Coronavirus Covid 19 and Marine Industry

I think ultimately it's a vendor and customer call. If as in SXSW there's a mass petition and protest on the part of attendees, they'll have no choice, but I don't see that happening. If the vendors say they're not doing it, they'll have no choice. However, what I see as the most likely scenario, subject to what happens between now and then, is you go on with the show and simply accept attendance as it is.

We face situations in business. Should we stay open? Should employees have to come to work? Well, the answer is I can tell them "no", they can't work, but I can never tell them "yes", they must. I can stay open and allow them, but I can never tell an employee to take a risk they feel they shouldn't. So, I see this much the same. If the show promoter felt it was absolutely wrong to have the show, they could cancel, but otherwise it's up to the vendors and the attendees.

There appears to be a trend toward banning gatherings of large crowds. Right now, the state of Washington is banning over 250 people indoors or outdoors. The Ohio Governor has issued a request, not an order, against indoor gatherings.

One thing being emphasized is the need to act quickly.

Back to the Palm Beach Show. I don't think Public Authority will stop it. However, based on what I'm seeing elsewhere, I do believe there's at least a 50% chance it will be cancelled or even stopped in the middle.

I base this on other types of shows happening today. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo was just shut down. It was scheduled to continue through March 22. It typically has 100,000 visitors each weekend, 2.5 million total, and generates $277 million. The Houston Mayor also is going to sign an Emergency Health Declaration. The Florida governor has already signed one.

With all respect to Alzira, the Knoxville boat show is small compared to this and was also earlier. Had the Palm Beach Show been last week, I don't think it would have been interrupted. I'm not saying the Palm Beach Show should be cancelled, just saying I think there's a high probability the way things are moving. We're seeing so many sports events cancelled or played without fans or moved right now, so there's a significant groundswell for cancelling events with crowds.

City after city is going to get economically hit by cancellations as are all those involved with such events.

How badly will a show cancellation impact the industry if it happens, not catastrophe, but some losses of business.

Additional update to show the movement: NCAA tournaments to be held without fans.

While the NBA tries to decide whether to pay to empty arenas or to take a hiatus, and extremely interest occurrence in Oklahoma City. Players were introduced, ready to start. OK team doctor spoke to officials and players left the court while they proceeded with the halftime show. Then came back and announced the game was cancelled. Now, two of the Utah Jazz players were sick. There's been no further announcement but clearly there was some fear of Covid 19 either with them or otherwise. Reason for cancelling was given as unforeseen circumstances. Something tells me tonight may be the last night of fans and maybe of play. Dallas Mavericks had about 12,000 fans vs. norm of 19,000. Other teams haven't disclosed crowd size and they aren't showing the Heat crowd.

Now ban on travel to and from Europe but seems to exclude the UK, guess because of Brexit but why on this no one knows. Has to impact the industry just as factory shutdowns are.

Update: A Jazz player who wasn't with the team tested positive and all NBA games suspended for now. Teams just playing out tonight's games.

Well, many yacht builders in China had an extended New Years shut down period. Now, all yacht builders in Italy face the same. Until yesterday, the builder we're dealing with was still going but not today. However, even as they continued they were worried about some items being available in the near future. We're at the hull stage so it was easy, but hardware and other things would soon be a problem. They have most of what they need to finish any boats at the mid stage of production.

Now, it's the uncertainty everyone faces. A week, easy. Two weeks, ok. But how long can individuals and companies go with no money coming in?

When you think of a lockdown, we can all go fine with no manufacturing for a month or more. We can go fine without shopping retail. What we can't do is go an extended time with no revenues to pay bills and as individuals with no paychecks to buy essentials and pay mortgages or rent. It's not the "things", but it's the bills paid by producing and selling the "things."

Many yacht builders are highly leveraged with huge amounts of debt. But then can lenders force things? Not really in position to do so, so then the lenders have problems, banks are in trouble as they go a week or month with loss of revenues.

Today we face a health crisis, but then the financial crisis. Bigger than the last recession? Definitely if we have a lockdown for any period. Bigger than the depression? To the yacht industry, the threat is huge. If people suffer huge financial losses from this, they won't be buying boats. Alzira mentioned a recent show. Well, we recently placed an order for a boat. We'll completely honor it. However, today we wouldn't be placing it and likely would be delaying it at least a year.

I don't know how this will hit the US. Will we be like Germany or Italy? Will we just curtail public gatherings or have a total lockdown? The real threat to the boating industry isn't the production shut down, it's the potential of a sales drop like 2008. We could have a year or more with virtually no new boats sold. I hope it's not like that. I hope most countries have moved soon enough and strongly enough to avoid both health and financial disaster. But the threat to the boating industry is loss of sales for an extended period of time.

Excellent. I'm a big of a germaphobe and do all those things you mention. Primary physician's offices, labs, hospitals and pharmacies are the places to be avoided and on my list. I see people at even pharmacy drive throughs using the pen they're handed that the person ahead of them with the flu or even worse contagious diseases just used.

Belle has called me Monk, after the tv show, but I always use my own pen, I use wipes, I use gloves, even masks in some situations. I use gloves to pump gas, because I hate the smell of gas.

I also hate not being able to control my environment. Our trip home from Italy, we chartered. That's one business doing great right now, but we were before Covid 19. I could never get on a cruise ship even before this, giving up all control, fearing flu and norovirus.

Elevator buttons I use pen or car key or anything but don't touch.

Public restrooms frighten me and I'll do anything possible to wait until home and go to extremes if I have to use one.