Down to the Sea

"This," said Mayor Frank Nelson of Panama City (pop. 26,000), Fla., "will be a city of destiny." Mayor Nelson's grandiloquence was inspired by a civic project that is fast becoming as necessary as neon lights for any ocean, lake or riverside U.S. town with vacation-spot ambitions: a first-class marina to serve as a combination club, garage and general store for the nation's ever-increasing yachtsmen. Last week Panama City was about to start work on not one but two big marinas with dock space for 570 boats along its Gulf Coast waterfront and every convenience under the yachtsman's sun: water, ice, electricity and telephone service, gas and repair facilities, a dozen stores, barber and beauty shops, a restaurant, even a nightclub. Estimated cost: $3,500,000. Estimated gross revenue: $1,000,000 annually--to say nothing of the millions yachtsmen will spend outside the marinas.

Salt & Sage. Panama City should do even better than the forecasts. Last year some 30 million Americans went down to the sea in 5,971,000 powerboats and sailboats, spent $1.25 billion on their hobby; this year they will spend $1.5 billion, and add another 500,000 craft to the U.S. pleasure fleet. From Maine to California's Newport-Balboa harbor, where a flotilla of 7,000 yachts worth $30 million lies at anchor, the nation's shorelines, lakes and waterways are dotted with boats; on the Great Lakes, the Detroit area alone counts 100,000; uncounted thousands more skim across the enormous man-made lakes formed by dam projects in the Tennessee Valley, the Colorado and Missouri Rivers. Says one deep-water sailor: "Thousands of farm families, who wouldn't know an auxiliary cutter from a lightship, are literally sailing over the bounding prairie --and loving every minute of it."

To serve the new salts and their sagebrush cousins, marinas have blossomed into a big business. Like the motel boom, the number of U.S. marinas has grown from a mere handful before World War II to more than 10,000 anchorages of all kinds doing a $500 million annual business. Yet they cannot begin to meet the yachtsmen's demand. Estimates are that the U.S. already needs 10,000 more marinas with room for 2,000,000 boats, and is falling farther behind every year. In the New York area alone, 300,000 boat-owning yachtsmen scramble for space at only 20,000 slips and moorings.

Pumps & Profits. Years ago, a marina could be built for a few thousand dollars: a wooden-piling dock, a gas pump, a shack to sell beer and bait. Today's marina may cost as much as $10 million or more for a layout as complete as any inland shopping center. Run properly, with low dockage rates (anywhere from 1/2-c-to 6-c- per foot per day depending on season) and efficient service, it can produce a handsome profit for any businessman. Says one East Coast marinaman: "With good management, you can conservatively make a 20% return on your investment each year before taxes."

Detroit's Jefferson Beach Marina grew from 75 berths and a $15,000 gross two years ago to 450 berths and a $1,000,000 business last year, plans to add another 300 berths in 1957. Seattle's Bryant's Marina, which struggled along for 20 years rarely topping $100,000 annually, can now handle 400 boats up to the biggest 200-ft., radar-equipped, diesel-engined yachts, and has boosted its business to $6,000,000 this year.

One of the East Coast's most complete: Port Washington, L.I.'s Riviera, which turns a healthy profit each year by providing 150 boatowners with all the standard summer-cruising services (water, ice, telephone, etc.), will also repair and store their boats during winter months.

Even bigger and better marinas are on the way. Near Los Angeles, where the Wilmington East Basin Yacht Center already serves more than 1,200 boats, the State of California is spending $14 million for one of the world's biggest marinas with dock and service facilities for 1,800 boats at Alamitos Bay, hopes to, have it finished by 1960. In the Puget Sound area half a dozen new marinas are abuilding, including one $500,000 anchorage at Roche Harbor with a special customs-immigration office to speed Canada-bound yachtsmen on their way. Marina Builder Charles A. Chancy, who has built some 400 since 1935, currently has 50 projects on his books, including a mammoth $14 million marina at the north end of San Francisco Bay, with docks for 1,800 boats and moorings for another 1,200.

Families, Not Fishermen. The marina builders will have a hard time catching up with the boat-crazy U.S. public. With more leisure and higher pay than ever before, almost any U.S. worker can buy a boat, pay for it on time (33% down, 24 months for the balance) and go bouncing off over the whitecaps and away from crowded highways. The new yachtsmen want their boats for family fun instead of for a strictly masculine hobby.

To supply the new market, the character of the U.S. boat industry is changing. New boat trailers make it possible for a family to buy a boat, keep it in their backyard and tow it along behind the family car to any lake or seashore launching spot. Estimates are that there are already 750,000 boat trailers on U.S. highways, and the number is growing every year. With sales of 140,000 trailers worth $21 million last year, U.S. trailermakers hope to increase their market in 1957 to $25 million for 151,000 trailers, ranging from $100 rigs on up to $1,000 jobs capable of holding a 30-ft. cruiser.

With new materials and manufacturing methods, the boats themselves are inexpensive to own and operate. Some 20% of all boats are currently made of tough new plastic materials such as Fiberglas, which can be molded into any shape, impregnated with a dazzling array of colors. Today's inboard and outboard runabouts are as flashy as any Detroit automaker's creation with upswept tail fins, wrap-around windshields, foam-rubber bucket seats, airplane-type controls--and they come at bargain prices. With mass-production assembly lines, do-it-yourself boat kits, and half-finished boats that the buyer completes himself, a family can buy a 14-ft. speedboat for as little as $307, can build itself a 20-ft. cabin cruiser for less than $3,000 v. the $5,000 (and up) price of a similar boat a few years ago. The cranky outboard motor of yesteryear now comes with a pushbutton starter and plenty of horsepower. Once a 25-h.p. outboard was considered big enough for any occasion. Today, Evinrude, Johnson, Scott-Atwater have engines as big as 40 h.p.; Mercury Outboard even has a mammoth six-cylinder, 60-h.p. outboard in production, and predicts that 100-h.p. outboards will soon be on the market.

Picture Windows. The trend to mass-appeal and family boating is nowhere more evident than in the design of big cabin cruisers. Of Chris-Craft's line of 68-odd stock models (up to 56 ft.), only 16 boats could be called utilitarian fishing craft--all the rest are designed for snappy good looks and family fun. The yachtsman's wife, not the yachtsman himself, is the customer the boatyards want to please. Says a Chris-Craft executive: "Instead of portholes, we have the marine counterpart of the picture window. Men were satisfied with heads and galleys which were functional but inconveniently located. Women won't have it that way; they want galleys in the open, where they can call up the deckhouse easily, and they want plenty of space. The galley has automatic hot-and cold-water systems, dish racks, food-storage cabinets and the main cabin has wall-to-wall carpeting, overstuffed couches, and a TV set."

The boom has grown so fast that many boatmen see a leveling-off period while marinas catch up to the demand. But once the marinas are built, there is no limit to the yachtsman's joy--or the boatbuilders' business.

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