39th United States Sailboat Show in Annapolis Proves Better Than Anticipated

The U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis ran Oct. 9-13 against a gloomy backdrop of stock market plunges, tightened credit and a bleak real estate downturn, yet for some exhibitors, sales were better than they expected.

As Peter Nielsen, SAIL editor, wrote in his column, “Talk about timing. When you’re in the business of selling luxury consumer goods, the last thing you need is for the world’s financial systems to teeter on the edge of ruin. By rights, the Annapolis Sailboat Show should have been a washout. And yet…and yet people were buying boats, and sails, and winches, and charter vacations, and electronics, and just about everything else. The sun shone, the crowds came, and a casual observer wouldn’t have detected anything different from years past.

It wasn’t business as usual, but it wasn’t as bad as it had every right to be, considering the tens of thousands of stock portfolios that had lost nearly half their value. A certain gallows humor is a prerequisite for anyone involved in the recreational marine trade, and there was no shortage of stockbroker jokes. But, as one sailboat dealer said, sailors go sailing when the economy’s good, and they go sailing when the economy’s bad. They just might not do it on a new boat. On the other hand, there is always the chance that the lousy economy tips some buyers into not waiting any longer to pursue their dreams.”

“We were very happy with the show,” said Chip Wilkerson, LaserPerformance vice president of marketing. “Like everyone, we were concerned that with the onslaught of negative economic news that came out during the week that traffic and corresponding sales would be down significantly. This was not the case for us.  Empirically, traffic seemed to be on par with last year.  Most importantly, our sales were significantly up (+76%) compared to last year. All in all, Annapolis once again proved to be a great venue to showcase our brand and interact with our customers.”

“Gill experienced a very busy show," said Gill North America President David Pritchard. “We always enjoy connecting with our customers who are attending the show. Our people get caught up on customers’ sea stories as they talk about the new gear options from Gill. Our overall sales through our onsite dealer, Fawcett's, were up about 4% over last year."

West Marine Regional Marketing Manager Michelle Overbeck noted, “We saw a lot of enthusiasm from our customers and West Marine sales at the US Sailboat Show in Annapolis were good.”

In an Oct. 23 article in The Capital, staff writer Katie Arcieri, said Jeanneau America sold about nine sailboats in Annapolis, including two 54-footers and two 49-footers. Arcieri said Beneteau sold only half the number of boats it had last year, with about 20 retail orders at the show. Geoff McCord, Beneteau’s regional sales manager, was quoted in the article as saying, “We had hoped and planned for somewhere in the 20-to-30 order area,” he said. “It was a little bit less (than expected,) but we were quite pleased in the sense that we think we did better than our competition.”

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