I just bought a lift today from a guy who's boat is heading there soon. He can no longer afford the payment on a really nice Formula 280SS that he unfortunately owes more on than it is worth. I gave serious thought to buying the boat too, but it is bigger and thirstier than I'd like and it doesn't make sense to overpay for a used boat in this market.

We're really not seeing it but we deal in mostly smaller boats. 24 feet and under.

I can't tell you how happy I am that we sold our 40 Hustler with twin 500s in the fall of 2006. The boat would burn 90 gallons an hour when running hard. We would burn about 200 gallons on a weekend down to Chicago, boating around and then returning. As you might guess, performance boats are not selling too fast right now.

Now, our with our Formula, we burn 15-20 gallons on the weekend. Yes, the kids are doing more swimming et al, but running one 496 is so much easier on the pocket.

I don't think the higher price of gas used on a person's boat is the main reason for people selling now. I think it's just people unloading their toys for some cash to pay down other debt or just survive. If it was just high gas prices, I think the boating industry would be OK. We dealt with over $3/gal in 2006. But that was back when the economy wasn't so bad. If the economy was not so bad, I think more people would be keeping their boats but just adjusting their use. Not going as far, etc.

But yes, I am seeing more boats of all sizes on the market this year and as for so many other products and homes, it's a great time to be in the market for anything. Some very good deals to be had out there on used boats.

Aren't gas prices barely higher than they were in 2006?

I'm having some trouble with this whole economy doomsday scanario being played out in the news. Unless you have had a job lay-off or salary cut, why is your family's personal economy worse than it was last year?

My salary is higher than it was last year. The only difference we have seen is a slowing in the housing market, meaning that people can't cash out our on their home equity like they have for the last several years. So you can't continue to live beyond your means, big deal. Back to basics, I suppose.

Personally, I think that the fellows who are selling their boats obviously couldn't afford them in the first place. Probably living beyond their means in the first place.

I have seen a few sweet deals for OFFSHORE boats on Craigslist.org, but I'm not that rich. Someday...

In this area, the cost of food and everything else has gone up a lot over the last year due to the increase of diesel costs. Thats the real "death blow" to a lot of people. Between that and the longeviety of $3 + a gallon gas it is finally taking its toll. Especially on the lower end of the working class. Yes, my pay has gone up also, but it has never gone up at the same rate as goods have and this year it is even more evident. Not that I'm selling anytime soon.

Found this while looking around tonight...
link
Same as the second link in the first post.

I agree with tan and green. My wife's and my pay went up about 5% at the beginning of the year. The cost of everything we buy has not increased 5%. With the exception of gas for a few months. I think many of those selling there boats may have bought them with home equity interest only adjustable rate loans as was so prevelant especially here in CA. Now it is time to pay up. The big difference would be to those that have retired. If you are living off your retirement investments then things may not look so good right now.

Nah, it's worse than that...

In bad economy, boat owners abandon their vessels


An abandoned commercial vessel sits on its side in Fisherman's Cut near Bethel Island, Calif., Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008. From Southern California to Maine, the foundering economy, high fuel prices and poor fishing have driven boat owners to abandon perhaps thousands of vessels on the waterfront, where they are beginning to break up and sink, leaking oil and other pollutants. Boats have long been a barometer of consumer confidence, disposable income and the state of the economy.

SAN FRANCISCO — From Southern California to Maine, the foundering economy, high fuel prices and poor fishing have driven boat owners to abandon perhaps thousands of vessels on the waterfront, where they are beginning to break up and sink, leaking oil and other pollutants.

Boats have long been a barometer of consumer confidence, disposable income and the overall state of the economy. Now, marina and harbor officials are reporting a sudden increase in the past year in the number of deserted pleasure boats and working vessels.

In Antioch, a town about 45 miles east of San Francisco, harbormaster John Cruger-Hansen showed up at his marina one day last spring to find the horizon changed overnight. On the San Joaquin River, he saw an old crane, a rusted barge, a tugboat and an assortment of other junked boats, all of which had been hauled in and left illegally.

"Boating is a pure luxury and one of the first things to go when the economy turns south," said Cruger-Hansen, who expects to see more abandoned boats by year's end. "If it comes to the point of putting food on the table or paying the boat slip fee, it's the boat that goes."

Unlike cars, wooden and fiberglass boats have virtually no scrap value. So rather than pay the high cost of hauling their boats to the dump, people ditch them or sell them for as little as $1 to anyone who will take them. The boats often break up and go under, or pass into the underground economy of nighttime scuttlers_ who, for a fee, remove traceable identification numbers, strip out salvageable items and sink the vessels.


"Oil, gasoline and sewage from these boat leaks into the aquatic environment," said Sejal Choksi, program director at San Francisco Baykeeper, an environmental organization. Boat paint often contains chromium, lead, mercury and other toxic chemicals, and as a vessel deteriorates, the coating flakes off and settles on the sea floor or river bottom, where fish swallow it, Choksi said.

Government officials and environmental groups are calling for more programs and funding to prevent and clean up the junkyard flotillas.

But removing just one sunken sailboat can cost upwards of $12,000, and taking away larger commercial vessels is even more expensive.

With nearly a million registered boats, California -- the second-largest boating state behind Florida -- spends about $500,000 each year removing deserted recreational boats. The state has no money to remove commercial boats, and unless they are leaking oil or blocking a navigation channel, the Coast Guard is not required to take them away.

"At the state and federal level something needs to be done with these derelict commercial vessels. They just sit there, falling apart," said Contra Costa County sheriff's Sgt. Doug Powell, who patrols the mouth of the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. Nearly 30 decaying tugboats, fishing boats, cranes and barges make up the aquatic junkyard in Powell's county.

High fuel prices and several disastrous years in the nation's fishing industry have led fishermen to desert salmon boats in Washington state, crab boats in Maryland, trawlers in Oregon and lobster boats in Florida.

In Georgia, Charles "Buck" Bennett, a natural-resources enforcement manager for the state, regularly finds wooden shrimp boats run aground and left to break apart in the Atlantic Ocean swells.

"I'm not an economist, but when putting 500 gallons of fuel in a shrimp boat costs more than the boat is worth, that is a sad thing," Bennett said.

Bennett keeps a growing list of broken down boats slated for removal, currently 152 statewide. But with lean economic times and a declining shrimp industry, he guesses there are hundreds more hidden along the state's shoreline and waterways.

It's not just barnacle-laden junkers that are being abandoned.

In recent months, an increasing number of powerboat and sailboat owners have been failing to pay their slip fees, according to Randy Short, chief executive of Almar Management Inc., a company with 16 luxury marinas in California and Hawaii.

When the payments are 40 days delinquent, the marina chains the boat to the dock. Recently, a boat owner in one of Short's Southern California marinas disappeared, leaving behind a $200,000 boat and no contact information.

"People get financially upside-down and ditch their boats," Short said, "and you can just forget trying to sell a power boat right now. No one is buying."