Executive Director’s Corner: A Closer Look at Sail America’s Future Direction

There’s no question about it, we are facing the toughest market conditions that our industry has ever experienced. As the economy stalls, credit markets tighten, and consumer confidence wanes, we are all very anxious about what the future holds. Despite the current economic climate, as an industry, we need to keep looking forward, make the most of the opportunities that are out there, and continue to work together to grow sailing.

Business is slow right now, but as we look ahead there is some hope:

1. Now that the election is over there is renewed optimism and more certainty. I have heard from several boat dealers that sales activity has picked up in the past week.
2. The aftermarket seems to be holding up reasonably well. It's likely that people will hold onto their boats for longer and spend money fixing them up.
3. With volatile fuel prices, sailing offers a great alternative for power boaters. We only need to convert 5% of power boaters to sail to double the number of sailboats that are sold.
4. The population is forecast to grow by 150 million people in the next 40 years. Even if we convert just a small percentage to sailing we could easily double participation.
5. There’s plenty of opportunity with new markets; be it minorities who will represent a larger percentage of the population in the future, women, kids, export sales, etc.
6. The green movement offers great potential to promote sailing as an environmentally friendly activity.
7. With unstable house prices, owning a sailboat is a far better investment than a second home or vacation home.

The sailing industry has weathered storms before, and there is no question in my mind that it will weather this one. We may need to batten down the hatches and put up the storm sails, but I am confident we will emerge stronger and smarter.

At Sail America, we are focusing our efforts on how we can best serve the industry and our members during these tough times. We are working closely with our boat show partners to help create the best sailboat shows in the country. Now is the time that our members should be taking advantage of the many cost-saving membership benefits, including using the Discover Sailing list or signing up for any of the affinity programs.

Sail America’s Executive Committee has got together over the past few weeks to discuss ways in which Sail America can offer greater value to its members. There are some great ideas being discussed, but in the short term some of the areas we are working on include:

1. Improved communications with members to include conference calls, webinars, online forums, networking events, etc.
2. Facilitating communications between finance companies, boat dealers and boat builders.
3. Sharing of best practices and success stories.
4. A mentor program for our newest and youngest industry recruits.
5. Boat certification that will better address the interests and needs of sailboat builders – particularly those based in the EU.

Much work needs to be done, but with greater involvement and participation by our members I am confident that, collectively, we can all make a difference. Please contact me at jbanks@sailamerica.com if you would like to get more involved in any of these new important initiatives.

Go Back