Gas Prices Pinching Some Boaters To Sell Their Boat

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OKLAHOMA CITY -- High gas prices have some small boat owners struggling to afford the fuel to keep their boats on the water.

Vendors at the Original Free RV and Boat Show at the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds Sunday said sales of smaller boats have been struggling this year.

Doug Duvall of Boat and RV World in Edmond said large boat sales are still OK, but his business is seeing a lot of people seeking to sell back smaller boats.

“A lot of them will have their motorcycle and their boat and their four-wheelers as their toys,” he said. “Well, they are streamlining toys that take gas.”

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Duvall said boat dealers in Oklahoma are weathering the situation better than their counterparts in California.

Mark Webster brought his wife Yvonne to the boat show, browsing for something they could use for fishing and skiing. Webster said fuel prices wouldn’t make or break his buying decision.

“It's a concern, because you've got your fuel expenses to and from the lake, plus the boat expenses, but it's not really a big factor,” said Webster.

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Walker Bay Boats Extends Its Hull Warranty To 10 Years Sell A Boat Used Boat Sales

Sell-A-Boat.Com - Yakima, WA, – Walker Bay Boats Inc. announced today that it has extended their factory backed warranty on all injection molded hulls, including the Original and Genesis lines to 10 years. By using proprietary High Impact Marine Composite in the injection molding process, Walker Bay hulls are exceptionally strong and impact resistant. “We have put the hulls through rigorous testing and have even hit it with a sledge hammer and driven over it with a truck to illustrate the extremes that our hulls can withstand as opposed to aluminum or fiberglass hulls” said Michael Carroll, Director of Marketing for Walker Bay Boats. “Although we don’t expect or warranty our hulls against sledge hammers and trucks, we are confident that our hulls are going to be around for many years,” concluded Carroll.Walker Bay boats are manufactured using a state-of-the-art injection molding process. Precisely pre-measured UV-protected polypropylene resin is injected with a massive force of over 8000 tons into a mold that can weigh up to 82 tons. It is then cooled to take the shape of the mold with a finish that is flawless. The one-piece hull has no seams or joints to crack or leak which contributes to its impact resistance and durability.

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Unlike a hard fiberglass hull that is vulnerable to corrosion or delaminating when it gets scratched, the Walker Bay hull is a single color solid material that requires no fixing for scuffs and scrapes. Walker Bay’s manufacturing process is environmental friendly with zero emissions and all hulls are 100% recyclable.Walker Bay Boats continues to win awards in innovation and is committed to maintaining the quality of its product to exceed customer expectations. It is important to note that this warranty is specific to the injection molded hull and not components and accessories. Those items have separate warranties that are described in the owner manuals or on the web which also has the specifics on hull coverage. To see video footage of what the Walker Bay hull can take in abuse, go to http://www.walkerbay.com/media/media_ideas.php

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Sell Your Boat Newport Boat Show opens today April 18th, 2007

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Selling a yacht named "Bad Debt" might seem like a challenge in a season of escalating home foreclosures, subprime lender bankruptcies and near-record fuel prices.
But Bill Solt, a broker for Ardell Yacht and Ship Brokers in Newport Beach, seemed optimistic about finding someone to pay $495,000 for Bad Debt, a 50-foot Ronin cruiser on sale at the Newport Boat Show, which starts today on Lido Island.
"A boat's a toy," said Solt, a broker for 35 years. "We're selling fun. We're selling adventure."
The Newport show, now in its 34th year, is the West Coast's largest in-water exhibit of yachts with more than 320 boats – a show record – open to visitors through Sunday.
One "toy" on display is a 98-foot Horizon cruiser owned by Jim Baum of Pasadena. It has 2,200 square feet of living space, walk-in closets, beds for 10 and eight plasma TVs, the largest of which has a 63-inch screen. A similar boat sells for $5.3 million or charters for $39,500 a week.
"People are going to have their fun," said Baum, a retired airline pilot and investor. "People are going to find discretionary income to do what they want."
Fun or not, boat sales are expected to be flat in 2007 after a decline in volume in 2006, said James Petru, director of industry statistics and research for the National Marine Manufacturers Association. While total volume dipped, revenue rose in some categories as people paid more per boat for innovative navigation gear and all the comforts of home, Petru said.
In-board cruise boats, generally longer than 24 feet – the type of craft at the Newport show – illustrate the trend: Sales volume fell 24 percent last year to about 5,900 units nationally. But the average price jumped 11 percent to $444,900.

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Newport Beach and Southern California don't always track the nation. Duncan McIntosh, producer of the Newport Boat Show, has seen no signs of a slowdown in local boat sales, although he would not be surprised if the slumping real estate market could have a negative impact.
"We saw a wave of people use equity in their homes to purchase toys they like – vacation homes, RVs, boats, whatever," he said.
In 2005, the most recent figures available, spending on boats jumped 8 percent nationally but 6 percent in California. The state ranked second nationally in total sales at $1.3 billion, behind Florida, where sales exceeded $2.5 billion and rose 18 percent.
Jeff Helsing, sales manager for Crow's Nest Yacht Sales, the largest exhibitor at the show with 22 boats on display, agreed that now is as good a time as ever to sell yachts.
"Guys with big dollars are spending," he said. "Getting them to spend it with me is a different story."

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SEATTLE - The Coast Guard received a distress signal from an Emergency Position Indicating Radiobeacon, or EPIRB, registered to a boat home-ported in Missoula, Mont. Wednesday.

No people were in trouble, but the Coast Guard didn't know that when they first received the signal. However, it wasn't long before they discovered the call was a false alarm.

The owner of the EPIRB had failed to unregister the device when he sold his boat, the 42-foot motor vessel Good Medicine, to a man in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl. After a series of phone calls between the Coast Guard District Office in Florida and the broker who sold the boat, it was learned the EPIRB was thrown some time during the week of June 18-24.

EPIRBs are devices intended to save lives by transmitting a signal to rescuers with the position of troubled boaters. When they are improperly disposed of they can cost the Coast Guard valuable time and taxpayers thousands of dollars in resource costs.

The International Maritime Organization and the Coast Guard recommend that unwanted EPIRBS be disposed of by either removing the battery and shipping the unit back to its manufacturer or rendering the unit inoperable by demolishing it. The EPIRB should also be unregistered with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in any case when the unit has been disposed of or transferred to a new owner.

The Coast Guard routinely refers cases involving the non-distress activation of an EPIRB (either as a hoax, through gross negligence, carelessness or improper storage and handling) to the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC can prosecute cases based upon evidence provided by the Coast Guard, and will issue warning letters or notices of apparent liability or fines up to $10,000.

By following the rules for proper EPIRB disposal, boaters can save themselves a lot of trouble and the Coast Guard an unnecessary trip to the dump. For more information on EPIRBS, please contact NOAA at 1-888-212-7283.

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The Discontinuation of *CG

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In an effort to improve Search and Rescue Response the Coast Guard has requested all wireless providers in states other then Alaska to remove the specialized keying sequence, *CG, used to reach the Coast Guard for maritime emergency assistance.

The *CG feature was introduced by some cellular communications companies in the early 1990’s, but never developed into a nationwide service. As wireless providers moved to digital systems, some didn't migrate *CG to the new system and others even lost track of whether or not they were continuing the feature. This patchwork of service is confusing for the mariners who choose to use it, and may, in fact, prevent them from making a timely call for assistance should they find themselves in an area where *CG is not available.

The Coast Guard has found through research and experience that with the multitude of wireless systems and the misalignment of cellular coverage areas with our regions for Search and Rescue response, the use of this specialized service has resulted in misdirection of emergency calls. This has often added significant delays in the Coast Guard response to those calls for assistance.

The Coast Guard has requested that the cellular companies reroute all *CG calls to the 911 Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) nearest to where the call originated. As an added precaution, mariners should stop using the special keying sequence *CG and begin using 911 on their cell phones to notify authorities of a distress at the onset of a maritime emergency if a cell phone is their only means of communication.

The one exception to the discontinuance of the *CG specialized keying sequence is the Alaskan cellular phone region. Cell phone companies operating in Alaska all have the *CG feature available, and because the Coast Guard has a single number for routing those emergency calls, the cellular and Coast Guard regions are fully aligned; calls are not missed and can not be misdirected. The *CG feature will remain active in Alaskan waters.

Mariners are encouraged to invest in a VHF-FM radio as their primary means of distress alerting on the water. Communication via VHF-FM radio provides superior alerting capabilities over cellular phones.

A VHF-FM radio provides superior service in a maritime emergency because:

• When a MAYDAY is sent out via VHF-FM radio it is a broadcast, not just one party is receiving the distress call; any nearby boaters can hear the distress call and offer immediate assistance. Cellular phones are point to point; other boaters in the area can not hear the call and consequently will not be able to respond.

• With the Coast Guard’s Rescue 21 system improvements to the National Distress and Response System (which is monitored by Coast Guard Sector communications centers) coming on line, any call, distress or otherwise, placed over a VHF-FM radio will have an associated line of bearing (LOB). This LOB significantly narrows the area to which Coast Guard or other responders must look to find the boater making the call. In many locations two or more LOB’s will be associated with a call; the intersection of those LOB’s will provide the position of the caller. A cell phone doesn’t do this. If the distressed caller does not know his location it is difficult and time consuming to determine a position through the wireless companies. This is often aggravated by low batteries and poor reception.

• VHF-FM radios are manufactured today with Digital Selective Calling (DSC). This feature provides the mariner with an emergency feature that will send a distress with the vessel’s information and Global Positioning System (GPS) location at the press of a button. It is important to note that the DSC radio must be properly registered with an MMSI number through Boat US and the radio must be properly interfaced with the GPS in order to send an accurate position to assist emergency responders to respond to the distress.

All maritime boaters should have a VHF-FM radio onboard their vessel to assure any calls of distress are heard immediately. Cell phones should only be used as a secondary means of communications. If the cell phone is the only means of communication available then remember, as with any land based emergency, the number to call rescue personnel is 9-1-1. *CG is no longer available. Have a fun and safe boating season.

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