The packing boxes and crates and bubble wrap have all reappeared from wherever exhibitors stashed them over the last five days and there is a sad, almost forlorn look to the Miami Beach Convention Center.  It's closing time on closing day and we're all headed back home soon.  But I thought first I would leave you with some thoughts about the show.

The Miami International Boat Show might just be the biggest boat show in the world.  Certainly, its organizer the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) says so.  Of course, the Fort Lauderdale International Show, held in October, also claims that title (would you be surprised to find out the two shows are not owned by the same group?).  And surely, the show in Monaco has more superyachts than either of the two Florida shows.  So who is biggest?  Turns out -- big surprise -- there's no way to know, because it depends on what you measure. 

Miami has more boats in number, but far fewer superyachts.  Fort Lauderdale has a convention center full of smaller exhibitors, docks full of small- and medium-sized boats, and its own Mega-Mile of mammoth ships.  Miami's convention center exhibits appear significantly more extensive than Fort Lauderdale's and though it has fewer powerboats in the water, it has the co-owned (with Sail America) Strictly Sail show at Miamarina at Bayside to complement all the "stinkpot" boats (as the sailboaters call them).

In the end, of course, it doesn't matter, except probably to the organizers who have to sell advertising and exhibit space.  I will continue to go to the Fort Lauderdale Show to see the superyachts and the fall-schedule premiers.  I will continue to go to Miami because it's got every imaginable supplier in the convention center, its a great place to catch up on the state of the sailboat industry, and I can see the spring-announced boats (and those that were announced in October at Fort Lauderdale, but which now are actually in the water).

The Miami show organizers have not yet released preliminary attendance figures for this year.  They said they expected 150,000.  I will be surprised if they reached that figure.  The marinas today were nearly deserted and the convention center was quiet.  The rumor mill among the boat builders seemed to have a concensus determined that small boats and runabouts did fairly well, as did the really big stuff, but everything in the middle felt the lack of purchasing confidence of middle-class customers.  That would generally agree with what dealers across the country have been saying for the last 12-18 months.

I did want to pass along a couple of random observations before I sign off for this show.  Many of you know about the boating industry's attempts to attract new buyers to the pasttime.  The sailing world, in particular, is worried about getting new people into the sport.  And yet, when I went by the "Learn to Sail - Discover Sailing" booth -- at high noon on Saturday, the biggest public day -- there was no one there.  And there was no one there for the 15 minutes I stayed to watch.  It was sad to see and might be a symptom of a deeper problem.

Another thing I observed was the relentless competition that has continued to develop between the outboard motor builders.  I stood on the dock at Sea Isle one afternoon and watched a big center console rumble out of the marina for a test run.  Hanging on the transome were FOUR 350 HP outboards.  That's 1,400 HP on a 30-something-foot boat.  Does anybody really NEED that much horsepower in that size fishing boat?  Probably not, but there sure is customer demand for it.

There is also customer demand for bigger and better instrument displays.  That situation is going to get better very soon, although the reason for it is more than a little ironic.  LCD makers will shortly begin to discontinue manufacture of the small screens, and marine electronics companies will HAVE to take what they can get -- bigger screens -- from the makers, whose production decisions are driven by the consumer TV and monitor market.  It still isn't that simple to take those LCD screens and turn them into high-bright, waterproof marine monitors (see my item on AmbientNav for more on that), but screens WILL get bigger.  Now all we have to do is beat our boat builders about the head and shoulders to mold helm instrument panels that have REAL room for these screens, and to stop putting volt meters and oil pressure gauges in the center.  They belong on the outside and the navigation panels belong in the middle (yeah, personal opinion, but I feel like the risk of my running over something or missing a channel is higher than my engine suddenly losing oil pressure; so put that info right in front of me).

Boat buyers at the show were fascinated by the "joystick revolution," as I call it -- the IPS, Zeus, Axius systems that can maneuver a boat in simply incredible fashion and in a way that enables even the least experienced skipper to dock safely and efficiently.  This revolution will continue and I am willing to bet that some company is going to add outboards to the joystick revolution within the next year.  And all the cool GPS-related capabilities of these systems, like station-keeping and max-maneuver modes, will mature and spread. 

 We covered quite a lot this past week.  I hope you'll take a few minutes to wander through the posts and check out links to more information.  Also, we plan to do some real in-depth follow-up on several of the subjects we covered, so watch for those in the coming weeks.

Now, aren't you glad you didn't have to wait a couple of months to find out what happened at the 2008 Miami International Boat Show?  We're glad we could be of service.

TOM TRIPPFarewell Miami!