October 2001 NC Marine TradeWinds Newsletter
16-Hours Boat Selling Certification Workshop – Cutoff Date Near If you are planning on sending someone or attending either the Charlotte or the New Bern “Boat Sales Training” certification training, then you had better reserve you seat NOW. These 16-hour, two-day sales seminars provide guaranteed and proven training that provides MIC (Marine Industry Certification) credits. The first session in Charlotte is November 27 & 28 and the second is in New Bern, November 29 & 30. The fee is $249 for NCMTA members and discounts apply for additional members from the same company. You MUST register soon by calling (800) 480-5482. This same program was well received by several NC companies including boat builders and boat dealers. Go to our NCMTA website or click here for testimonials and additional information: Sales Training. Nothing Wrong With Charleston in December Marine trade folks from the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia are meeting December 11th through the 13th for the first four-state MarineEXPO or as it is now called, Marine Trades EXPO and Conference. With South Carolina as the host and Sea Grant as the seminars sponsor, the agenda offers a quality range of topics for marina, boatbuilding, and other trade representatives. It starts at 1:00 PM on Tuesday the 11th and includes tours of municipal waterfront developments, a reception at the South Carolina Aquarium, a tour and lunch at Cummings Marine, a keynote address from Thom Dammrich – President of NMMA, and numerous opportunities to network, visit the trade show and exhibitors, and enjoy Charleston for some Christmas shopping. All this for $200 for all three days, or a daily fee of $75. To see the schedule, get hotel information, or see the seminar agenda, click here: Charleston MarineEXPO or call (843) 795-7858. Over $95 Million in New Capital Investment by NC Boatbuilders (and still counting) Calls to just 23 of the approximate 85 NC boat builders across the state, gave a glimpse of the economic impact these builders have on the local and state economy. Investments by these boatbuilders over the past three years in new facilities and depreciating capital equipment topped $95 million. This figure will certainly grow as we receive more surveys and place more calls for the information. In addition, these same businesses estimated that they positioned 1,350 new employees as a result of capital investments. This information is part of the information being requested and assessed in both our recently mailed surveys and in follow-up phone calls. If you are a boat builder and have not mailed back your survey, please do so. You will also be receiving a call over the next month or so from Mike Bradley to assess the additional capital investment not yet included in this reported figure. Brunswick Buys Hatteras for an Initial $80M New Bern based, Genmar owned Hatteras Yachts Inc, will be sold and closed on by the end of November. The company employs the largest number of boat related workers in the state, even with some recent layoffs. Efforts were underway by management of the company to purchase the company, but Brunswick, based in Lake Forest, Illinois, won the bid with $80 million upfront and the potential of paying up to $20 million more, depending upon Hatteras sales over the next 20 months. Brunswick is the world’s largest boat manufacturer with Sea Ray, Bayliner and Maxum part of the company’s line of boats. In addition, there was a separate agreement between Genmar and Brunswick whereby Genmar has agreed to purchase Brunswick’s its Mercury outboards and MerCruiser sterndrive engines. The multi-year deal will start during the 2003 model year, which begins next summer. Internet Requests for Boating Guides at 12,500 and Growing The number of Internet users requesting the NC Department of Transportation’s Coastal Boating Guide have more than doubled last year’s requests. Internet visitors, coming in from www.ncwaterays.com, www.ICW-Net.com, and a number of NC agency and other tourism websites, has reached 12,510 as of 10/26/01, well over twice the 5,059 number from the same January through October of last year. Some of the statistics for this year’s numbers are: of the 12, 510 there were 9,861 individuals that provided their email along with requesting a map and giving their purpose of travel along the waterways. A glimpse at the requests by state shows that 3,776 NC requests were from NC, 1488 from VA, 1165 from PA, then OH, NJ, NY, GA, SC, and FL, with over 300 each. All states had at least one request into the website. 2002 NC Coastal Boating Guides Now Available The long awaited “next” North Carolina Coastal Boating Guide has arrive at the DOT and is being sent out to the traditional coastal marinas and tourism facilities across the state. This very useful coastal road, waterway map and boating guide is the product of the state matched Wallop-Breaux funds earmarked for the Guide and provided to the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, which partners with the Department of Transportation (and the SBTDC NC Marine Trades Services) to produce and distribute the map/guide. If you are a marina or boatyard featured on the map, you will have received an allotment of these maps. If you are not, you can order case lot shipments of the guide by going to our www.NCWaterways.com website and clicking on the “order a map” logo found on all pages. Be sure to order using the BULK or Commercial Order section. Marine Trades Efforts at BoatBuilding 2001 – Tampa A
new boating trade show and conference, Boatbuilding 2001 / Composites 2001,
was held in Tampa October 2nd – 5th, 2001. Using pooled funding from the
three charter sponsors – Progress Energy, NC Electric Membership
Cooperative and the ElectriCities of North Carolina – the NC Marine Trades
Services began the trade show component of our marine trades economic
development project. This project involves new business initiatives, NC
business retention and promotion efforts and promotion of the
established and now redesigned www.NCWaterways.com.
The Tampa show held 385 trade exhibitors, including 13 NC businesses. We met
with representatives of all North Carolina companies over the three day
trade event and have included photos and information on these companies on
this website or by clicking here: BoatBuilding2001 Boatbuilding: on the Regulatory Front Regulation of recreational diesel marine enginesOn
October 24th, Leon Joyner, Hatteras Yachts testified before EPA regarding
the industry's concerns with the Agency's plans to regulate recreational
diesel marine engines. The testimony focused on the affect the testing
procedures will have on the weight, size and power of the engine package. It
is hoped that the end result of this meeting will be a unified, agreed-upon
set of technical arguments and data that both EMA
(Engine Manufacturers Association)and NMMA (National Marine Manufacturers
Association) can use (with EPA and OMB staff, and others) to demonstrate the
inherently unwarranted and infeasible nature of the proposed requirements as
applied to recreational marine engines. (John
McKnight - NMMA) Regulation of evaporative emissionBased
on the comments and concerns of the USCG, ABYC
(American Boat and Yacht Council), and the members of the NMMA Evaporative
Emissions Task group, it appears enough questions have been raised to
convince EPA to reconsider its hasty approach to regulating fuel tanks on
boats. As expected, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman signed the
proposed rulemaking for several non-road engine classes including
recreational marine diesel engines. This included “Diesel Marine Engines:
Diesel engines rated at or above 50 horsepower (37 kW) used in recreational
boats”. EPA intended to include new exhaust standards for highway
motorcycles and marine spark ignition engines in this proposal, but did not. There
will soon be a meeting to bring all parties (engine manufacturers,
tank manufacturers, fuel system manufacturers, and boat builders) together
to begin evaluating potential technologies, consider testing programs
(safety, technical feasibility etc.) and plan for EPA’s future proposal.
To help provide assistance, contact John
McKnight - NMMA Have
marine trades related question or problem? The NC Marine Trades Services is
a service of the Small Business and Technology Center and available to all
small businesses without charge. Marina related - call (910) 962-3351.
Boatbuilding and Boatyard related - call (252) 728-2144. The headquarters of
the SBTDC is located in Raleigh and can be contacted by calling (800)
258-0862.
Visit our website at www.NCMTA.com.
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