Somewhere in the recesses of my brain I heard echoes of frothy headlines from the heady days of the dot-com bubble. Remember pets.com? (Read More…)

“Click.”
“Click.”

It’s 7:10 in the morning, and I don’t have to look up to know the source of the sound. My son is snapping shut for the sixth or seventh time the plastic buckles on the new life jacket we bought the previous evening. (Read More…)

I received a letter late last week from Tiara Yachts CEO David Slikkers about a story we posted on our site last Wednesday regarding a jury judgment in a consumer warranty case against Tiara and Volvo Penta of the Americas. (Read More…)

The economy continues its bumpy summer ride as a host of global and domestic issues keep the waters roiled. The choppy seas are the result of a familiar litany of concerns — persistent unemployment, the weak housing market, sovereign debt woes and debates over the U.S. debt ceiling. (Read More…)

There is nothing fragile or complex about the small gray mooring barge, its hydraulic torque motor hanging from a 15-foot steel mast. It works day after day, year after year, screwing what are typically 10- to 15-foot steel shafts with two or three helixes at the base into mud, sand, clay and gravel bottoms. Think of them as big mooring screws, which essentially is what they are. (Read More…)

A story in The New York Times several days ago talked about the negotiations between the auto industry and the Obama administration over new vehicle mileage and emission standards that would dramatically affect the types of cars we drive in the future. (Read More…)

I met the pilgrim several days ago on my first afternoon on Striper Island. A big school of fish was breaking out wide, and this tall, lanky character ran down the beach and waded out up to his shoulders, literally, to try to reach them with one of his big, sweeping southpaw casts. (Read More…)

Broad-based mandatory life jacket wear rules — mandatory as in for all boaters, on all pleasure boats, regardless of size, across the board — are misguided. It’s like hunting squirrels with an elephant gun. Not only is it overkill, but I’m also not sure they will accomplish what well-meaning safety advocates hope they will. (Read More…)

Hard as it is to believe, it appears that the new-boat market is still trying to find a bottom. Maybe it’s about to bounce out of the trough. Maybe it’s just a soft patch as we move at long last toward a nascent recovery. (Read More…)

You hear a few things in the nooks and crannies of the industry. (Read More…)