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Show THBNt!0l7 Showing boats is a pastime that has sailed through some interesting aspects of U.S. history. THEN: When the National Motor Boat Show premiered in New York in 1905, it was in a class by itself. It was the only boat show in the world. Yachting was the exclusive pastime of the rich the owners own-ers of large steam yachts and sailing craft complete with full crews. The show featured a huge tank with many display dis-play boats floating in an artificial arti-ficial lake to prove that newfangled new-fangled creations called boats would really work in water and 25,000 people turned out to witness that feat. NOW: Today, more than 67 million Americans' consider themselves boaters, and nearly all crew their own craft. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the National Na-tional Boat Show and more than 4 million people are expected ex-pected to attend 176 boat shows nationwide. (In case you think our arithmetic falters, fal-ters, there were no shows in 1908, 1919 and 1921, nor were there any during the war years, 1942-1946. There were two shows in 1907 and two shows in 1920.) |