A boatyard just closed down here in the Port of Los Angeles last month.
A friend of mine who owns a boatyard in Louisiana is suffering as well.
Gas Prices make it impossible to run the big sportfishing power boats.
Those power boats are the bread and butter of local boatyards. They get hauled and painted every year for lots of money.
Without sportfishermen, we get no boatyards. Without boatyards, sailors are screwed.
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Marina del Rey in California has a really nice guest dock next to a very hip park. Guest slip fees used to be Fifty Cents a foot and there was always a handful of boats there.
In 2010 they raised the price to $1 a foot and now the docks are empty.
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I went sailing yesterday out of Long Beach on a friends boat. Atomic 4 died on the way in and had to get towed back to the slip. The towers were 2 drunks in a zodiac (goofing off in the little boat because daquiris are cheaper than filling up the big boat) and they said that we were the 3rd boat from that small section of the marina that had engine problems and had to be towed.
Something bad in the local gas? Who knows.
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Our Governor is trying to get boaters to pay for national parks because campers don't spend money.
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These are my observations on the effects of boating because the world is going to Heck
