Increasing participation in recreational boating is NMTA’s mission. I like to say we want “more boaters tomorrow then there are today.” We want people young and old all over the northwest to wake up each morning and say “I want to go boating.” The Seattle Boat Show is our number one boating promotion, but eleven years ago the NMTA Board recognized we need to promote boating and strive to create new boaters year-round. The Board did this by establishing the NMTA Grow Boating program and funding the Program with a surcharge to Seattle Boat Show space rental rates (currently 65 cents per square foot). This has allowed NMTA to invest over $1M dollars in sailing, fishing, cruising, youth programs, advertising, and media campaigns to keep boating top of mind in our region.
Nationally, boating stakeholders have the Discover Boating program,www.DiscoverBoating.com, to promote boating year-round on a national level. NMTA works closely with Discover Boating to share resources and ideas and not duplicate efforts. In 2010, the National Marine Manufacturers Association convened a meeting of 180 boating leaders to create a 10-20 year vision of how we are all going to grow boating. Six priority areas were identified: Marketing, Youth, Diversity, Affordability, Education and Advocacy. Today, approximately 35 of the 180 boating leaders that met in 2010 continue to work on these priorities as a group known as the Recreational Boating Leadership Council.
I am part of the Council and co-chair the Youth task force and we are working on strategies to increase boating participation for our young people. Currently, we are doing this by creating a searchable national database of all youth boating programs. The database is an important new feature at www.DiscoverBoating.com. I have been working with other marine trade associations around the country to collect all of the youth programs in their area. In Washington state, 55 different youth boating programs were identified.
As parents, my wife and I are making summer plans for our two daughters and like most modern-day parents we are looking at a long list of summer day and week-long camps to choose from. Some of our choices, past and present, are soccer, ceramics, dance, cooking and of course, boating. Camps that are easy to find, easy to sign up for, and close to our home get our attention. The families I know rely on word of mouth and recommendations from one family to another for finding great camps.
When I look at the 3,000-plus youth programs we have identified across the country, the vast majority are sailing focused. I started sailing when I was 10 and consider myself a life-long sailor. Looking back on my experience to sail and maintain my own boat at that young age, it was one of the most empowering experiences I had growing up. That said, sailing is a relatively small part of recreational boating with roughly 1.2 percent of all registered boats being sailboats. Note – it’s important to point out small, one-design sailboats are generally not registered which changes the data, but not significantly. To get the attention of young people and their parents, I think we need more camps that offer the full range of boating activities and promote the camps that do.
During the process of searching for and identifying the 55 programs in Washington, I learned about a knock-your-socks-off camp in Edmonds, Washington for 8 to 17 year olds – Beach Camp at Sunset Bay.
What’s special about Beach Camp at Sunset Bay is that it is much more than sailing. Campers can wakeboard, kayak, standup paddleboard, sail, snorkel, scuba dive and learn about the Puget Sound marine ecosystem. As I’ve worked on the national youth boating database, I can say that this is one of the most complete programs in the country and it’s right here in our backyard. If you go to the Beach Camp website, www.sunsetbaywharf.com, you’ll see why I think this is the youth boating program of the future.
All youth boating programs are short on advertising and marketing. NMTA has helped spread the word through several Grow Boating grant awards to youth programs over the years. The new database of boating camps at DiscoverBoating.com is an effort to help families find a boating camp near them. Until that database takes off, we are going to need to rely on word of mouth for creating new boaters at boating camps. If you know of a young person that wants to get on the water this summer, Beach Camp at Sunset Bay is a real winner.
Sincerely,
George Harris
President/CEO
