Gulf Coast Report

Starting the New Year with a common sigh of relief

Another new year is beginning, and another year without a major storm hitting the Gulf coast has passed. We can let our collective breath out now until next summer. As I wrote this, however, the curse of the long-lead column writer snapped at me once more, with Tropical Storm Noel forming and threatening the Bahamas and then the open waters of the Atlantic–and this in late October. The weather guessers, and I admit I love to watch the weather, had predicted yet another very active storm season for 2007, but most of the action was below the U.S., or in the Pacific. There was a fairly small but intense storm that made landfall very quickly after reaching minimal hurricane status near High Island, Texas, and affected the coast through the Beaumont/Port Arthur/Orange area, but compared to the monster storms of two years ago, this was much more manageable. The heavy rains of last summer moderated through the fall, but unusually high tides occurred in October from more tropical activities in the Gulf. Just as quickly as the flood tides came, they disappeared in the face of the season’s first cold front that pushed gusts of 35 mph from the northwest. The 90-degree temperatures that had held through early fall were replaced overnight by drops to the 50s–even as low as 39 degrees just north of Houston, Texas, and even cooler into Louisiana. Of course, this annual flushing of the bays by alternating high and low tides is to be expected, and is very beneficial to the inshore waters. All the same, those cruisers who either had hulls stuck in the mud or just could not get from the slip or dock to water with a navigatable depth are never very happy at such times....

MidAtlantic Report

Coasting Into a New Show Season

Winter Shows
Instead of adding more slips, some Mid-Atlantic marinas are reconfiguring their docks for fewer but larger slips. Gerald Herson, owner of Pleasure Cove Marina in Annapolis, recently requested a wetlands license to turn his 63-slip marina into a 19-slip marina for bigger boats. He is also adding new lifts so yachts up to 60 feet can be stored indoors.

Annapolis Boat Shows, under the new title of United States Yacht Shows, is producing the inaugural Yacht Show at National Harbor set for May 1-4 in Washington, D.C. The upscale show will feature yachts 60 to 150 feet and will be one of the first events at the new National Harbor. For information, visit yachtshownh.com or contact 410-268-8828.

Show Manager Dee Newman says while uncertainty about the economy has slowed smaller boat sales, affluent consumers unaffected by market conditions are keeping the Mid-Atlantic boating industry busy trying to keep up with ways to accommodate larger boats.

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