Tidelines: Aussie awards

Savage Boats of Laverton, a division of Mercury Marine, won the Victorian Boating Industry Association's exporter of the year award for its marketing efforts in New Zealand, Europe, the South Pacific and Asia. Ronstan International took the award for outstanding achievement in manufacturing, and the company's managing director, Alistair Murray, was named 2002 industry achiever.

Warranty stretch

Bombardier Recreational Products has extended its warranties by a year on Evinrude and Johnson 2002 model outboards sold by September 30 this year, and on all 2003 models. The warranties apply to outboards sold to recreational users from authorised dealers in North America. The company says the guarantee shows the confidence BRC has in the quality of the motors as well as offering its dealers a sales advantage.

Busy online

The Boating Industry International trade group says traffic on its website continues to break records. For the first half of this year, user visits topped last year's figure by 25 per cent. To the end of June, BII Online hosted 1,174,216 visits compared with 937,237 for the same period last year.

Publisher Humphrey S. Tyler says the electronic daily marine industry newspaper is giving its advertisers what they need and its core readership of more than 20,000 an effective service. He expects user visits to top 2 million this year. Available on Boating Industry

WaterWatch

Winter racing continues on the Waitemata this weekend. Highlights include:

Saturday: Winter series (RNZYS and VCC).

Sunday: Canterbury two-handed and open boats series, harbour course (RAYC); short-handed winter series (RYC); local race (CCYC); winter series (BBYC).

Clubs and organisations planning events on the Waitemata and Manukau Harbours should ensure details are in the Harbour Events Calendar and the 2003 Boaties Book. Call Hans Swete at the Auckland Regional Council Maritime Operations Centre (09 3612405) or Enviroline (0800 806040)