Sport: Boat Fever

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Caravans & Color TV. Boatmen are happily convinced that they are just beginning to tap the potential market. Banks like to lend money for new boats (the repossession rate is practically nil) and wives who once turned querulous at their husbands' seasonal desertion plead for bigger, headier boats. Boat clubs blossom in landlocked regions. In Arizona, where the boating public numbered only about 3,000 five years ago, there are now more than 30,000—and many of them fan out from Phoenix as far as 280 miles to find water. There was scarcely a man-sized boat in Kansas ten years ago; today caravans of autos tow runabouts and outboard cruisers 361 miles from Wichita to Oklahoma's Lake Texoma. The seven-state Tennessee Valley region accommodated fewer than 10,000 boats on 24 TVA-created lakes in 1947; last year the count ran to more than 45,000. Denver had five fulltime boat dealers two years ago; 49 are making a good living today. The boom has also brought with it 10,000 service facilities ashore that range from simple splintered mooring places to multimillion-dollar marinas that offer plug-in water, electric and telephone connections at dockside, nightclubs, marine supply stores and children's playgrounds.

The newcomers name their craft for women (Miss Sal, Lulu, Shady Lady), men (Jim Jam, Little Bub, Crafty Chris), in memeriam (Last Cent, Mama's Mink, Overtime), music (Rock 'n' Roll, Intermezzo), the sea (Blue Water, Sea Legs); little boats get little names (Yap Yap, Pixie); big ones get big names (Delphine, Trident, Chanticleer); and many are just hopefully witty (Tireless, Tubeless, Yacht-Ta-Ta). They doll up their boats with color TV sets, love to rig up the latest mariner's aids—radar, sounding devices, ship's-bell clocks, ship-to-shore telephones (more than 35,000). Their women wear cute nautical jewelry: port (red) and starboard (green) earrings, charm bracelets that spell i LOVE YOU in colorful International Code flags, mast-shaped scatter pins emblazoned with code flags reading K-U-Z-I-G-Y (International Code for PERMISSION GRANTED TO LAY ALONGSIDE).

Wind v. Gas. Such frivolities are often viewed with mixed feelings by the half a million or so sailboaters in the U.S., who pride themselves on skillful ability to match wits with wind, tides and currents, without the crutch of a gasoline engine. To many of them, powerboatmen are simply "stinkpotters." who think there is nothing more to know about seamanship than how to push a starter button and steer. They in turn suffer the derisive snort of "rag-haulers." The schism runs deep. After all, say the rag-haulers, we were here first.

The stinkpotters. some sailors claim, have demeaned all that is beautiful about life on the sea. They ignore the traditional rules of courtesy (always ask permission to come aboard, never wear leather soles on a deck, never touch polished brass), insist on such levity as cocktail flags—or worse, flags that show a ball and chain (wife aboard), or a battle ax (mother-in-law aboard). They will foul the fine, salty lines of nautical language with mere jibberish, cool their beer with CO fire extinguishers, are blissfully ignorant of the well-founded Rules of the Road.