The Marine Industry in 2008

Having been in the marine industry since 1970 I can tell you the roller coaster has had many ups and downs in those years. I remember well the first time the boss man called all the troops together and told us things looked bleak. Some of us might have to find other things to do. He would understand if we did. That was in the early spring of 1973. There were lines at the gas pumps; the ones still pumping gas, and there was speculation that prices could reach $1.00 a gallon. Who in the world would still be using their boat if gas went that high? And who would be willing to wait in line to get it?

As we all know, lots of folks would be willing to pay and wait. We all wish prices could be that low again, but at that time it was the end of the boating world. But things changed, as they always do. Supply lines freed up and prices fell, and folks went back to business as usual.

What will the future bring though? Will we have enough fuel to power our crafts, and can we afford it? All good questions, but all questions that have been asked by boaters throughout the years. I look at high gasoline prices as a double edged sword. The higher they go, the harder it is for average folks to enjoy boating, that's for sure. But on the other side of that sword, the higher gasoline prices go, the more pressure there is to find alternative sources for energy to power things that really don't need gasoline, or the oil it comes from. We do have now the means and technology to produce sufficient energy to power our homes from sources other than oil, we just have not had, until now, the motivation. As long as oil is the cheapest and easiest way to run things, that is what we will run everything on. Simple as that. But just as simple as that, one day we will run out of oil. Before that day comes though, oil will soon become simply too expensive and other sources of energy will then be more attractive. We will develop and pursue sources such as solar energy, wind power, hydrodynamic turbines driven by tides or dams, hydrogen power, and the list will go on to include things we may never have imagined until oil simply became too expensive. And when that day comes, and we have learned to harness the other endless sources of re-newable engergy for purposes which oil should not have been used in the first place, we might again find that gasoline is not only affordable again, but may even become obsolete.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my youngest son about ten years ago when he was a young teenager. He asked me, "Dad, don't you think that internal combustion is a rather outdated method of propulsion?". As I pondered an answer I wondered, what do you say to a young man whose vision has not yet been clouded by things the way they've always been?