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Water Ways
Ray Pendleton
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Hawaii’s potential ignored
While drifting offshore of Waikiki on my friend Lyle Holden's boat on New Year's Day, I was struck as always by the stunning beauty of Oahu and the crystal clear waters surrounding it.
White cloud caps crested the island's Koolau Mountains, Oahu's signature feature, Diamond Head, stood in dramatic relief to the east, and the sparkling blue ocean spread out to the horizon on the west.
Suddenly a Pacific humpback whale, as if to express its own personal joy in living, began spouting, breaching, and fin-waving in the distance. It was a moment that excited even the oldest old-salts on the boat.
Reflecting now on that day, it brings to mind how few of the residents of this state ever get to share in such experiences. It almost seems criminal that so many people living on a tropical island archipelago are so completely land-bound.
The whys of this are many, including historic and cultural issues I'm sure.
But the statewide decline in recreational boating facilities over the past couple of decades, and our government's refusal to either establish proper funding or allow for privatization, must contribute to at least part of the problem.
The fact that Hawaii has been dead last among our 50 states in registered boats for years, both by total count and per capita, can't be ignored.
Our state tallied 13,205 boats in the most recent statistical analysis by the National Marine Manufactures Association, or about one boat for every 100 residents. And worse, that count reflected the largest annual decrease in boat registrations in the country -- more than 15 percent.
The next closest state --- Wyoming, in 49th-place -- accounted for 25,897 registered boats, giving it a per capita ratio of one boat for every 19 residents. And Vermont, at 48th on the list with 32,498 boats, had a similar boat-per-resident ratio of one for every 18-plus individuals.
Given Hawaii's huge recreational boating potential such data illustrate just how much revenue our state is losing by ignoring an activity and industry that according to NMMA generated more than $37 billion nationwide in sales and services in 2005 alone.
"The thing I see lacking in Hawaii is that the cities and counties that have boating facilities do not recognize the extremely lucrative revenue-generating power that boater activities represent," Hawaii-born and raised Raynor Tsuneyoshi, California's state boating administrator, told me recently.
"In California," he said, "cities and counties, and the legislators and supervisors that represent them, are extremely cognizant that attracting boaters in large numbers generates a great deal of revenue for all of the support services such as marine repair, parts, fuel, restaurant services, hotels, et cetera."
Years-long waiting lists for public moorings and the instant success of private marinas like Ko Olina prove there is a huge demand for boating facilities in Hawaii. Maybe 2007 will be the year our politicians will finally recognize our state's boating potential.