[quote=charlescarlis]First up: bare with me - not sure about "boat economics':
A lot of this seems to have come about because of the great government push back in the late 80's and 90's to tax and regulate production of fiberglass boats among other markets, as I understand it. NACRA goes "off-shore" outside the U.S. for viability and Hobie adjusts to the dwindling market that has gotten more expensive. Doesn't help that all this starts occurring as the digital age heats up and people go on-line to the "newest thing" in droves.
I used to be into RC airplanes, since a kid, graduating finally to RC Jets. Same thing happened to that hobby, with government doing a huge stomp on it (didn't like 200+ mph "drones" flying around with 2 gallons of jet fuel I guess), plus people's attention went elsewhere, easier. The hobby essentially has died; still a few die-hards in it, but not like it was when there used to be contests with $50k in prize money.
Look at what happened during the "lock-downs" - people finally got fed up living lives strictly digitally and finally started a buying binge of boats, etc. to get outside. However, as my wife likes to point out - it takes an hour to set up, hour to take down; not instant fun. Lives are packed with demand, so we tend to think of every minute not being "productive" as wasted. An entire day spent fiddling and playing/sailing? Huh.
In our curent state, manufacturers have to market "easy, fun, fast and affordable". A used fiberglass cat is not necessarily that, though it can be affordable, fun and fast. If it needs repairs, there are fewer and fewer self-reliant craftsmen to help or buy and sail. A decent, new plastic catamaran is, what? $10k minimum? More like $15k+ for what you want. There's a lot else to play with demanding that kind of cash.
My daughter has a degree in economics - need to ask her if this is typical in all or many markets.[/quote]
No HTML tags allowed (except inside [code][/code] tags)
