The Seattle Boat Show at Shilshole Bay Marina is back after a four-year hiatus and organizers say it’s more needed than ever.

The boat show, which was displaced during the Seattle marina’s lengthy renovation, will be on at Shilshole again Aug. 6 to 9 for its 33rd run. Put on by the Northwest Marine Trade Association, the show will include about 200 new and used boats ranging in size from 14 to 74 feet.

Additionally, attendees will be able to tour one of the three S.S. Minnow boats used in the television series “Gilligan’s Island” and have a chance to win a cruise on a Duffy Electric Boat. NMTA president George Harris said the show is needed to help boat dealers move excess inventory they became stuck with after the economy took a nosedive.

“There are boats that need to be sold so they can make room for next year,” he said. “The association is here to do something. We’re not here to sit on the sidelines and watch our members struggle. We’re here to create selling opportunities.

“We decided to restart the show because our members need it and want it.”

A yacht broker talks with prospective buyers during a previous boat show at Shilshole Bay Marina.

For the past four years, the NMTA merged its August show with the Northwest Yacht Brokers Association’s Boats Afloat show, held on Lake Union each September. The NYBA began holding its summer show in the mid-1990s, Harris said, maintaining that the larger boats at its show sell better in September rather than August, while dealers of the smaller boats included in the Shilshole show say August is better for sales.

Those contentions seem to prove true, Harris said, since owners of larger boats often purchase new ones at the end of August and continue cruising into fall. Small boat use is more seasonal, he said, making it important to promote sales of smaller boats before the weather gets iffy and families get busy with school and various activities.

Boats 26 feet and under account for 90 percent of sales in Washington state and provide an entry point for many boaters, Harris pointed out, creating additional incentive hold a late summer show.

“Attracting those new boaters and first-time boaters is really, really important for the industry,” he said. “(Small) boats sell really well in August, rather than the 32-foot cruisers.”

The NMTA and the NYBA had a prickly relationship before joining forces in 2004 to jointly market their respective January boat shows. John Thorburn, the NMTA’s director of marketing and communications, said the NMTA consulted with the brokers’ association before making a decision about the upcoming Shilshole show—even moving it up a week at the other organization’s request to create more distance between the August and September shows—and is committed to maintaining a collaborative relationship.

“We have every intention of continuing to pursue that partnership,” he said. “We certainly see the value of the Boats Afloat show in September. We want that show to thrive and grow. But there’s simply a need for a show in August as well.”

Gilligan, the Skipper too: attendees at the upcoming boat show at Shilshole Bay Marina will have a chance to win a cruise on the S.S. Minnow

Boat dealers have struggled with sluggish consumer demand in recent months, but Harris said the industry seems to have hit bottom and is rebounding, however slowly. Several area dealers have gone out of business in the past year, reducing competition for the surviving dealers, and Harris said there’s a foundation of diehard Northwest boaters that keep the industry bumping along.

“Those people who cruise, wakeboard, fish, sail, they’ve got to go someplace to get their boats maintained or buy a boat or buy accessories,” he said.

“If it’s your tradition or it’s in your DNA to do those things, you’re doing to do them no matter what. I think there’s always going to be a foundation for boating here.”

Tickets for the Seattle Boat Show at Shilshole Bay Marina are available at www.SeattleBoatShow.com and include a $15 coupon for West Marine and a free clam chowder from Ray’s Boathouse.
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About Deborah Bach

Deborah Bach is the editor and co-founder of Three Sheets Northwest. She is an avid sailor and long-time professional journalist. You can find Deborah aboard Three Sheets, an Island Packet 38, with her husband Marty and their cat Lily.

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