Gas Prices affecting Boat usage??

[Gavia immer]

Originally Posted by jrc

You will see that the US and NH growth in boat registrations has been about 1% per year for the last few years.

That's good?

Is the quality of government tracking good enough to account for a NET gain in boat registrations?

Several states require that all boats be registered. What happens when you lose your registered kayak to rapids, your wife backs over it, or it drifts off to Greenland?

While some may report the loss, it's more often the case that it gets forgotten.

Exports, totalled, stolen, parted-out, impounded, dumped, sunk, stored, recalled, lost-at-sea, and normal attrition among the general population of boats would account for some significant LOSS.

A new-but-unrequired boat registration would be recorded wrongly as a net gain among registrations. 1% is not a good sign.

[jrc]

Originally Posted by Gavia immer

That's good?

.....

I don't know.

I agree that measurement error could cause a 1% change. In NH, this number does not include paddle boats, so that's not a factor. So for the last few years there has not been a meaningful change in the total number of power boats.

By my observation, there are lot more PWC now than there were 5 or 10 years ago, and since the total boats hasn't changed much, there must be less power boats. I don't know if this is good or bad. It does make me question all the talk of overcrowding on the lake.