From Brunswick new line July 28th. http://www.rbbi.com/company/bc/bc.htm

# 28 July 2008 Mercury Marine announced cutting 60 salary jobs mostly in Fond du Lac and Stillwater. This cut was part of the previously announced 1,700 jobs to be cut. They also announced shutting down the Fon du Lac plant this week to reduced inventory, plus the next two weeks for housekeeeping, cleaning, and necessary changes. Plus they will be closing for a week in December. The spokesman said the two week August shutdown and the Christmas shutdown are done every year and noted they are providing "generous" separation packages and outplacement services for the 60 people whose jobs were cut. ibi news. 29 July 2008. (RBBI comment - in late June they announced cutting 1,000 jobs and possibly 1,700 more. Now they are saying the second 1,700 is in progress.

When will this market hit bottom?? Will a decrease in oil prices Help? What's it going to take to turn this around?

N.T.

Two big things are needed to improve the situation for boat makers:
- More disposable income that people are willing to spend on boats.
- Access to credit to buy those boats.

Disposable income requires people have jobs that pay more than the basic cost of living. Cost of living has been inflating rapidly this year, wages have not and jobs seem to be vanishing, so this is not headed in a good direction.

Credit is tight in general because of the mortgage crisis and that situation could be a year from bottoming out. I haven't tried to take out a boat loan lately, but I'll bet they are tougher to get and interest rates have risen-curious to hear from those who have tried.

Don't look for big improvements for the boating industry anytime soon. They are in a worse pickle than the aurto industry-. Boat ownership is more optional than auto ownership, boat prices seem to have inflated faster than auto prices, boat purchases can be deferred more easily than auto purchases- none of that helps.

The one possible bright spot is that around here I do not see large numbers of newer used boats for sale. That would be a killer for the industry.

according to my brother a bank in the Lake of the Ozarks is taking back 30 boats a week. But few if any are fishing boats.

around here there are boats for sale all over and all kinds of boats, from 18 footers to cruisers. Kind of like a buyers market right now