OnBoard Magazine - Issue XII - 2020 Season

Smaller, privately owned facilities were likely more hesitant to shut down. According to Waterway Guide’s data, “52% of marinas have stayed open. Over 70% were operable in some fashion, continuing to provide fuel, docks or boat yard services.” Tillett concludes, “So most are trying to stay open. Municipal and town docks are the ones closing down.” Even once established as an essential business, property owners’ troubles were far from over. Management has many unprecedented decisions to make, learning on the fly what parts of their regular operations could abide by appropriate social distancing measures to keep everyone safe. Jarrett Bay and Regulator have stayed open, while shuttering their popular factory tours. On-site visits by vendors and salespeople are discouraged while operations adjusted to adhere to CDC guidelines and ensure all team members had strong personal protection gear. The Viking, Valhalla, Princess, Sabre and Back Cove production factories all closed down. To fill the void of limited customer interaction during this time, several brands provided fans with virtual Q&A sessions, status reports and other fun activities to pass the time. Regulator, Jarrett Bay and Princess created impromptu coloring books out of their boat line art, not only helping keep the kids busy and creative during stay-at-home periods but also allowing the young at heart to color and design their own color schemes on their dream boats. Early on, Bluewater’s offices went down to a single support staff coming in, with salespeople and other team members going remote to fulfill their duties. The point of all this blow- by-blow analysis is, it’s crystal clear that we have much work ahead of us to plan better outcomes in the face of nationwide emergencies. Government responses need to be quicker, much more consistent, and less burdensome on certain activities whenever possible. The specific calls of action will get easier to identify as things blow over, but for now, Tillett recommends following the National Marine Manufacturer’s Association (NMMA) Boating United effort. “It’s the first response we can take to helping government agencies, localities and lawmakers understand that they should be more understanding of the effects of their decisions,” he says. OUR VIRTUAL FUTURE It’s easy to see that tournaments should be able to proceedby strippingdown to crowd- less basics for a season: fish, weigh, repeat. The more troubling aspects will be for event organizers to scrutinize. Foregoing the huge spectator crowds, cocktail parties and vendor booths means missing out on serious revenue, sponsorships, and fund- raising opportunities. These will hopefully be temporary pain points. Boat shows face a similar problem, with some folks likely hesitant to mix with large crowds.As evidencedas soonasPalmBeach was cancelled, event managers, publishers and sales organizations were more than ready to begin virtual showings and sales. The real estate sector has been hit with the same issues and it hasn’t seemed to phase the best firms and realtors, partially thanks to historically low interest rates. Many high-end brokers from Denver to Dallas, have reported selling homes virtually over FaceTime and other tools. The boat market should be able to post similar successes. The Bluewater sales team has been conducting daily Facebook live videos, walking visitors through new model inventory and high-end brokerage listings. Marketing Manager Blake Tice and Sales Manager Baxter Lusink have interviewed many Bluewater customers and friends and posted daily to social media during these “down times.” This new content has provided awesome insight into our new boat models and entertained folks with notable tales of fishing accomplishments. Tice explains, “People are spending more time than ever online, so we are looking at this as an opportunity… “We’ve been emphasizing digital tools and social media for years, but COVID-19 has essentially forced everyone to take the next step and perhaps participate in some technologies they were reluctant about a few months ago.” The marketing team quickly launched a virtual showroom that aggregates all the listings with video, virtual tours, or both and makes remote showing requests a breeze. Deploying the company’s 360° cameras on more listings than ever to capture virtual tours has been a high priority, and new content is coming online every day. Bluewater will make every effort to continue this energy ONLINE CONFERENCES, TOURS & SHOWINGS