Overboard Boater

Sea Ray Boats announced the launch of its new website PAWS, an acronym for Pet And Water Safety.

I’m reading this in Soundings Trade-Only (hat tip to Kim Kavin, or maybe to her dogs Floyd and Stella) and thinking, someone at Sea Ray must be reading Boatermouth because didn’t I just post about the awesomeness of dogs on boats last week? They’ve got some wicked fast coders.

PAWS is actually a collaboration between Sea Ray and Purina to promote onboard pet safety and offer pet-related articles and special offers to PAWS readers. We’d like to see Purina cross brand more of its pet supplies with boating manufacturers. Do they still make Chuckwagon? A perfect matchup with Fountain.

This has to be good news for the boating industry. The Wall Street Journal reported today that Brunswick, the parent company to Sea Ray Boats and Mercury Marine, closed at its highest stock price since the start of the recession.

Here’s the link to the article.

When Brunswick was down to $2.14 last March with not much hope in sight, it paralleled the depths to which the economy had faltered. You don’t need an MBA to figure out that when people lose their disposable income, the leisure industries take the biggest hits.

While no one is saying everything’s back to the good old days, this is a positive sign that maybe we’ve turned the corner. That the NMMA is predicting flat sales numbers for 2010, rather than another double-digit percentage loss in sales, is another good sign.

The Brunswick CEO is quoted as being cautiously optimistic in this article. It’s a billiard news site, but it’s mostly about the boat biz.