Maryline Bossar: you back to Full Displacement, the podcast by Current Yachts. I'm Maryline Bossar and with me is Amanda Haley. Hello, Amanda. you ⁓

AMANDA: Hello, Maryline

Maryline Bossar: you We're here today with Peter Houseworth from InfoLink and we're going to talk about metrics from the industry, data points from actual boat registrations that will guide the discussion of today about what do we know about the state of the market, how many boats are currently registered, what are the trends that people are reading. without ado, welcome to the show, Peter. How are you this morning?

Peter: I'm doing great. Maryline how are you? And I'm Amanda. Nice to see you as well.

Maryline Bossar: We're doing great. We're excited to have you because the data points we're going to talk about today and the kind of information that you're going to share with us is rarely seen by just the lay person. so I wanted to really dive into it right away. Tell us how this data is available by your company InfoLink and how you share it with manufacturers and OEMs and others in the industry. us more about InfoLink.

Peter: Thank you very much. We're happy to be here. day of talking about boats, everyone keeps saying, ⁓ when are you going to retire? I'm saying, when I stop talking about boats, that's when I'm going to retire. But ⁓ pretty passionate about it, ⁓ are both of you. We've all been in it a lifetime, so we've been ⁓ inoculated. But the end of the day, it's actually a business. while we're all passionate about it, we also have to realize that we've got a $55 billion industry according to the NMMA And there's a lot of things that go on to make that $55 billion. And we are at our heart, we're a market research firm. compile data from all 50 states and the Coast Guard. We all of that data and we a flow of information and we get updates from every state and the Coast Guard every single month. So we're constantly processing data. We So we this around and turn it back into the industry to help monitor changes that are taking place. So we deal with boat manufacturers, deal engine manufacturers, we deal with the trade associations, ⁓ as well as dealers and brokers what's out there in real time, close to real time, as as insurance companies, finance companies, so you name it. the end of the what we try to do is we are trying help businesses make more informed decisions based on fact. In actuality, the industry depending on which segment you're talking about, it behaves differently. And normally, we are extracting ⁓ very very granular thing about to the business that we're addressing. But today, we're looking ⁓ a big picture view of what's gone on in the industry over time.

Maryline Bossar: Thanks for that introduction, Peter. That's ⁓ very insightful. And I think what is really unique about the US market is the access to data that is available and can be aggregated. Most of that data is not necessarily personal data, but it's general data around boats and the size of the market as Peter just described. And it's pretty rare to have access to such good data. ⁓ And ⁓ you with us how long has InfoLink ⁓ been around?

Peter: ⁓ 27 years and I've been here for 25, 20, almost 25 years I've been here. yeah, it's, ⁓ we've all been here pretty much since the beginning.

Maryline Bossar: And you have been there from the start, right? If you are catching up with this episode without the video associated with this presentation, I will put the link to the slides below so you can refer back to them. And without further ado, we're going to jump into the data. So Peter, you had an introduction explain that we're going to jump into some high level data points regarding the market. So this is it.

Peter: Yeah, so starting out, big picture view is that boats actually are around and going to be around for a very long time. So today, across all boat types, the average powerboat is now 25 years old. And that is a little bit older than some people might expect. mean, you look and it's... Sometimes you can look at a vessel and it's hard to tell how old it is. I've seen boats that are 50 years old that look like they just came out yesterday. And in fact, it's 50 years old or 60 years old and it looks absolutely beautiful. And conversely, there are some that are not so well taken care of that may not be that old, but they certainly look it. But the true statistic is 25 years old. looking forward and that's one of the few things that a fleet allows us to do is to be able to project ⁓ happens going forward because it exists. There's basis from which to project ⁓ and boats are a little bit more difficult to project, ⁓ on pre-owned boat side, those boats are going to be around for a very long time. ⁓ We expect that

Maryline Bossar: Okay.

Peter: That trend will continue as the technology, both the chemicals as well as the processes have improved so much. I from chopped matte to resin infusion, That's a game changer in terms of longevity and all that. just looking at it, the boats that are being added today will go very long into the future. So we basically expect that to continue.

Maryline Bossar: Okay.

Peter: One of the things that really isn't known that much about is the fact that ⁓ how the pre-owned market is. The pre-owned market, what I kind of use is the adage that pre-owned boats are the oil. It's the lubrication for the system. Most of the people that buy a new boat, a different boat, a bigger boat, a smaller boat already have a boat. It's a relatively small proportion. So in order to make that machine work, you're trading in what you have to do the next thing that you want to do. that of again, lubricates the system a key component our industry, as well as it drives a lot of the economy. But just to give you a kind of an order of magnitude for every in the US, in 2025 is pre-owned boats get sold. So it's It's a substantial volume and as I say, it's important to the health of the industry that it exists and that it's fluid.

Maryline Bossar: Yes, and you would say you expect that number to continue rising as boats just last longer now that we have fiberglass boats and systems that are lasting longer in general. Okay, good.

Peter: Yep, right, that's correct, yep. Yeah, so now we start looking at this over time and a couple of things pop out. The boats are getting bigger. ⁓ small being added to the fleet ⁓ over And there's a bunch of different things that go into that. we're going to get into more of the detail about what's underneath that in a minutes. other striking observation is the total domination of outboard powered versus the other propulsion 87 % of power boats sold in the US last year were actually outboard powered. So if you go back historically, you know, whenever going back to the 2000s ⁓ and know, stern and inboard existed in, you know, many different segments. You know, there were pontoon stern boat, ⁓ stern pontoon boats. There were stern drive freshwater fishing boats, and as well as inboard and stern drive fishing boats well. But over time, ⁓ those, ⁓ it's almost entirely now the last piece of that is that now outboard powered has migrated and is now dominant in both the cruiser and the yacht segment.

Maryline Bossar: Right?

Peter: If you look at yachts and we call yachts anything that's 33 foot plus is our classification. Yeah. this is one of those things that means something long term because all of these boats are going to have to be repowered at some point. an outboard manufacturer, you've got a built-in demand that will go out for years. And I can tell you exactly what it's going to be it's

Maryline Bossar: Okay, yeah, thanks for clarifying that. Yeah, that's a huge number. ⁓

Peter: it exists today so I can count it.

Maryline Bossar: Wow. Another thing.

AMANDA: And the interesting thing is outboard motors, ⁓ when I, my family used to have an old Chris graph with an inboard and my dad, you know, to think about repowering that was a nightmare and a half. Now with outboards, you can just put on a new outboard easily accessible. ⁓ And why everybody's moving towards that, ⁓ lower are expensive to maintain and keep ⁓ in check. But the that it's easy to repower, ⁓ and what you were saying before, that the fiberglass portion of the boat going to last even longer, ⁓ boats well for the used boat industry.

Peter: Easy.

Maryline Bossar: Yeah, for sure.

Peter: Yeah, I mean, it's pretty amazing when you look at it. outboard OK, fine, unbolt it. It's a harness. Unclip the harness, clip in the new harness, and pop it on. ⁓ That's it.

Maryline Bossar: No, I agree. I was really shocked by the number. It's much higher than I thought. 87%. That's the death of the stern drive right there, right?

Peter: Mm-hmm. And well, yeah, mean, it's still, it's got a long time. It's just not gonna be increasing ever, I think, for at least in our lifetime, let's put it that way.

Maryline Bossar: Right. Okay.

Peter: Pricing, if been some of the industry functions, it's something that's on the minds people boating has become, more challenging from an standpoint. it's true. ⁓ been around it a long time, ⁓ you of get some sticker shock going on there. the industry looking at it from the standpoint of, okay, you what can we do to address it? But, you know, it seems to be mostly focused on transparency can't quote unquote, make it cheaper specifically. And it's kind of interesting that, our, industry is, different. You most, industries and certainly, you know, like a commodity, it's, you know, the cure for prices is high prices. you get more supply, and therefore the price comes down. The cure for low prices is low prices. That means supply gets retracted. ⁓ There's no margin there. I'm going to make it. And it self-corrects and the price comes up because there's less supply. Our industry, to me, it feels like we're kind of mirroring ⁓ the real estate market. ⁓ there's two ends. the high end and the middle end. low end and the lower end been getting smaller and smaller. And it's because it's affordability. mean, whatever, even a small, a new small runabout is 60, 70, $80,000.

Maryline Bossar: Another. Add on to that is it's not just about the cost to acquire the boat. It's the cost to keep, maintain your boat. And that also has gone up significantly. you know, you're speaking about transparency and that's exactly what we do at Current Yachts because we have people coming to us all the time that are early in their research and perhaps don't quite understand that the cost of ownership is a real thing that will continue every year, year after year. And it can vary depending on the size of the boat, say 8 to 12 % of your purchase price.

Peter: just couldn't, but thank

Maryline Bossar: That's a given every year. And so we're here to educate so that people are not caught off guard when it comes time to, you know, renew your insurance or get into a new marina because your slip rate went up. All of these things ⁓ really, really do matter. And another comment I had on boat clubs, which you and I had talked about when we prepared this presentation was the usage is just really low. A lot of people just can't justify this expense on top of the cost rising. think you had mentioned, is it 50 hours of use per year on average for...

Peter: Yeah. on average. Yeah. And it's actually, yeah, there, you know, we're actually in the middle of doing the National Recreational Boatings and Safety Survey, which will get us some updated statistics as to ⁓ usage and frequency and, you know, whatever length of use and all that kind of thing. That'll be available in about a year. It's out in the field right now. It's something that we're doing with the Coast Guard and with NORC and is a National Opinion Research of Chicago.

Maryline Bossar: Yeah, that's way too low.

Peter: ⁓ So it's something we've done before, but we're getting some updated things. And the Boat Club is a solution to this. And we think that the Boat Club has a lot of room to run. just makes more sense that it's there, it's available, but you're not shouldering all of the dynamics, ⁓ as an individual. You're basically spreading the cost among ⁓ eight, ⁓ as as 10 people. we see great future for it. Another thing about the boats themselves and just in terms of the fleet and everything is we find we're constantly coming out with new and better technology. ⁓ And certainly a lot of the safety things that come out can be retrofit onto existing boats. And ⁓ so that. Kind of goes back to they'll be around for a long time because you can upgrade and do the things that are being added on an aftermarket basis. The things that they're adding to new boats today, you can put on your pre-owned boat and keep it upgraded.

Maryline Bossar: Okay. Great, so we're gonna move on from these first, you know, top line observations to talk about the fleet, Peter. So I'm gonna bring on screen the breakout of the fleet over the to show how the US recreational fleet has changed. Can you comment on this slide, Peter?

Peter: the line across the top is the total fleet. That's the total number of boats that are in the US. It goes back to 2000 and through ⁓ this most year ⁓ Yeah, we've seen slight decline. ⁓ It's cataclysmic, but obviously you'd rather see positive growth trend. It's gone from approximately 12 million a little over ⁓ 11 million. ⁓ Currently. ⁓

Maryline Bossar: So let me pause here to clarify what this means. There are currently roughly just under 11 million boats in circulation currently registered or stay titled in the US,

Peter: most of the slides that we're going to go through ⁓ excludes PWCs, ⁓ personal ⁓ just it's really and it's a whole different thing. ⁓ So ⁓ we tend when talk about the core of the industry, ⁓ it's kind of an segment, but because it's so large, it skews all of your other numbers. So we kind of tend leave them out. ⁓ in this case,

Maryline Bossar: Okay, so no jet skis in here. Yep. Okay.

Peter: they're included. So bars across the bottom are the number of boat-owning households. So we've gone from just shy of 10 million to about 8 million as of the end of 2025. The ⁓ issue that if you were to draw a line from zero and up to the ⁓ top that's what the population is doing. So the population is continually increasing and the ⁓ boating is slowly decreasing. And it's about 100,000 a year on average, some better, some worse. You'll see when we get into some of the pandemic that, we had a little bit of a reversal, reverting, like most things, reverts back to mean. ⁓ what we're seeing is a very slow, gradual decrease in the size of ⁓ the boat

AMANDA: ⁓ that brings me to the question, Peter, ⁓ the U S population. What is the percentage of actual boat owners ⁓ this trend?

Peter: It's about 7%, was up as high as 10, 12. But over time, both with the increase in population and the decrease in the boating population, has declined somewhat. And that's a long-term issue that we're, as an industry, we're having to address.

AMANDA: And I'm sure we're gonna see the average age of a boat owner in this data That'll be interesting to see as well. rising, and rising cost

Peter: Yes, yep, Yep, That comes next.

Maryline Bossar: So before we move on to the more granular view of this ownership trend, what I think we can note here is while the fleet size is shrinking, the number of per household is actually up. It's now 24 % of household that own more than one boat. Am I reading this correctly, Peter?

Peter: That is correct. Yeah. So it's a, and there's a couple of different things, you know, as boats themselves are getting bigger. that have, a 50 foot yacht in back of their house, usually have something smaller that they run off and have dinner. you're not going to take your, 50 foot sea ray because you're going to whatever docking and, but you have some kind of center console, you have some other thing and you know, much of that is PWC actually.

Maryline Bossar: Great. Okay.

Peter: So this is a look at what the fleet looks like as of the end of 2025. So think of this as vintage. These are the vintage years of the boats that are out in circulation today. ⁓ to my comments earlier you can see the impacts that things have on our industry. Most of the that were made ⁓ in ⁓ existence. People think, there's and And ⁓ we're talking about tiny numbers of that actually get destroyed and are no longer in existence.

Maryline Bossar: yeah, I was going to translate, but what this means is, however, the ⁓ economic impact of some these ⁓ either legislation, such as luxury tax that you have here on the chart, or impact from the Great Recession, those are directly correlating with how many boats are actually being built. So that, to your point, reduction in that particular model year.

Peter: You can see there's one other, there's one little dip here without a call out on it. And that basically was the dot com ⁓ And then we had the great recession, which, you know, that, that hit ⁓ 95 % of boat owners own a single family home. And what went on in the real estate market, it was pretty devastating. ⁓ And lot of wealth ⁓ was out in that time. shows up in our industry. then lastly is the pandemic, which really was a very short term. ⁓ was a, ⁓ stop everything. But then it flipped immediately to Okay, go, go, go. So bounced right back. the companies make the boats had to basically follow like everybody else. That's it. It's closed, just stopped. But then it came back on ⁓ and very recovered. So you can just see there's ⁓ long arcs our industry. It's 10 years of click, click, click, click, click, do better, better, better, better. And then bang, something happens. And then we go click, click, click, click, and ratchet our way back up.

Maryline Bossar: Mm-hmm.

Peter: So this happens to be for the entire fleet. But it looks ⁓ different for each of the different ⁓ segments. So ⁓ it's average age of, OK, are the oldest. The average, is ⁓ ⁓ You can see at the bottom, Pontoon Boats, which we're going to talk a little bit about that industry. younger, it's growing, it has grown much more rapidly.

Maryline Bossar: Yeah, I'm putting up on screen now that ⁓ the breakdown that you were just talking that shows the fleet size to 2015 ⁓ to present time for 2025. We ⁓ can see a lot of changes here the different And ⁓ I wanted your your on this, Peter, because at first glance it may look like, you the decrease from runabout perhaps was compensated into tow boats, but actually that's not what happened at all. Can you speak to that?

Peter: it's each one has its own dynamics. So, you know, to our discussion earlier is, there's different things going on with all of these customer bases as well. So you you have to look at them individually as to, what is actually driving it. you know, freshwater fish is a huge market. when you think of all the great lakes, the interior lakes, that's mostly freshwater fishing environment, We're all in ⁓ Florida. ⁓ our point of orientation. there's a huge part of our industry is actually on interior lakes such. So yeah, it's down 10%, but that's ⁓ over 10 years. that's basically a percent a year. It's not panic factor, but it's ⁓ OK. It's gotten little bit smaller. hollowing out of the middle class that we've seen and so on and so forth. there are a couple of things that are going on there, but it's still a very, very large part of the market.

Maryline Bossar: I was going to say it is still the largest. So freshwater fish represents about 3.6 million units in 2025. Okay?

Peter: ⁓ yeah, buy a lot. Yeah, and just kind of walking down. So the pontoon boat market is an interesting of study. if we actually go back, we're up about 34 % from 992,000 to 1.3 million. So there's 1.3 million currently pontoon boats in the US. actually been going on. This happens to be a 10-year slide.

Maryline Bossar: Mm-hmm.

Peter: So we're looking at it from 10 years ago, but if you go it's been actually going on for 20 years, it has been steadily increasing the percentage of boats every year. So it's gone from 12 % back in 2000. So of all power boats, 12 % were pontoon boats back in 2000. It's now 33. So it was one in eight and one in three now of all new boats sold.

Maryline Bossar: Wow.

Peter: our pontoon boats, so it's dramatic.

Maryline Bossar: just to add onto the pontoon side, you had said, Peter, you know, it's not like one type of bow buyer goes into another. In the case of pontoon, you had said that over 50 % of pontoon owners are actually first time bow buyers in 2025, correct? Which is incredible. What a huge success story, right?

Peter: Yeah, yeah, and that's been for many years. it's right. I think, I kind of liken it to when the SUV first came on the scene, it was like, do anything, you know, do everything. You can haul a lot of people, you can tow stuff, you can be a little bit rough in it, you can off-road, It kind of has some of that, that it's very flexible, you know, it's easy for grandma and grandpa to get on it. walk around, move around, can put a lot of people on it, can tow tubes behind it, you can ski behind it, you can fish from it. Yep, yep. And they've done... ⁓

Maryline Bossar: Right? And Amanda, do you see this in your market too, like in the Southeast? It's not just interior lakes, correct?

AMANDA: trend is to get out on ⁓ the water you see more more pontoon boats out there, people just ⁓ anchoring out, fishing, like said, they're very versatile.

Maryline Bossar: And clarify too, pontoons are not inexpensive boats. Do you have data points at all on this, Peter, that you can share or no?

Peter: I can give you a data point. walked into the Miami Boat Show and walked into a 24 foot pontoon boat the price tag was $350,000. So yeah, I they are, I think it's probably at this point, it's equivalent to the same thing in a fiberglass version of a similar size

Maryline Bossar: Okay.

Peter: But they've also added a lot of features to them. there's a lot more technology. I it used to be just basically a piece of dock that you threw an engine on the back. Well, now it's got stand-up showers and it's got coolers built in and you can rearrange furniture. You can do all this stuff. So they've come a long way in terms of the engineering of these things as well. there's some additional value, but they're not as inexpensive as they used to be.

Maryline Bossar: And then can you comment on the fallout of the runabout, I guess. We were at 1.6 million units in 2015 and we dropped to just above 1.1 million. So 28 % drop in 10 years. What is that about?

Peter: Yep. Yep. Yeah. you know, I think it's a combination factors as well. those are the kind of your entry level boats. So what we consider to be a runabout is a 16 to 21 foot, kind of bow rider, your basic of general recreation boat. You can fish from the runabout, but it's not ⁓ designed for, per se. You ski from it. ⁓ It's not what it's designed but it's kind of that general purpose. as ⁓ boats have become more less the population can afford them. a sign of the times. ⁓

Maryline Bossar: So runabout would be perhaps your entry level segment that gets hit hardest, right? Okay.

Peter: Correct. Yeah.

AMANDA: And you can see that possibly the pontoon market has taken a bit of that market. If it's the first time boat buyer and it's something much easier than say a runabout, maybe there is a fill in of a portion of that decrease.

Maryline Bossar: Yeah, great marketing going on there for sure.

Peter: Yeah, we looked at that time. ⁓ one the things that we basically, we seldom say what we think is going to happen in the future. But in 2012, we looked at it. And what ⁓ we found was the proportion, so it's drawing from many things in equal proportion, and it hasn't changed. Therefore, it has longevity. Usually, it's OK, if they're leaving this and going to that at some point, the run out of people who are inclined to do that. not ⁓ scenario.

Maryline Bossar: And there are two I wanted you to comment on as well. The first being the boat. And we had talked about basically that category is morphed ⁓ away skiing, purely to wakeboarding. And then I wanted to talk about the sail segment next.

Peter: Yeah. Right. The towboat, yeah, it's kind of an interesting study. So we looked at tear into this stuff pretty well. And it's done very well. These are not cheap boats. basic towboat now is going to be $175,000, $180,000 and go up from there. So it's not inexpensive for a 22-foot

Maryline Bossar: It sounds like there's one segment that's not reinventing itself too well. the sail market, Peter, what are you finding?

Peter: Yeah. Oh, it breaks my heart as a lifetime sailor, but it is what it is. mean, you know, that's part of our business is we're, I mean, I can make data say anything I want to, but you know, what I'm really looking for is, know, in the words of Tom Cruise, I'm looking for the truth. And that's what our objective is. Even if it's not popular,

Maryline Bossar: It really does, right? Yes. what we're seeing here is a 22 % drop in boat registrations between 2015 and 2025. So we had a little over 301,000 units and we're down at 236. That stings, right? That means that people are just turning away from sailing and either abandoning sailing altogether or doing something else.

Peter: is correct. ⁓ I think some it is behavioral. You can't just pop on a sailboat for an hour or two. It's more of an involved process, so it takes more of a ⁓ dedicated time. If you even further so the industry itself

Maryline Bossar: Thank

Peter: ⁓ the peak of the industry was in 1984. this is registered sailboat. So we don't include ⁓ small, ⁓ 420s, little ⁓ non-power lasers and and all stuff. This only is registered. ⁓ And generally, that's going to go with mechanical propulsion. So it's an engine on it. supposed to be registered. ⁓ So among sailboat registrations, ⁓

Maryline Bossar: Right. Okay.

Peter: 1984 was the peak and there were 6,000 boats made in that year. Last year it's closer to 300. So.

Maryline Bossar: Wait, now down only 300 new boats per year? That's like nothing.

Peter: in the year 1984. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Well, it's it's...

Maryline Bossar: Amanda, any thoughts? Amanda is like so shocked. She can't response.

AMANDA: No, I have seen the trend ⁓ from being a little girl in my Hillsborough in the sailing club. The person I learned from had a 33 foot tartan, beautiful, classic sailboat. He kept it behind a person's house in Pompano Beach and he paid $400 per month to keep it there. And now to keep a boat behind someone's house in Pompano Beach, it's 1500 to $2,000. And that makes it absolutely impossible for the average person raising a family who used to have this as their hobby to be able to afford a sport like this. The sailing has been out ⁓ by the rising cost ownership. ⁓ And I think that's of the trend. It's not so much that people don't love the sport anymore as that they can't afford the sport. So there is a big indicator of what's going on. Also the aging out of people that know how to do these things. And like you said, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's many factors that have to the demise ⁓ the sailing industry. And I'm ⁓ there, I'm promoting that, that, ⁓ know, doesn't die and doing my best. ⁓ think the charter industry ⁓ going to help sailing not die.

Maryline Bossar: Yeah, we're gonna get into that. Oof, even in boating in general.

Peter: Right. Likewise.

Maryline Bossar: All right, so we have quite a few slides we're gonna cover. Let's move on to the next, ⁓ which digs into the demographic. We were just talking about this.

Peter: These are the people now. Yeah, far we've been really talking about boats and the age of the boats. In this particular slide, we're looking at the age of the people. on the left is the distribution that existed in 2000. And you can see average back then was in the mid-40s ⁓ in terms of the

Maryline Bossar: Correct.

Peter: age of the people who owned boats. So this is across all boat owners. a little over 60. So you can, you know, there's a couple of things going on here. you've got a kind of a distribution curve. So you can see that, over time, what's happened is that you had, back in 2000, you had adoption at, you know, relatively younger.

Maryline Bossar: own vote. And that average today is ⁓ that's insane. Sure.

Peter: age ranges and over time that has decreased. So there's less young people ⁓ that own boats today ⁓ we can go on days about that. ⁓

Maryline Bossar: And the cost has got to be a factor, right? I mean, there are so many reasons for this, but we also talked about competing interests, know, hobbies and travels and...

Peter: Yeah, right. And some of it is just behavior. Finally, the generation that follows us is not as prone to ownership as we are. They love to experience and be part of it and have access to it. But the ownership part is not as enticing, I guess, ⁓

Maryline Bossar: True. I wanted to transition in the new versus pre-owned breakdown. We talked about comparison earlier. For every four ⁓ pre-owned boat transaction, there's one boat transaction. ⁓ And here is that breakdown the years in terms of volume. let you comment on these slides, It's pretty steady, I would say, over time.

Peter: Yeah, yeah, some of it is just, people's perception. So you ⁓ kind of get the feeling, you know, talking around the industry ⁓ it's not so good, it's wishy washy. ⁓ It's not the best of times, it's not the worst of times either. That's just the reality. we're looking at the new to pre-owned boat transactions. The new market has been fairly steady. you can see in the slide, ⁓ we had a peak.

Maryline Bossar: Right.

Peter: in both new boat sales and pre-owned boat sales the pandemic. while there was a kind of a hiccup and the whole industry just stopped and then got going again, was fairly short-lived and we came out of it like gangbusters. ⁓ most manufacturers that do business with a two or sometimes backlog of orders that people placed during the pandemic. knowing that they weren't going to get it right away, but no one knew how long it was going to go on for and so on you know, the total transaction volume peaked out in the pandemic at 1.2 million. So that's new plus pre-owned and it was about 250,000 new boats. shy of a million pre-owned But we also saw an uptick in pre-owned boats where ⁓ people selling because there was, basically the field inventory was entirely depleted. Anything that was for sale got sold. ⁓ So was almost nothing left. ⁓

Maryline Bossar: I mean, I'm sure you can comment on that. You ⁓ were there to ride that wave. How was that?

AMANDA: Yeah, absolutely. mean, you saw it. was a seller's market at that time. You could ask anything you wanted and you had people fighting over it. We've seen the same trend in the real estate market as well. There was just not enough inventory. Now, Peter, as you've said, it is a buyer's market. People are having to, when they're selling, they're selling under value, ⁓ my opinion. So, you know, it has been a drastic switch and we saw that on the slide before that it came from, you know, a drop with the pandemic, then a super rise and then almost a drop again where we were in 2008 and 2009. And it'll be interesting to see over the next couple of years how we climb or even dip down in 2026 for next year's data.

Peter: There's a lot of things going on in the markets, very fluid, between rates tariffs whatever. surprised it's not worse than it's been so far. compared to what's going on globally, ⁓ like, okay, we're hanging in there. ⁓

Maryline Bossar: It is very resilient. I would agree with that. You know, it's important to tell that story too, Peter. So thank you for saying that. I put up on screen now your slide on the age of boats for each type, each segment that you follow. And it's very interesting to see again. No surprise. We saw this earlier. The average sail vessel is today about 36 years ⁓ versus say the youngest will be towards the pontoon boat since it's a newer type of vessel. other findings would you want to share on this slide with us?

Peter: you at it, ⁓ each year, we've got a 10-year time frame, and you've got about ⁓ years age. So ⁓ every year, the boat that is sold in the pre-owned market is half a year older. So that is likely to continue. The hot segments of saltwater fish, ⁓ tow boats. It's muted. it's, you that's because there is more volume that has gone into the market. those boats are starting to trade hands. So we want to go to the next

Maryline Bossar: Mm-hmm, here it is.

Peter: So this is the distribution of those boats. you can see that we cut it at 20 years of saying, it's 20 years more And in the case of cruisers, 60%. In the case of 90 % of the boats that hands ⁓ in the pre-owned market were 20 years or older. ⁓ jumping down into, example, in pontoons, it's kind of an interesting dynamic and part of the growth of the pontoon boat market is a geographic one go back, prior to 2000 and even before that, had Great Lakes and you had Texas, and those were huge pontoon boat markets. But was fairly concentrated in those two markets. Well, it morphed across the entire US, ⁓ rivers, saltwater ⁓ pontoon boats started showing So the drive consume that product ⁓ was driven by the fact that there no pre-owned market. It didn't exist. There wasn't anything to buy. It was new or nothing relative to pontoon boats. That is no longer the case now. So going forward, this is going to be a little bit more of a challenge as all of those pontoon boats that have been added in these markets. Now there is a pre-owned market where before it didn't exist. anybody ever wanted to know that, then we can actually forecast, here's what the supply of pre-owned is going to be.

Maryline Bossar: Yeah, and this is, we're only scratching the surface, but it really demonstrates your capabilities to guide the industry and various players. Here it's a breakdown of the new boat sails by segment, so by type of vessel. And we again, ⁓ see the rise in ⁓ pontoon as actually. ⁓

Peter: Yeah.

Maryline Bossar: stopped right around COVID and then started to decrease. Can we comment on that at all? Too fast, too soon?

Peter: It's just Well, I think it probably got oversupplied. We see it. We get about three new pontoon companies coming in every four months. So there's been, to the comments earlier about, OK, fine, when there's demand for something, supply comes to meet it. we've probably seen that. Yeah.

Maryline Bossar: Yeah. But it remains at a very high level also, right? So like that's really shocking still.

Peter: Yep. And it will continue. don't, you know, it's just, I don't think we'll see the same growth trajectory that we've seen. It's just, it's just the law of numbers. It's so big now that it's hard to move those numbers relative to what it used to be. You know, when it was 12,000 units a year versus 50 or 60 or 70,000, it's a lot harder to move that needle, so to speak. But, you know, I mean, most of the segments, you know, on the new boat market side have really kind of just softened a bit.

Maryline Bossar: and So next we're going to look at the representation of some of these numbers that you've been sharing with us. And we can see that the size of the dot on the map represents the size of that particular ⁓ segment into this state. high level, we obviously see that pontoon continues be a dominant player along with freshwater fish. What else can we learn from this chart, Peter?

Peter: Yeah, interesting in if you have visibility the slide, the color is darker red it's declining more rapidly ⁓ lighter ⁓ is muted. The thing that's kind of changed is the entire country behaving similarly, which is unusual. Usually there's something going on in ⁓ like Florida, for example, where for years, ⁓ it's been growth, population, people moving in, buying whatever, ⁓ at this or least over the last year, entire country is in this moderated stage. Not cataclysmic anywhere, but not vibrant anywhere either. you go back to, for example, when South Dakota went berserk when they found Shell oil, and all of sudden, everywhere. Everybody was going up to work the rigs. They well paid and they were recreating and buying boats like crazy. seems like it's more a national moderated phase at this point. on a national basis. And it's pretty uniform across the different states,

Maryline Bossar: So this slide that we're presenting here shows the new powerboat by state for the last 12 months. And we're seeing a decrease in the current 12 month period compared to prior. We're down 8%. Did I read that correctly?

Peter: That is correct. everything except PWCs, which I out of here.

Maryline Bossar: Correct, without all the One other thing I wanted to clarify, Peter, we didn't discuss what the other segment means for InfoLink. Can you clarify for us what that other segment includes?

Peter: basically it's the kitchen sink. So it's everything that doesn't fit in these categories. So it would be things like inflatables, small skiffs that, okay, it's a canoe with a little motor on it. It's that kind of thing. ⁓ Flight boards, you name it. If it's required to be registered, we account for it. So ⁓ it includes airboats, which is...

Maryline Bossar: Okay.

Peter: tiny, but it's what do you do with it? know, that kind of thing.

Maryline Bossar: Okay, yeah, it goes into the other category, got it. All right, and finally this slide here, ⁓ this is super critical and I know in the industry, from my days working for Group Beneteau and being very focused on new boats and trying to manage a dealer network and inventory, this shows the days ⁓ market for different segments over the years. So ⁓ what can you draw from this ⁓

Peter: Yeah, so not to bore you with how the sausage made, but ⁓ there's code every hull ID that tells us when the boat was manufactured. And then we're picking up from the registration, the actual registration date. So that's basically sale when it gets registered is delivery to the end consumer. They have to process a registration for them to leave and whatever the insurance company has to get it and all that kind of thing. So it's very similar to, if you were to go to the supermarket and pass things over a scanner. Okay, how long was it on the shelf? So this is every single boat that gets registered in the U.S. we can measure this for. So this is the average time and that would include distribution. So, okay, it's manufactured, then it has to be shipped to wherever it is. It goes to the dealer lot. It sits on the dealer lot. When does it actually make it? So the normal turn or the healthy turn that we generally have looked for in the industry is between 180 and 200 days. That's basically two times at the dealer level, two times turnover annually for everything that's on their lot. And we are in an exaggerated position. So

Maryline Bossar: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Peter: it's up in the high 300s days on average. So every boat that gets sold, and this is through January, oh no, it's through December, through December, yeah. So the average is 360 days, which is well above the norm. So basically there is inventory in the field still.

Maryline Bossar: This one was through December of 2025.

Peter: And it's been like this for quite some time. And you can see in the graph, the pandemic, when we got to the peak of the pandemic, the field inventory was entirely depleted, they literally were shipping them out as fast as possible and going directly to the consumer. They barely even passed by the dealership. And so we got down to 120 days, which is ⁓ the lowest ever seen ⁓ in the So what this says is that there is still some dated field inventory out there, which is potential benefit. if you go looking for it and you don't require that it has to be the latest model year, whatever, it's been sitting there on a lot, cared for if it's a reputable dealer. And so there's probably some things out there that you can make a deal on. So you see back ⁓ a of months ago where it started to come down. We're like, OK, it. field inventory is now depleted. getting back to normal. But the supply has started coming in. So they started refilling the pipeline probably a little bit too early. So now it's heading back up again. ⁓ But if you're in the market today for a new boat, there's probably, do some research and there are probably some deals to be had out there because it's sitting on the lot and that costs money to carry that inventory for an extended period of time. It eats into your margin as a dealer. yeah, I think.

Maryline Bossar: Absolutely. And the average time on market that we're seeing now also means that some of these who are putting that inventory on floor plan have to start paying what we call curtailments. ⁓ The moment you have to start making payments on inventory, you're kind of losing the game, unfortunately. really wishing well for all of those distributors because these are not easy times. distributors I mean, generally we feel pretty optimistic about the market. There is no crash to be found. There is definitely caution. You know, when consumer confidence goes down and interest rates kind of struggle to go down and those are trends that we're following. We're going to be reporting some more actually on pre-owned sales and the market on our side. So stay tuned for the next episode of full displacement coming up. We'll be talking about these. Thank you so much, Peter. How optimistic are you about the market as you see it and you have conversations with lot of OEMs and manufacturers. you care to share ⁓ impressions on this

Peter: Sure. Yeah, we're looking at it from a lot of different perspectives because the audience that we deal with is so wide that some are looking at, we like we've done a great job in our segment. So we're seeing a lot more exploration ⁓ should I be at this? ⁓ Outside of my ⁓ we're getting

Maryline Bossar: Okay.

Peter: A lot of requests for information on businesses that they're not in, that kind of thing. ⁓

Maryline Bossar: So here we're, to be specific, we're talking about manufacturers that are considering branching out or doing some of the things and being a little creative.

Peter: Yeah, and from one segment from saltwater fish into something other than saltwater fish. And they usually start with kind of a similar thing as, well, what else is out there? should we be looking at? Let's look at our existing footprint, our dealer footprint. What are the other products that, OK, we can kind of get continuity our existing ⁓ dealership base?

Maryline Bossar: Got it. Right.

Peter: because that's much easier to set up a new distribution network is an undertaking for sure. So we're seeing a lot of that. And it's just also being smarter about what you're doing. Don't ⁓ waste resources. your due diligence. We're ⁓ seeing some people in from outside the industry. A lot of the people that are in the business have been here for a long time. Well, there's work to be done. we're here. It's not going anywhere. are going to continue to exist. People are going to still love them and enjoy them. And we're hoping to contribute to ⁓ getting more people, new people into it. use it in our own, ⁓ our daily lives that we'd love to take people out on boats for the first time. I as we had spoken about before, some people, just light up like a Christmas tree. They're like, ⁓ my God, I had no ⁓ idea. And really, kind of an interesting moment, but that's the beginning of a journey. takes a while to get someone to the comfort level. And that's where...

Maryline Bossar: Absolutely. Yeah.

Peter: these boat clubs, I think, come in is it gets people further down the chain at the point that they are comfortable, that they know what they're doing and ⁓ then they're more likely to buy boat because they're more likely to do the right thing

Maryline Bossar: Sure. Absolutely. exactly our mission too at Current Yachts. We're here to educate, we're here to support. So whether you're looking to sell or buy a boat now or in the future and want some help with that, do call on to us. We thank InfoLink doing your part in informing the actors of the market to make the best decisions to meet the demand, existing and new. So thanks again for your contribution, Peter, and those insights that are typically reserved for the industry and are allowing today the consumer to understand what is happening. in the boating market. this we will see you on the next one. Thanks Peter have a great day!

Peter: Thank you. Thank you very much for having us. We're happy to do it. OK, take care.

AMANDA: Thanks, Peter.

Maryline Bossar: Fair winds. Don't

AMANDA: fair wins?

Peter: have grown the most.

Maryline Bossar: the of the US that owns a today?

Peter: 7%.

Maryline Bossar: And what is the percentage of power boats sold with outboard power?

Peter: 87%.

Maryline Bossar: the number of boats household is going up. or false?

Peter: That is true.

Maryline Bossar: What is the average age of a US boater today?

Peter: 60.

Maryline Bossar: and what segment is growing the most. and least.

Peter: Run about.