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Photo courtesy of Tigé /// Market Trends /// expects the company's sales to end up flat or with slight year-over-year growth. "We've had growth in the tube business so we know it's still a very popular activity for people," she said. "I think the bigger thing there is the whole lifestyle piece where you get family and friends having a good time on the water and they want to be together, so you see more than one person out there at a time." To widen its audience, Full Throttle has developed more athletic tubes, including the Speed Ray models that have wing-like fins for added lift at speed. Surrette is executive vice president, general manager at O'Brien. He interacts with all aspects of the market, as the nearly 50-year-old company sells tubes, vests, kneeboards, skis, wakesurfers and wakeboards. While 2012 was a great year for the company, 2013 has been weaker in hard goods like boards and skis, while the towable tubes and PFDs have increased sales. Recent declines in boat usage have spurred the company to invest in stand-up paddleboards, which many dealers have also begun carrying. One challenge for O'Brien and others is that www.BoatingIndustry.com P42x47-BI13OCT-MarketTrends.indd 47 hard goods can last a very long time, while vests and tubes tend to wear out within a few years. Another factor is continued economic weakness, which has made higher-end sporting goods one of the last of the company's segments to recover. Surrette points to lackluster sales in the 19- to 24-foot runabout segment, which has shown to be the most influential category to monitor for sales of the company's hard goods. In the water sports equipment market, a challenging summer like 2013 can have lasting effects that ripple through the books beyond a year and impact product orders for the following season. Companies like O'Brien work for 12 months designing and producing products for a short, four-month-long selling season. That means if a summer is a dud or consumers dislike a certain style, Surrette said, it can take months of work to implement changes at the point of sale. Liquid Force, a high-end maker of wakeboards, wakeskates, wakesurfers and party accessories has seen a stronger year thanks to improving boat sales and dealers that ordered early and stocked up after a successful 2012 season. "Most inboard boat retailers, which makes up a large percentage of our dealer base, have reported solid boat sales and again, and that has a direct correlation … on how accessories like ours sell," said Wallace, vice president of sales and marketing at Liquid Force. Looking ahead to 2014, he sees wakesurfing as the company's biggest opportunity, even though the sport requires users to have a specific type of boat. "It seems like the [wakesurfing] sales continue to skyrocket year after year," he said. "While it is true that the limitations of what type of boat can be used hampers the potential to some extent, we definitely aren't close to the ceiling by any means." An early supporter of cable parks across the globe, Wallace said the parks are already a big factor in its business, with specific products aimed at cable enthusiasts. "We really believe in cable and know that it can only help grow our sport. While we all want to own boats, not everyone can," he said. "While boat riding is still our most important market, cable is a great market that continues to bring a ton of new participants into the sport." October 2013 | Boating Industry | 47 9/5/13 11:55 AM