Leisure: Boats Ahoy

American boatniks, now 7,000,000 strong, have two great compulsions: to get out on the water, and to trade their boats in for something bigger and better. This week in Manhattan, rag-haulers and stinkpotters thronged the New York Coliseum to see the bigger and better at the 52nd National Motor Boat Show.

Predictably, the trend is to luxury and gadgetry. Small runabouts with rakish lines, chrome fittings, and decorator-styled upholstery look more and more like cars, presumably to attract diffident womenfolk. Oceangoing yachts sport bulkhead-to-bulkhead carpeting and baby blue staterooms. New compact radar...

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