Here’s a sign of the times. Boat owners in Scituate, Massachusetts, on Boston’s South Shore, camped out in their tents next to the harbor master’s office for as long as four nights waiting for a slip to open up there.
Boat sales soared during the pandemic, particularly among first-time buyers. Now many of them are discovering the unpleasant truth: They don’t have a place to put them.
Across the U.S., last year was a 13-year-high for boat sales (and 9 percent above 2019), according to the National Marine Manufacturers Association. The number of first-time boat buyers rose for the first time in more than a decade.
One of those new owners is Ray Shanahan, who bought a boat for his family to enjoy during the pandemic. He doesn’t want to trailer it every time he wants to use it, so he joined the line of half a dozen other boat owners camping out in tents in Scituate.
The line started on Wednesday afternoon. In Scituate, there is no waiting list for a slip; it’s first-come, first-served. Every year, at 8 a.m. on Aug.1, the harbor master releases the slips of people who have not renewed them. The people camping out were waiting for that deadline, hoping that enough slips would open up for them to snag one. Slips in Scituate cost $110 a foot for the season.
“This is the earliest people have been down here,” Shanahan told Boston 25 News. “it keeps getting earlier and earlier each year.” Read more:
