Are we sure boating is unpopular just because it is expensive?

Or are there other reasons?

And are we sure it is actually unpopular, or is it the image that boating projects of itself that is?

Exact figures are elusive, but let’s start with a comparison to another sport that is certainly not cheap: skiing.

In Italy, there are about 2-3 million active practitioners: over 20 million ski days per year.

The average spend is €1,500-2,000 per season per person (up to ~€2,000 for a ski week, data from sources like ISTAT/Sport e Salute, Anef, and Federconsumatori).

Boating has more fragmented data: there are ~85,000 registered leisure craft and up to ~550,000 total boats (MIT for the first figure, Confindustria Nautica for the second).

These numbers translate into millions of people involved every year.

Owners, athletes, sailing school students, and occasional users.

Spending levels are highly variable but generally higher: from €1,000-3,000 per person for a charter week up to €5,000-15,000 annually for an average owner.

By average owner, I mean the owner of a 9-meter boat who stays at the lower end of spending if they are in the South and pay attention to fuel consumption, while costs soar if they are in the North, push the throttle, and go out often.

In short, boaters do not register a ski pass, but looking at orders of magnitude, the user base is comparable.

Boating, if looked at closely, seems unmeasured rather than niche.

However, the two worlds function in opposite ways: skiing is tracked consumption, accessible and concentrated in time.

Boating is more selective in terms of cost but distributes value throughout the season, transforming from an occasional expense into an experiential system.

In other words: skiing sells limited time (a week), boating sells continuity (an entire season), with higher perceived value and spending capacity.

The same reasoning could be applied to tennis: an enthusiast who plays a couple of times a week and also hires a coach spends about €4,000 every year.

And according to the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation, there are about 6.5 million active practitioners in Italy (with about 1.5 million registered members).

So the final spending and practitioner numbers paint a fairly clear picture: boating is not necessarily an activity with “crazy” costs.

What about buying the boat then?

Anything can be found in both the new and used markets.

I have always found it strange that no one compares the entry price of a boat with that of a motorcycle that costs as much as a car.

Calculating that the best-selling motorcycle in Italy over the last two years (about 4,000 units per year) is the BMW GS 1300, which costs at least €22,000 (starting at about €28,000 for the Adventure model).

For the same amount, you can find excellent used cabin boats: granted, as the size increases, you have to go further back with the year of launch.

But these are still objects that allow you to go on cruises and, certainly, many days at sea.

And if you look for a sailboat instead of a motorboat, the opportunities increase in terms of either size or, alternatively, youth.

Even the size is sufficient: for years I cruised far and wide across the Tuscan Archipelago with my family or a couple of friends on a 25′.

So is the problem the berths?

Both Confindustria Nautica and the MIT state that there are about twice as many berths as there are registered units.

Certainly, there is a strong territorial disparity and it doesn’t take into account those small boats that officially don’t exist but still occupy space.

In any case, it means that if there is a bottleneck, it is not clear where it is.

So what about their cost?

It is true, it varies a lot, but there are cooperatives and associations that charge members little more than the state concession costs, for an expense of a few hundred euros a year.

So?

If we limit ourselves to the numbers dictated by the euros a boater has to shell out, it doesn’t seem that the major dividing line is this.

No more than other sports considered “normal.”

The point is something else.

What keeps people away is, first and foremost, the way we talk about it.

We continue to sell it as a luxury instead of as something that can be done.

As long as we tell the story as a privilege for the few instead of a possibility for the many, it will remain for the few.

The narrative is the sore point, much more than the price.