AT THE HELM

8 JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2018 WWW.HOUSEBOATMAGAZINE.COM

State of the industry speeches, state

of the industry conferences, state of the

industry reports and other addresses are

quite common these days. And while I feel

it’s important to cover and report on the

current growth of the houseboat industry,

I substituted one word in my headline.

Instead of referring to the houseboat

industry I instead went with the word our

because as a magazine we really do feel a

part of the houseboating community.

That’s right, even though as a magazine

staff we’ve never physically built a house-

boat (believe me, it’s

a good thing to leave

to the professionals,

since just hanging an

office door recently

proved to be quite

a challenge for our

group), we’ve been

connected to house-

boating well before

our first issue was

printed back in 1990.

We’ve seen the high-

est of highs and the

lowest of lows during

our tenure and as an

industry we’re stron-

ger for it.

We reached out

to some of the top

houseboat manufac-

turers recently to see

what signs or indi-

cations they might

be noticing for 2018.

We’re thrilled to hear

they’re all our opti-

mistic and beyond

thrilled for growth

this year.

“I have quoted

more new boats in

the last few months, than the entire previ-

ous year total,” said Sunstar owner George

Roberts who has been an industry staple

for decades. “I think sales will be stronger

this year and we should be in a good posi-

tion to take advantage.”

Bryan Lambert, president and CEO for

Sailabration agreed, “We are confident our

sales will see substantial increases over the

next 12 months. Our interest and leads

have gone up drastically.”

CHANGING HANDS

In March our industry received some

good news when Gibson Houseboats

announced it was under new ownership

and would be relocating so it could begin

building new boats as well as refurbishing

old ones.

“We made the

move to South

Dakota, which set

us back for another

several months,”

recalled co-owner

Kelly Cawthorne.

“But after that we

went gang busters

and we’re predicting

2018 is going to be

a banner year for

Gibson Boats. We

get as many as 20

calls per day asking

about Gibson boats,

new boat inquires,

rental boat inquires

and of course the

outpouring of cus-

tomers thanking us

for bringing back

Gibson to the fleet.”

Another solid

houseboat manu-

facturer recently

changed ownership

in 2017 too and

Bravada Yachts is

anticipating a lot of

growth in 2018 as

well.

Right now we are on track to have our

biggest year ever for sales,” said Bravada

COO Robert Gutierrez. “With all of the

new designs and new markets opening,

we anticipate our 2018 sales increasing by

150 percent or more!”

By Brady L. Kay

State Of Our Industry

“We reached out

to some of the top

houseboat manufacturers

recently to see what

signs or indications they

might be noticing for

2018. We’re thrilled to

hear they’re all our opti-

mistic and beyond thrilled

for growth this year.”

“

”

Destination Yachts

owner Sheldon Graber

looks off the bow of one of

his houseboats as he heads

into the dock prior to the

2015 On Water Expo on

Lake Cumberland.