WindCheck Magazine Long Road - WindCheck Magazine

As we emerge from March of 2020, and stride forth in the spring of 2022, and as we have mentioned before in this column, some things seem to be permanently different. And I have talked about how we are going to treat the newbies and how we shouldn’t act like the grumpy ranger but more like the hail-fellow well-met mentor. But then, once that effort has been made, mostly last summer, what will this summer look like? I ask because now, the resources are truly going to get constrained. Like the mountains in the winter, our marinas and clubs are bursting with people whose newfound pastime, combined with a decade-plus of unprecedented economic “rebounding”, will no doubt impact all of us whose big concern was whether our sport was dying or not, as of say, five years ago. Well, whether it’s fishing, wakeboarding (have you seen what a new wakeboard boat looks like, how much tech is in it and what it costs? Cray Cray!) or family cruising, (mostly power but still cruising), the waterways are going to be crowded. Will this all disappear by July as the tragic war in Europe grinds on and the Fed hikes rates? I’m definitely not convinced. So, we are back to how do we make this good? How can we take advantage and parlay this enthusiasm into a true benefit to boating at large. How do we get more kids involved, How do we get people to respect and “own” the environment they are playing in, and modulate an industry that typically grabs while the grabbing is good, without a lot of thought about the road ahead. We at WindCheck obviously don’t have all of the answers but we do try and publish the folks that take a stab at it. If you want to hear what fertile minds are observing and what some minds who have been around these “blocks” for a while are saying, I very much encourage you to read our monthlies: The Captain, the Barrister, Coop, Dells, the Woman, the Save The Sound and the person On Watch. These nuts and bolts should be mandatory reading every month. I brag and cajole because I’m right.

With bottom paint on my fingers, see you on the water this week!