recent results)

Chris Thompson (CT249) observed that hyper-technical mods on most boat fleets had the deleterious effect of actually driving people away from the once thriving fleets. It did not serve as an attractant that grew the fleet numbers. His analysis was also correct.

So, if foilers couldn't make a dent with all their global hype and pizzazz, then what do you guys suppose is going to be the driving force product that just might nudge the doldrums into the rear view mirror?

 

I share your frustration, however I'm not sure a revival in the sailing world is going to be lead by technology of any sort. I think other factors are conspiring against us.

In the 1960's, during my formative sailing years, there was lots of encouragement for 'everyman' to go sailing. It was not only accessible with plenty of DIY boats and lots of new sailing clubs starting, but it also seemed like the sort of thing 'ordinary people' should choose to do. The London Boat Show was sponsored by the Daily Express Newspaper and the most accessible dinghy class was promoted by the Daily Mirror. Both publications were very much 'mass media' and not exclusive in any way. Even the OSTAR was the 'Observer' single handed race, which although a broad sheet Sunday paper, was always 'left leaning' with the 'common touch'.

The Prime Minister of the time lead the country to victory in the Admirals Cup sailing a production 34 footer and the country went wild when ordinary people like Alex Rose, Chay Blyth and RKJ came sailing back from some adventure or other.

Since then there has been a constant shift of our (UK) sailing world up-market. Now the boat show is sponsored by Shroeders Investment Bankers and promotion girls at Cowes Week try to get you to change your regular brand of bubbly to 'Champagne Mumm'. Yeah right! We even talk about the Mumm 30 as if such class sponsorship is normal in 'our world'. There is great reticence by firms selling everyday products to be associated with sailing. None of the 'big money' in the America's Cup (excluding NZ) is from commercial sponsors.

Either driven by, or reacting to, I'm not sure, but now the only press and TV coverage sailing and the boat show gets usually takes the angle of 'look at these nobs going yachting. Aren't they posh? Every year journalists find the most expensive Sunseeker at the show and do a standard report about how swanky it all is and for only two million quid.

Obviously all the sailors from our boom era did not breed well enough for their offspring to sustain the sailing world. So we need new blood. Along with many other sports in this country we have to radically rethink the way kids have access to opportunities. Sailing can not be restricted to only those from sailing families. We are the world's most successful Olympic sailing nation. If we can't have a national strategy for this sport, we need to accept that 'sport' is nothing more than entertainment to pacify the masses in front of the TV's. Show tractor pulling or freestyle motorcross and be done with it.

Ellen MacArthur is probably the biggest thing that has benefited sailing in the UK for a long time. She did breakdown the veneer of exclusivity, but the sailing authorities didn't capitalise enough on both her ordinary background and the everyday familiarity of her sponsor B&Q, to really reposition sailing in the eyes of the British public. But still, she has inspired many youngsters and not only have we seen kids come into the club without sailing parents, but there is now a steady trail of kids sailing single handed round the coast of Britain in their Corribee 21's.

But sometimes we even do ourselves in. Chay Blyth's (and Clipper Ventures) have given more chances for ordinary people to get into ocean racing than almost any other scheme. Each race has spawned no end of people who have become passionate sailors. But in the end sponsors didn't want to know, because although it connected with the public, the sailing world was always 'sniffy' about these not being proper races and they were therefore never really embraced by the 'sailing establishment'.

Somehow sailing has to reconnect with the people. They've done it in France and the sponsors follow. Once people are interested they have to have the opportunities to try it. Once they're sailing you will have a market. Then the designers and builders can offer them whatever they like and the market will decide what are the 'good ideas' and what are no more than foils to the delusions of a fanciful minority.

 

Reading through Craig's post,I am struck by the other aspect of sponsorship he alludes to.Where the earlier organisations often sponsored boat designs,the more recent involvement seems to be aimed at events.These events tend to necessitate the use of up to date equipment and that costs the participants unless another sponsor steps in to fund some of the cost of the boat.Those who fail to obtain adequate funding either move down the ladder or take up other activities.There is sufficient funding to support a number of professional racing sailors at an elite level.We also have a national authority quite determined to keep the conveyor belt of Olympic aspirants moving.What is conspicuously lacking is simple,modestly priced boats that can be used for a number of functions.A Laser is not much use if you want to go to a secluded beach for a picnic and a traditional fishing boat will never race with a fleet of planing dinghies.Where is the modern multi-function small boat?

 

I've found '50s articles by Beecher Moore (the marketing man behind most of the popular UK and Australian dinghies of the sailing boom) and recent academic papers that point out exactly what Crag says. Even the mass media got involved in sailing, and when they did they pushed either the "adventure angle" or the fact that social and technological breakthroughs made it seem "like the sort of thing 'ordinary people' should choose to do."

They did NOT advertise the high-performance or expensive parts of the sport, and the result was an enormous boom in sailing. It has been argued that the boom in dinghy sailing was driven by the arrival of the fast planing trapeze boats (505 and FD) but this is NOT borne out by looking at the growth of the boats that caused the boom - they were growing like crazy before the 505 and FD arrived.

Perhaps part of the appeal to ordinary people was that they could finally move into what had been an elite activity, but the fact that sailing has been driven back "up market" means that we can now play that card again.

 

* wording corrected at no charge...
===============================
Actually, the production of foiler Moths has increased something like 200% in the last 2 years
with the largest manufacturer not even in full production yet. And while the Moth sailors pioneered what is a revolutionary new way to sail-not existing on planet earth before 1999- the Moth is NOT a Peoples Foiler though, perhaps, it could be with some mods to make it much easier to sail. But the Moth builders and sailors couldn't give a damn about making that great boat easier to sail-its spectacular as it is and is likely to stay that way. Whether or not after market suppliers introduce removable buoyancy pods (that are proven to make the boat easier to sail) or not is still up in the air.
But the revolution unleashed by the bi-foil monohull foiler technology pioneered by the Moth is not dependent on the Moth class for it's future. There are numerous people all over the world working on the concept of a Peoples Foiler-an easy to sail, fast, light wind take off, bi-foil monofoiler. Most of the projects that I know about are listed here:
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Peoples Foiler :aeroSKIFF™ / M4 - Boat Design Forums
Address:http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=10671
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The leading contender in the development of a Peoples Foiler is still Simon Maguires M4-see the first post under Peoples Foiler. While the technical breakthru pioneered by John Ilett,Ian Ward, Rohan Veal and others is a concept with wide applications to dinghy monohulls as well as keel boats( and multihulls) the next great breakthru for small boats WILL BE a Peoples Foiler that takes the bi-foil technology one step further to an EASY TO SAIL, BEACHSAILABE, LIGHTWIND TAKEOFF monofoiler.
Trying to say that based on the past years foiler production that foilers are not creating interest in the marketplace is just absurd-production is just starting to ramp up in the MOTH class but the most important boat for the future of small boat monofoiling does not yet exist! A Peoples Foiler-maybe similar to the M4-maybe a Moth with after market additions to make learning to sail it easier or an entirely different boat is the kind of product that has huge potential to revitalize small boat sailing. It will take a great boat and a great company but bi-foiling technology offers the potential to create a phenominal new wave of interest in sailing-not just high speed sailing but flying in light air,sailing off a beach with a friend or two, jumping at will if the mood strikes. A Peoples Foiler is not limited to a singlehanded version -a two or three hander will come into the market as time goes by; fun sailing in a new way(or ways) is what it's all about and there are no limits to the future incarnations of this revolutionary technology.

 

Maybe its the "seaworthiness" thread thats put them off.

 

Big Hat, No Cattle, Doug

Just in case you are intellectually struggling with the term "concept", as it is used in my original post, here's the definition:

con·cept (knspt)
n.
1. A general idea derived or inferred from specific instances or occurrences.
2. Something formed in the mind; a thought or notion.
3. A scheme; a plan: "began searching for an agency to handle a new restaurant concept" ADWEEK.

It's more than remarkable that you feel it necessary to alter a quoted passage, but it becomes downright hilarious when the alteration, itself, takes on the form of complete redundancy to what was already there in the first place.

You get an F for your submission and we haven't even gotten into the body of the text. At this point, there's no need at all to address your wandering and exclamatory filled angst demo.

Try again, perhaps you can get it right the next time around.

 

I'm gonna pitch in what I see happening in the junior sailing market around here and why kids aren't getting into sailing. The kids that do sail around here are buying their boats and eventually growing out of them, selling them to the next generation of sailors as used boats. I believe that at my yacht club it is around 20 people that are buying new boats in comparison to the 80 people that have used boats.

Now the reason more kids around here aren't getting into sailing is because they see it as a "lame" sport. No, the International Moth is not turning people off from sailing, most people don't even know what one is, let alone the 50 percent of club-level sailors that don't even know what an Int. Moth is. Kids do not see sailing as technical, they see it as a rich sport that consists of "pulling a bunch of ropes". Most people don't know that there is more to sailing than a Sunfish or your friends parents motorsailor. I believe that if more kids were shown boats like the International Moth or other high performance boats that they would be interested in trying the boats out. However, they can't be thrown into a boat that is so technical that they decide to stop sailing right away due to how confusing it is. There are many boats that had booming classes in the middle of the 1900's because the boats were easy to make, cheap to make, and there were plenty of people making boats to race against. Many people do NOT want to build boats. Kids these days are lazy, if they want it, they want it on a silver platter, .5% of kids have or want to build their own boats. I have seen more kids get into sailing because they have seen videos or pictures of International Moths, 29ers, Vectors, 18 Foot Skiffs, etc, etc. Right now the teenage generation is into things "extreme" I think that high performance dinghy sailing needs to be promoted, instead of having a sunfish, familes should have some kind of family useable high performance boat that is easy to handle, and absolutely mind blowing to sail. Just my .02 cents but if there were more boats like A Cats, F18's, IC's, International Moths, 12,16,18 Foot Skiffs, 29ers, 49ers, etc, etc, etc that more kids would be wanting to get into sailing. Just an observation from someone that KNOWS the generation that is being talked about.

 

I think it's just socialogical evolution. Kids of today (geez I hate sounding old) just are not interested in the same sorts of things anymore. You see it in the Classic car enthusiasts. When an owner gets too old to drive his beloved car and puts it up for sale, it's not young people that buy them. It's just people of a similar generation to the seller who thinks the way he does about that sort of stuff. It's not cost as there are cheap classics available, kids just are not interested.
I think it's the same with boats.
Interest in whatever hobby your care to name can be nurtured and encouraged but it's something deep down that drives a person to that particular hobby/sport. If they want it bad enough they'll go for it regardless and if they don't then no range of simple/complex/cheap/expensive boat/car is going to entice them to take up the hobby.
"You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink."

Mychael

 

I can't talk about other countries, but in the UK children's sailing is booming. The trouble is we tend to lose them when they go to university.
I strongly disagree that more skiffs, 9ers etc will increase participation. All the evidience shows that mass market appeal boats are trapezeless, and have only a modest (preferably asymmetric) kite. Skiffs are great for magazine covers, but not what ordinary folk want to sail.

 

Tim, I can understand that in the US, sailing is seen as lame. We're lucky down here, we have lots of tv coverage of a very tough ocean race (Hobart) that concentrates on thrills 'n spills, and we have a tradition of (minority) high performance classes.

But are kids today really into extreme sports more than previous generations? Dunno (and I have four teens and coach uni students). They are certainly labelled extreme, but why is wakeboarding called "extreme" and water skiiing (of the form we used to do it when I was a kid - blown 427 Chevy V8s with guys hitting close to 100mph on planks) less "extreme" than wakeboarding? Much of the extreme sports stuff seems to be BS hype, frankly. It seems that if you can BS about how a sport is "extreme" you may do OK, but all the evidence here is that these sports get more hype than participation.

Nor are all "extreme" sports doing well; waterskiiing and windsurfing are sometimes listed as an extreme sport and (like waterskiiing here) it's crashed far more than sailing has.

Dunno if kids are lazy; down here, a very high proportion (many times higher than in the past) have jobs after school.

The classes you list; A Cats, F18's, IC's, International Moths, 12,16,18 Foot Skiffs, 29ers, 49ers are'nt growing much (if at all) down here and the Laser attracts many more kids.

I think you're right, a class that is family useable and easy to handle and mind blowing to sail could do okay; but it's not easy to find in a mono, and otherwise that seems to describe Nacra-type cats which are tiny compared to the numbers they used to get (here anyway). If it was all about speed, why are the cats and boards also short of kids?

So sure, the fact that sailing is seen as "lame" is a problem in the US; but where sailing is doing better the sport is not full of 12s, 18s, ICs etc. The medium-speed route (with plenty of hype given to slower boats like RSs and Lasers) seems to work gangbusters in the UK.

Like PI, I'd like to work out how we can keep teens after they go to uni. I wonder if the 29erXX could be a real help; kids could move up to a more challenging boat without having to find all the cash for a brand new 49er etc.

 

Me too, I mean I agree with you and I know the generation that is being talked about (I am a father and a teacher ).

The preferred "Sport" for most kids nowadays are video games and it is reveling, that even among those, there are almost no sailing video games. Not enough action or fun.

I agree also about the need for boats that are fun, fast safe, easy to sail and not very expensive. I believe that the Open 5.0 fits the bill and that's why it is such a big hit in Europe.

http://www.finot.com/general/index_ang.htm

I believe kids stay too much time on Optimists (boring) and after that Clubs propose them racing classes, boats that are tricky to sail fast and not inherently stable. They have to stay a lot of time on the Optimists to learn enough to pass to the next boat.

Both of my kids started sailing on Optimist and after some moths they let it go. Not enough fun .

 

CT249: In the US, most of the kids are lazy, walk into any high school and talk about Halo 2, World of Warcraft, or any other well known video game and it will seem like you are talking to the most savvy video gamers in the world. I have no friends around here that have jobs, my friend had a job for a long time, but that restaurant shut down. Most kids will go home, play video games, or they will be participating in some sport at school.

I do not believe that to get people into sailing they need to have people sailing the high performance boats I listed, I just think they need to see them seeing, and some wipeouts, and they might get interested. I know that around here when I was in the 4th grade, skateboarding became the thing to do, not because it was realistic or easy to do, but we wanted to be pulling the tricks that the pros were. As for why windsurfing is down, I think more people are going over to kiteboarding, far more "extreme" in peoples minds. Also, people are going wakeboarding now instead of waterskiing, my friends used to waterski a lot, now ALL of my friends wakeboard. I think that a good solution for our country would be to set up our TV channels the way you Aussies have it. If more channels had shows that showed races like the Sydney-Hobart, Skiff Racing, Volvo Ocean Race, etc that they would think, "hey, that looks like it might be pretty exciting...maybe I should give it a try." Well, thats where the boat that needs to be exciting while easy and simple to use, if they can get excited while still not being overwhelmed, they might want to keep sailing. A good thing to have would be more people that own high performance boats taking new-comers out on the water and have them crew and first, get used to the boat, then do a little driving. What do you guys think?

 

Tim, sorry, I was just looking at my own situation. Still, it sounds similar.

Windsurfing actually dropped dramatically years before kites were invented, and I don't think kiting is actually a very big sport. Kites are more extreme than windsurfers, but windsurfing wasn't "extreme" at first and it started to decline around the time it became "extreme".

I think fast but comparatively easy to sail boats (Feva, Cherub, 125 in high-wind areas, Equipe?) are important. But when you look at sailing here (for instance) on a state-by-state basis, there's no link between the % of people who sail, and the number of glamour boats (skiffs, Hobart racers etc) in the area. Sailing is big in France and they have few skiff types.

I reckon it would be great to have guys take out kids on high performance boats. Frankly, this is why I can't work out the way the US high-performance racing is set up. Doesn't the way that the fast boats only meet each other for a regatta once a month (or whatever) mean that the typical Opti kid never gets to see a fast boat regularly? How does almost ignoring the kids and average sailor help your side of the sport get converts? I suppose it works from one angle, but then again HP sailing in the USA isn't doing very well.

Here, many of the fast boats sail each week in the same club as the Optis, Lasers, Sabots, 420s, Cherubs etc. It keeps kids aware of fast boats, and it shows them it's something they can do - not something for guys on TV or YouTube.

 

Some of this is true here, CT. There are exceptions, such as the well-developed programs in San Francisco and in and around Connecticut/Rhode Island, where the geography of a focused area as well as deep sailing traditions contributes to the connective potential for bringing the young ones along in the craft.

Lots of other locations have a serious disconnect, in spite of reasonably active fleets of faster boats. I realize that I'm opening myself up here for a whole landslide of rebuttal comments, so I apologize up front if anyone gets their nose out of whack on the above. At least it will give energy to an open discussion about how to invigorate the process and, perhaps, get some of the smaller, entry and mid-level boats back out on the water.

The raging conflict for the attention of a young person is a very steep hill to climb for sailing. Small boat sailing has nowhere near the potential budget to spend to lure kids into a full contact situation when compared to the previously mentioned video game rig. Geez, for the price of an affordale, get out and sail, boat that is not all beat up already, the kid can purchase the most deluxe, full-blown, Sony rig with a dozen games, headsets for all the buddies and joysticks, steering wheels, etc. and simply get lost in the family rec. room for weeks on end.

I don't condone the practice and there has never been a game box in our house with the oldest now in college and our 16 yr. old son well into cars, longboarding on wheels and a certain attractive gal friend. Somehow we survived the game fever.

Still, it is heady stuff with which to compete if you design, build or market small craft.

A hundred years ago there was a really bustling business in sailing canoes here in the US and then, along came the bicycle. Apparently, much of the demise of canoe sailing is attributed to the unfortunate rise of the two wheeled machine and America's great interest in all things with wheels.

I think another part is that we are not, by history or expansive geography, a seafaring nation in the way that some other nations are. You know, the ones with encircling bodies of water, a long, historical boating context as a way of life for huge numbers of people and all the rest of the stuff that goes into a national position in this manner.

As a result, I see the selling of sailing in the US as a total uphill slog, which will likely get worse as the techno-generation becomes ever more influential. Techies realize that the rate of change in their world almost completely obviates the purpose of investing in anything even remotely expensive. They know that the tech is likely going to change again in rapid order and there they will stand with near-worthless gear and a whole crew of hip techies racing away into the distance.

Selling $10K+ boats into that mindset is futile when you look at the price of the absolutely most all-out gaming computer possible at something like half that price. And the computer can do so much more when it is not gaming. Can a Moth foiler pull down ITunes, Instant Message, send/receive video email, Blog... and on and on?

That is the competition for the minds and time of young people and it's one bad MoFo.

And that is but one reason why we see the sales figures we do in the thread opening report.

I used the Moth Foiler at the front end of the thread because there was seemingly endless mounds of hype about the boat type from last year. Doug suggests that the Moth foiler boat builders are now cranking-out 200% of the boats they built last year, blah, blah, blah. That it's going places, that it will sweep the boating scene. Sweep it... as in the way the Hobie Cat did back in the seventies?

I say 200% of what? Didn't Ilett say he had the outside capacity to knock-out something like 4 boats a month in his shop if demand was really strong and he had the right help? (I'll be happy to correct that if it isn't precise, but that's the gist of what I remember) That would mean that he's doing what, 100 boats a year if one were to double the Ilett supplied number, and I'm not at all convinced that there are 100 boats a year flying out of Ilett's shop alone, much less from Bladerider's gig in China.

Still, let's say they are, for argument's sake. Apparently, few of these bad dudes are making it over here in the US because even though that segment (imported boats) grew 14% last year, the total number of them is but a paltry 420 units with the biggest number of those in the 36-45' category. The survey indicates a slide in imported boats back down into single digit numbers for the coming year. So, clearly, they have not made any real headway in market penetration, in spite of one of the biggest, free hype campaigns seen in boating in many years.

People's Foiler...? Not a chance it will be met with anything but mild curiosity by the single biggest marketplace in the world. Well, not unless you'd like to spend $10 million marketing what will likely turn-out to be considerably under $1 million in gross sales. That is not a successful business model, even if you have the dough of Bill Gates and his piece of the gaming pie.

I'm sure there are guys who will make all sorts of noise about this position, but the proof is in the numbers and not in the pictures being shown in the boating magazines or the clips being posted on Youtube. Hard cash makes business success and really big amounts of that hard cash are what it will take to beat any kind of worn spot on the hide of the computer gaming industry, to name but one of the issues for small boat marketers.

Chris