By STEPHANIE SHIBATA
ASK THE EXPERTS THE EXPERTS By GRID MICHAL GRINDING GRID’S GEARS
COVID MATH DO YOU REMEMBER EEYORE the donkey? Or Joe from L’il Abner? Eeyore was 300
pounds of worries covered by skin and Joe always had a rain cloud over his head. This was also the time when Dick Tracy had a wristwatch that showed zzzzs to indicate he was talking on it. Keep that thought of the future in mind. amount of repowering with outboard As we start getting ready to enter our engines up to 450hp, and in multiples. I 2021 busy season, I feel the two characters hear from one of my customers who’s a above draping a mantle over me, sharing stockbroker that customers have enjoyed worries for the boating industry’s future. the fruits of the market and have been For the time being—maybe the next 25+ spending serious bucks on serious fun. years—we’ll do fine as mobile outboard Having owned a marine dealership I know service techs. We have experience on that when new models appear, there’s engines from 1950 to 2019, including all generally a lag time of 3 years before the tough ones like the Homelite and the something you went to tech school to learn Ficht/ETEC. What we’ve seen as we pass appears as a problem in the real world. dealers on the highway is a tremendous
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By that time there have been three more years of technological advances, and who remembers the school of three years ago? With the turnover in the industry, I’d be amazed if the students at that school were still with the same dealer. We’re surrounded by vo-tech schools that are ultimately half-day repositories for recalcitrant high school kids who are waiting for a check without having to learn to earn. That brings me to January 6 and a new round of promises. I am not making a political statement, only doing the math by the headlines. Perhaps my being old enough to be on Social Security makes
