Please, let 2025 be a return to normalcy without any big new problems erupting. That was the feeling across the recreational marine industry as this issue of Soundings Trade Only went to press. Republicans had just taken control of the White House, U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Qualified buyers had shown up and showed interest at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. Metstrade was underway in Amsterdam, with innovative products and services ready to roll out for 2025.
All of which sounds like cause for celebration — except there was also talk of tariffs. New- and used-boat inventories remained a challenge. Interest rates and inflation continued to preoccupy consumers. And all kinds of incoming, new lawmakers would need to be educated about important policy areas.
Matt Gruhn, president of the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, says that even still, as long as overall uncertainty eases, the industry is poised for a good year. “That uncertainty has had a pretty major impact on decision-making, particularly around discretionary-income purchases,” he says. “Now that we’re through that, as an industry, we’ve got to focus on boat show season. The more that dealers and brokers can focus on their success at the boat shows, the better springboard we’re going to have into the 2025 boating season.”
Kyle Langbehn, executive vice president and president of retail operations at MarineMax, echoes that sentiment. “Post-election, you get a little more certainty and a little less pause in the actions of consumers,” Langbehn says. “Fort Lauderdale has always been a good indicator of the upcoming year, and it was a positive indicator.”
Here’s what industry leaders expect in the coming year regarding boat sales and much more.
Boat Sales and Inventory
Chad Lyon, managing director of global inventory finance at Wells Fargo, says that despite retail declines in 2024, there were some positives as OEMs lowered shipments to help bring inventory levels closer to seasonal norms. “This is a helpful start to the new year, as the market has been a few weeks over normal for the past seven quarters,” he says. “We are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. As we look ahead with a better balance of inventory, potentially reducing interest rates and a resilient consumer, 2025 could be set up to be a better year for the industry and boat dealers.”
Gruhn says some dealers are in good shape with inventories while others are not — a pattern he expects to continue through the launch of the 2026 model year. Generally speaking, he adds, sales levels are currently reflective of what the industry saw in 2015. “There’s been a slowdown after an incredible increase,” he says. “Some dealers saw it coming and managed their way through it, and created plans and strategies that helped them be successful. And some dealers are still trying to work their way through it.”
Online Boat Listings
The International Yacht Brokers Association in Florida is expecting a major push in 2025 for its online listing website, Yachtr. Yachtr came online in February 2024, without fanfare. Now, with more than 14,000 boats listed, the IYBA says the site is ready to compete with others that have long dominated this space — and drawn criticism about pricing and marketing tactics.
“There were guys calling up and saying they were going to go out of business because they could not afford to pay the marketing bills,” says Paul Flannery, IYBA chief operating officer. “It had ruined their business models.” Representatives for Boats Group — which owns YachtWorld.com, Boats.com, BoatTrader.com and other sites — did not respond to requests for comment.
Flannery says a key component that sets Yachtr apart is that brokers who input data about boat listings and clients retain ownership of that data. They also can list the same boats on any other sites they want. “We actually have an app that’s like a data pipeline,” he says. “The broker just has to input the data one time, and if he has a subscription to one of these other public-facing sites, all he has to do is check a box, and the information goes out to other sites that he’s a subscriber to.” YachtWorld and Yatco do not participate in that data feed, Flannery adds.
IYBA members who use Yachtr should see a reduction in marketing costs, he says — potentially leading to reduced boat prices that could help spur sales. “It’s more difficult for a dealer to be flexible in his negotiations with the seller when he has a higher expense that he has to cover,” Flannery says.
Policy Advocacy
The Republican Party’s trifecta election victory has policy advocates eager to undo burdensome regulations. “The Biden administration had a robust regulatory agenda. I think there will be a lot of conversations about how that gets unwound, and there will be a push-pull of sorts as far as what regulations have to get done due to statute or legal requirements,” says Robyn Boerstling, senior vice president of government relations at the National Marine Manufacturers Association. “But regardless, what happens when the new administration comes in, an executive order will be issued, and all the rules that haven’t moved will be sent back to the agencies.”
As of late November, that latter scenario included the proposed speed reduction rule that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says is necessary to protect North Atlantic right whales. Assuming the rule has not been finalized before President Trump moves back into the Oval Office in January, the NMMA’s next step will be attempting to make clear that NOAA does not have the authority to regulate vessel speed on the ocean. “We want to make sure that there is statutory clarity,” Boerstling says, since “the issue of managing endangered whales does not disappear because the president’s office has changed hands.”
John DePersenaire, director of government affairs and sustainability at Viking Yacht Co., says the driving force behind the proposed rule was a motion that
environmental groups filed in the courts as an intent to sue. In November, something unusual happened. “They submitted a voluntary motion to dismiss their intent to sue,” he says.
DePersenaire says it’s possible a deal was cut to ensure quick finalization of the rule, or the environmentalists fear that the Republican takeover of Congress could eliminate a final rule altogether. “The rule would be subject to the Congressional Review Act, and the way the political climate is right now, there’s language and stipulations that would prevent that type of rule from coming back in any substantive way forever,” he says. “They don’t want to push this through and then have a CRA, and it’s done. It’ll probably get squashed, and then they can’t do anything again.”
If attempts to regulate vessel speed go quiet for now, DePersenaire adds, the industry has time to advance collision-avoidance technology. “When this rule does come back in the future, we will have clear evidence and strong argument that technology needs to be considered as a solution,” he says.
Beyond the vessel-speed rule, Boerstling says, extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is expected to be a priority. DePersenaire says he’s also tracking potential attempts to cut funding for stock assessments for fisheries; to issue new leases for offshore wind development; and to allow public nominations of marine sanctuaries and monuments. “It’s just one of those things that now, we’re going to have to go to these meetings and watch it every single day to make sure they’re not doing something to close down parts of the ocean,” he says.
Tariffs
Boerstling and DePersenaire also are watching for new tariffs after President Trump returns to the White House. DePersenaire says the impact at Viking alone could be sizable. “We use MAN and MTU engines,” he says, “and we’re the master distributor for Princess Yachts in the Americas. We were looking at $40 million to $50 million in tariffs, potentially.”
Boerstling says that in the last round of tariffs, the industry successfully applied for exclusions, but retaliatory actions by the European Union and Great Britain are a concern. “We’ve been through this before, so we need to think about how we’re going to manage and mitigate, and how we’re going to tell our story, and who we’re going to tell our story to,” she says. “This is a very successful domestic industry, but it also has successful overseas markets and supply chains. How we communicate the strengths that we have in terms of economic value, the workers that are employed in what states and what congressional districts, is going to be very important and critical for us to get right.”
Workforce
Sarah Devlin, accreditation director at the American Boat & Yacht Council, says current data suggests there are about 8 million job openings nationwide but only 6.8 million unemployed workers. California, Michigan, New York, Texas and Illinois have higher rates of people available for open jobs, while states in New England face a shortage. “What does that mean for the marine industry? I think we’re right smack dab in the middle of that,” she says.
For 2025, she’s working to create a searchable database for workers to find schools that offer marine-specific programs. “I am also asking demographic questions so we can see who is in these programs and create benchmarks for instructor salaries and offerings,” she says.
ABYC is also working with industry members to bring their own training programs into schools. “We need to continue drawing younger people in by engaging with them on every level, by showing how amazing our industry is, by letting them spend time on boats so they understand the appeal of a boat-related career,” she says.
More people making those choices can’t happen fast enough, especially with marine technicians, says Gruhn, with the MRAA. “It is a customer-service issue,” he says. “When boats come in for service, it’s taking far too long to get these boats serviced and get them back on the water. It is largely because of our lack of people and skills to repair the boats and get people back on the water.”
MRAA is partnering with marine trades associations to work on this problem in Rhode Island, Michigan, New Jersey and elsewhere. “We need to centralize the efforts and invest in this together,” Gruhn says.
Andy Tyska, owner of Bristol Marine in New England, who recently purchased the Huckins Yacht yard in Florida, says businesses participating in existing programs are having success if they remain actively engaged. “You’re going to get qualified candidates through the door,” he says. “We don’t have our pick of candidates, but there are good, qualified candidates who want to make this their career.”
Decarbonization
By all accounts, 2025 will also see a continuation of industry efforts to approach
decarbonization from multiple angles. Electric options are expected to grow for larger-power outboards, says Tom Watson, president of ePropulsion operations in the Americas. “Two years ago, we launched our bigger, 96-volt platform, and all those motors now are in production,” he says. “It gives us the opportunity to get that product into the market, get hopefully rave reviews and start to spread the larger-kilowatt-powered motors.”
The biggest challenge, he says, remains battery technology. And adoption and infrastructure are still limited. “Probably in about three years, we’ll see it be more widespread and adopted, maybe with the advent of solid-state batteries,” he says. “You hear Toyota talking about that. It will give us better power density, and then we’ll be able to do more with bigger motors.”
Yamaha began marketing its Torqeedo electric propulsion in November to existing Yamaha dealers, says Martin Peters, director of external affairs for the company’s U.S. Marine Business Unit. Sustainable fuels and hydrogen power are also in the mix of solutions Yamaha is pursuing. These require infrastructure changes that the marine industry can achieve through partnerships with larger industries and companies such as Toyota, Peters says. “Ultimately, we have to work with organizations such as the Environmental Protection Agency on approvals,” he adds. “The renewable fuels standard may need some modifications to make certain blend additives acceptable.”
Yamaha is also working with the Specialty Equipment Market Association to promote legislation that declares states technology-neutral. “States like California and others that follow California have passed legislation and regulation that says cars will all be electrified by 2035,” Watson says. “Well, that’s not going to work in the marine industry. We need to work with SEMA and other organizations to promote this kind of legislation, and to use the opportunity to educate people about why we need it.”
Similarly, for hydrogen solutions, Yamaha is working with the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association. “We’ve participated in many of their events and activities, and we’ll be participating in one in January,” he says. “In addition, we will be working with their government relations team in pursuit of regulatory and legislative efforts that support hydrogen.”
Jeff Wasil, the NMMA’s director of environment, health and safety compliance, says the association’s recent pilot program for drop-in sustainable marine fuels in Panama City, Fla., revealed pain points that policymakers need to address. “Especially with the new administration, we can identify the roadblocks in regulations that make it very difficult to distribute anything other than standard gasoline,” he says. “We can remove some of those roadblocks, which is great.
“What we also learned in Panama City is that the consumer is willing to accept it,” Wasil adds. “Deep-red Florida accepted it. These are hard-core folks that might have resisted anything with the word ‘sustainable’ on it, but they didn’t. We sold over 70,000 gallons of sustainable marine fuel. The marina did not lose sales. They sold comparable to what they have sold in years past.”
Framing the language of sustainable fuels smartly is another goal for 2025, Wasil adds. “Politically, we can’t position it as taking care of climate change. The message is doing the right thing for the industry for the long term, in a more sustainable way to do it.”
