Spending is in fashion at Fort Lauderdale boat show

The five-day boat show offers an early test for a broader rebound in luxury spending -- the kind of surge that would bode well for South Florida's winter vacation season.

The Collection, a Coral Gables dealership and one of the country's top sellers of pricey cars, reported Porsche sales increased 60 percent this summer as regular customers started buying again.
Hotels hope to stretch their 2010 rebound into the winter and erase loses brought on in part by Corporate America's newfound aversion to flashy conference destinations like South Beach and Las Vegas.

And the Art Basel fair, the country's largest exhibition of contemporary art, arrives in Miami Beach in five weeks -- a gathering that depends on wealthy collectors from around the world.

I think it's going to be a test for the haves,'' said Chris McCarty, director of an economic survey center at the University of Florida. I don't think we're back to the good times yet.''

Though large yachts get the attention, the Fort Lauderdale boat show -- like its Miami counterpart in February -- depends on smaller craft to drive sales and profits. Most boats for sale at the show are under 40 feet long, organizers said.

Last year, about 100,000 people attended the Fort Lauderdale show, which spans five locations, including the Broward County Convention Center. Though attendance was off 30 percent in 2009, organizers expect this year to be better as the economy improves and the marine business recovers from the dark days of the downturn.

Among the vessels on display this weekend: Cake Walk, a new 281-foot yacht and the largest built in the United States since the 1930s. The yacht's builder, Derecktor Shipyards in Bridgeport, Conn., did not release a purchase price for the yacht, and declined to be interviewed.

Callahan's colleagues at Moran spent Wednesday tending to a pair of smaller crafts: the 223-foot Kismet and the 247--foot Northern Star. Both were tied next to each other at Fort Lauderdale's Sail Marina, held in place by ropes the size of fire hoses and buffered by fenders as large as wine casks.

Guests on Kismet can listen to a piano in the main salon, or sip cocktails at one of two full bars nestled among the ship's six decks (linked by an elevator, of course). Asking price: $130 million.