PEWAUKEE, Wis. (SPECTRUM NEWS) — Wisconsin boat dealerships are seeing an increase in customers purchasing boats this summer.

You may be seeing more boats on the water this year. That’s because Wisconsin boat dealers say their products are flying out the door.

“There’s a lot of people that want to go boating this year,” SkipperBuds Marketing Director, Betsey Arvai said.

For SkipperBuds, a boat dealership in Pewaukee, inventory is flying off the shelves. You can see in one of their back showrooms at their location that there aren’t as many boats, as usual, filling the spots.

“Usually this room is packed wall to wall with pontoon boats they are all lined up, but we only have two over here. Usually, they are all lined up, we squeeze as many in as possible,” Arvai said.

Betsey Arvai is the marketing director for SkipperBuds and says at first they were worried customers wouldn’t have the money to spend on a boat this year amid the pandemic. However, she says she was pleasantly surprised by how many people are out buying.

“Customers want to go boating, they have the luxury of time this year. There is a lot of stuff that has been canceled, putt on hold postponed this summer,” Arvai said.

Even inventory like life jackets and water toys are hard to keep in stock. SkipperBuds says they are working with manufacturers to keep up with demand. Arvai says this is leaving many dealers across the state in the same boat.

“I think every boat dealer is experiencing what we are experiencing,” Arvai said.

She says the plus side is more families are using this time together but using an activity like boating to make new memories on the water that they may not have thought of doing before things were canceled due to the pandemic.

“We are really introducing boating to a whole new group of people who want to try it, who maybe haven’t tried it before, haven’t thought about out. We are seeing a lot of new boaters and families which is really exciting for the sport of boating,” Arvai said.