What to buy after you buy the boat? You name it

It’s a crazy time to buy a boat. With everyone’s travel plans canceled earlier this year, there was a rush on boat dealers, who haven’t been able to replenish their inventory all summer. Used boats are a possibility, but don’t plan on waffling on a purchase, said Bill Irwin of Irwin Marine: “They can’t go home and think about it for a week, it won’t be in stock any more. And people are shopping everywhere, from different parts of the country. If they find something here, they’ll come and get it. We just had someone from Michigan come and pick up a nice pontoon boat,” Irwin said.

The boat is only the first thing customers purchase, he said. There’s a list of other necessities that must also be acquired: registration, GPS unit with navionics chart, fenders, anchors, boat hook, and others, Irwin said.

Once those are in hand, boat owners often then look to the fun stuff. A common next stop is with Gator Sign Shop, a small business in Gilford that puts vinyl decals on most of the boats on the western side of Lake Winnipesaukee.

Shannon Buttermore, owner of Gator Signs, said some of those decals are for registration numbers that have to be placed on the boat’s bow. The lion’s share, though, are for the boat’s name installed on the stern.

“It’s the majority of our business all year,” she said. The orders for boat names start a couple of weeks before ice-out and continue until November.

The cost to have a name put on your boat starts at around $200 and could go up to $500, depending on how much design work and re-work the customer requires. Gator Sign, which also has a T-shirt business, will throw in a free shirt with the boat name printed on it, Buttermore said.

“Boat names are our favorite to do, that’s where we get to be creative.” She said that most customers pick names that play with nautical terms, or which have a personal significance. One recent client, Gilford resident Gus Benavides, picked a name design that ticked both of those boxes.

Benavides’ boat now bears the name “Mae Day,” which is not only a homonym of the distress call “May Day,” it also is in honor of his late mother-in-law, who was named Mae. Mae and the Benavides family shared a love for all things Disney, so Gator Sign Shop designed a graphic using a font associated with that brand, and with orange and black coloring, reminiscent of the character “Tigger.”

Benavides was pleased with the result, as have been most of the owners of boats Buttermore decals. There was one day that went against that trend, though. She went to a marina to decal a customer’s boat, and the marina manager pointed her to a vessel. Except, it turned out to be the wrong boat, which she learned when she was nearly done with the job and the boat’s owner came down the dock.

“It wasn’t my fault!” she insisted.

Once the name is on the boat, the last step is to get a toy or two to play with while on the water. Bart Jeffreys, owner of Sports & Marine Parafunalia in Gilford, sells just about everything for a day of playing on the water except the boats themselves.

With the unusual interest in boating this year, he said, it’s been difficult to keep most of everything in stock. So, what’s his best seller?

“There’s a hundred best sellers,” he laughed. One product, though, has finally broken through into the top tier, he said: water mats, also called water carpets. They’re mats of thick foam which float on top of the water and can hold several people.

“We ran out of water carpets twice, which we don’t normally run out of. This week we got another delivery of one hundred, and if it gets warm this weekend, they’ll be gone by Sunday,” he said.

His store started carrying them five years ago, he said, and at first, people didn’t know what to do with them. Then, that summer, they were invited to a party at a lakeside home. His wife went around mid-day, and brought a water mat to put in the water to see what would happen.

“When I got there seven hours later, there were 12 kids on it,” Jeffreys said.

It has taken a few years for them to catch on in the Winnipesaukee community, but this year they certainly have. And for good reason, Jeffreys said. They are comfortable to lounge on, you can stand on them and play games, and they’re easier to get onto than a tube or raft.

Jeffreys stocks – or at least tries to stock – seven different sizes, ranging from six- by eight-feet to six- by 18-feet. Smaller mats are better for smaller boats, because they take up less space when rolled up, and the largest sizes are for use on the shoreline.

“There’s no climbing to get on it, there’s no effort to use it. That’s what opened my eyes to it, these are for everyone,” Jeffreys said. “The success of it has been astounding because it just works.”