Duluth boat show stokes marine dreams

After spending much of the past year out of work at Hibbing Taconite, Jim Grandsey isn’t in the market to buy a new boat in 2010.

But that didn’t keep the Hibbing man away from the opening of the 44th annual Duluth Boat, Sports & Travel Show on Wednesday.

“This is the land of 10,000 lakes,” he said. “You’ve got to have a boat.”

While he has relegated his dreams of buying a new boat to the future for now, Grandsey said he still enjoys seeing what’s available each year at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center.

Tim Rust of Hermantown isn’t in the market for a new boat right now, either, having just bought a watercraft last year, yet he still didn’t want to miss the show. He brought his 2½-year-old son out to enjoy the event for the first time.

Rust considers the event a handy midwinter pick-me-up.

“It gets me thinking of summer,” he said.

Jim Willey, co-owner of Willey Marine in McGregor, said the marine industry has begun to show signs of revival after a challenging downturn that pushed many dealers out of the business.

“We definitely began seeing signs of improvement toward the end of last season,” he said. “I got the feeling that things were finally easing up. Right up until that time, it seemed like people didn’t want to buy.”

Phil Kelley, president of Resort Marine and Service of Walker, said he steered away from bringing some of the higher-end Grady-White vessels he has shown at the event in the past.

“This year, we brought out some smaller boats due to the economy,” he said.

Kelley said the marine industry finally is working through its leftover inventory of past years’ boat models, boding well for future sales. All those carryover boats on the market made it hard to sell new boats.

“We saw huge discounts on noncurrent boats from ’07, ’08 and ’09,” he said.

Kelley believes it’s still too early to say the marine industry has turned a corner. That was part of the reason his dealership and several other large players in the industry pulled out of the Twin Cities Boat Show this year.

“You can kind of get lost at the Twin Cities Boat Show,” he said. “But over the past 27 years, we’ve gotten to know a lot of people in Duluth through this show.”

Randy Schauer, the Duluth show’s promoter, said he has focused on keeping the event at the DECC affordable.

“We think we offer vendors a better return on investment than some of the other shows,” he said, noting that instead of seeing reduced demand for space at the show, the event has seen a slight uptick, particularly with the inclusion of deer hunting exhibits in the show this year.