Boats get cut loose from the Budget

Crain's Chicago Business reports:

Three years ago, with his construction business prospering, Frank Montana bought a 40-foot express cruiser for $115,000 and quickly became a familiar sight at Diversey Harbor. His "Club Montana" parties drew 50 or 60 friends — new and old — to his boat each weekend, and he reveled in the attention.

Then his industry was double-punched by the harshest housing downturn in more than a decade and the subprime mortgage meltdown. Mr. Montana had to dissolve his demolition and excavating contracting company.

Unable to afford the $2,700 monthly payment on his boat, named "The Storm Hunter," he called the bank earlier this year and surrendered it.

"It was the first thing to go," says Mr. Montana, 36. "Being able to support it was just too tough."

As boating season begins Thursday, the industry and its aficionados are bracing for choppy waters. Sales of new boats are down, fuel prices are up and some boaters are dropping the pastime outright or scaling back gas-guzzling excursions on the lake in favor of hanging out in the harbor.

Tony Cimino, commodore of the Chicago Yachting Assn., an umbrella group for the area's various maritime interests, expects to see boaters making fewer trips across the lake this season.

A trip from Burnham Harbor to Racine, Wis., for example, is about 70 miles. If it takes about 300 gallons of fuel at $5.39 a gallon, which is what Mr. Cimino just paid to fill his 48-foot Carver powerboat, that's a cost of more than $1,600 for a day trip.

We suspect many people don't feel $1,600 is worth a day trip.