Boating’s Ongoing Rollercoaster Ride

As a kid I loved the thrill of riding on an amusement park rollercoaster. The higher and the more unpredictable the turns, the better. It’s a true thrill-seeking high like nothing else when you’re finally tall enough to get on the ride. Now that I’m older with my own kids I’m more into the “just endure the ride” mindset as I hold on tight and hope the uncertainty ends soon. It’s kind of funny how life can change so rapidly. It’s also easy to see why our lives and businesses are often compared to a rollercoaster.

Until you sit back and attempt to put an actual date on it, those ever-changing events and unforeseen circumstances in our lives move quicker than you realize. To me it doesn’t feel that long ago when manufacturers had more inventory than they knew what to do with and were overrun with boats. As some smaller dealerships were forced out of business during a tough slump in our economy, manufacturers were shuffling inventory to other dealers so they wouldn’t have to close their own doors. For the record, that would have been the perfect time to be a little picky, ahem, I mean more selective, when shopping for a new pontoon or deck boat. Just saying.

Today, most of the boats coming into dealerships are pre-sold and if they’re not, there is probably a line of vehicles following the semi-truck and its fresh load of pontoons or deck boats. It’s crazy how quickly our industry has changed. Welcome to the boating rollercoaster.

So the high demand for new boats simply means manufacturers just don’t feel like building more boats, right? Uh, no. The shortage of parts and materials (with new added manufacturing costs of course) has back-logged the boating industry way past the point of frustration. Even if the manufacturer could find everything to build a boat and has the workforce to do it, the shortage of outboards could still hold up the load that is scheduled to arrive at your local dealership. Yet another crazy turn on the rollercoaster.

There is plenty of frustration to go around after the year manufacturers, dealers and customers have all endured, yet with a new year comes a new hope that 2022 is going to be the perfect time to buy your next boat. Boat shows are starting to come back after the current pandemic derailed most of the in-person shows in early 2021. Arm yourself with our annual Buyer’s Guide to help narrow your search and even if you plan to avoid boat shows right now, our research will save you time.

We’ve divided our listings into four categories to be a quick reference that you can take advantage of to determine the top manufacturers’ best-selling, entry, fishing and luxury models. Not sure about packing around our magazine with you at the shows? Not a problem at all. Take this key information with you by using our new digital platform called VERTIQUL that allows you to pull up our guide on your phone or tablet while you’re on the go. It’s a huge upgrade over other digital magazines with no more “pinching” the screen to enlarge the copy or being led away to a different page. It’s extremely user-friendly and worthy of a try if you haven’t already.

No one can predict the future of our industry, but instead of trying to endure the changes let’s embrace them. Now is the time to place your order for your next boat so when the weather warms up, you don’t find yourself wishing you would have secured one earlier. Let our annual Buyer’s Guide help put you on the right track.