Why nobody hangs out anymore

by Doug Ryan
I noticed something this summer. For the first time I don’t know any of the boat owners around my boat. I go there quite a bit. I haven’t had a conversation with a single other boater since launching my boat this spring. Usually doing a project on the boat at least draws a couple people over to offer help or advice. Not this year. What is going on?

It wasn’t always this way. Old-timers remember when the marina was the weekend. You’d row over for a beer, end up staying for dinner, and somebody always had a guitar. Nobody planned it. It just happened, because everybody was there.

So where did everyone go? The easy answer is “people don’t care about boating anymore.” The numbers say that’s wrong. The real story is more interesting, and it’s fixable. – Full report