“We are bringing Toyota’s quality, technology and experience to the boat business,” said Doug Plescia, VP-general manager of the division.

The Epic is powered by the same V-8 cylinder engines used in Toyota’s luxury Lexus division’s GS 400 and LS 400 sedans, and SC 400 coupe. Toyota projects it will sell 500 of the boats via 30 U.S. dealers from August through next July.

Fry/Hammond/Barr, Orlando, is handling, having won the account last year. The agency’s first work for the marketer used teaser ads that broke in May boating magazines, with the theme “Prepare for a civilized rush.”

Touting Toyota’s Reputation
The ads tout Toyota’s automotive reputation for quality, dependability and reliability with headlines like “Introducing another dependable vehicle from Toyota minus the wheels,” said Pete Barr Jr., exec VP-agency services.

The water ski boat segment is relatively small, with annual sales hovering around 8,000 annually, Mr. Barr said. “Even though a name like Toyota begs national TV advertising, ski boats is a pretty narrow category,” he added.

However, Toyota Marine plans to run ads on cable TV sports channels next year, said a spokeswoman.

The number of U.S. recreational boat owners has hovered between 15 million and 16 million since 1988, according to estimates by the National Marine Manufacturers Association, a trade group. The retail market last year totaled $19 billion, up from $17.7 billion in 1996, the association estimated.

“Most boat manufacturers don’t spend a lot on advertising and stick to vertical books,” said Mel Medrich, vice chairman creative services at Stone, August, Medrich, a Troy, Mich., shop that has had the Hatteras Yachts account for 18 years.

Hatteras spent $306,000 in measured media last year, according to Competitive Media Reporting.

Richard Amann, publisher of Hachette Filipacchi Magazines’ Boating, said that while boatmakers “do undermarket themselves,” Toyota and its strong brand equity may shake up the industry. “The idea of branding is totally foreign to” current boat marketers, he added.

He can’t blame the Clinton Administration, which badly wants a pact with Beijing and pushed hard to get it. U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky even made an eleventh hour trip to Beijing to meet with Zhu. On Mar. 30, however, those talks broke down. “We have serious disagreements a whole host of them,” says Commerce Secretary William M. Daley, also in China to discuss trade. “The expectation that this would have been done before Zhu’s visit the hype around that may have been a little high.”

The basic disagreement: China refuses to give a specific timetable for adhering to all of the group’s rules, such as ending protective tariffs and eliminating quotas. China also wants to dole out concessions as it sees fit to a few select U.S. companies such as Motorola, Boeing, and two U.S. insurance companies to be named later.

The administration, with backing from most of the U.S. business community, is standing firm. Barshefsky has asked for a specific timetable with written guarantees that China will lower tariffs, eliminate quotas, and allow the sale of exports without requirements for going through Chinese intermediaries.

NO DEAL. The lack of progress on WTO could place further strain on China-U.S. relations. But many U.S. business interests formerly China’s biggest boosters in Washington now object to rewarding China for rank protectionism. Financial services and farm groups, in particular, are against allowing Beijing into the WTO on its own terms. “We are not looking for a deal at any price,” says Caiman J. Cohen, president of the Emergency Committee for American Trade, a coalition of exporters.

Given the rancor in Congress toward China, the Administration feels it needs a unified front by business to give any deal a chance. “If the Administration signed a weak deal without business support, any complaining industry would be used by Congress as an example of insufficient progress,” says Robert Vastine, chief of the Coalition of Service Industries, which represents financial services, telecom, and computer companies.

In fact, while Zhu is offering to reduce a few tariffs and raise a few quotas, business lobbies say that Beijing has actually moved backward. The powerful farm lobby points out that China, which has been the fastest growing market for U.S. soybeans, is proposing to impose a new quota on soybeans. “If we do not resolve these issues now while we have leverage, we’re not likely to do it in the future,” says Audrae Erickson, a lobbyist for the American Farm Bureau Federation.

The Administration hasn’t ruled out a deal later this year, perhaps before the December meeting of the WTO in Seattle. But meanwhile, Zhu will have to be content with a White House dinner or two.

You won’t need tabs to get on plane in your freshwater rig, true not unless there’s something drastically amiss in the power to weight ratio or the pitch of the prop. But tabs can give you a better ride, keep you dry and make your boat safer and more versatile.

When it comes to rough water ride, tabs are a big benefit. They allow you to drop the bow of the boat, bringing the sharp forward vee into first contact with the waves. This eliminates the hammering you get otherwise. (Note that this works only for vee-bottom boats flat-bottoms and semi-vees won’t benefit from this use of tabs.)

Second, tabs allow you to level the beam of the boat. If your 320 pound fishing buddy creates a distinct lean to port, just dropping the tab a bit on that side will level the boat. If you’re running in the trough that is, through waves coming from either side you can make your boat effectively “taller” by using the tabs to raise the upwind side several inches. This knocks down a tremendous amount of spray.

Finally, if you need to get on plane really quick, as you might if you find yourself fishing a little pothole surrounded by shallow flats, completely lowering the tabs on both sides before you drop the hammer means you’ll pop out fast with almost no bow rise.

Of course, you can do some of this stuff with the trim control on your outboard. But when you do, you generally change the running angle of the prop to a less efficient attack angle. That means less speed and poorer fuel economy. With the tabs, you can leave the motor trim where you want it and still play with the running attitude of the hull.

The best known manufacturers of small boat tabs are Bennett (954-427-1400; www.bennetttrimtabs.com) and Trim Master (800-348-5781; www.trimmaster.net).

Both company Web sites have lots of information about installing tabs yourself, as well as product lists. Prices range from around $335 to $400 for tabs suitable for bass and walleye rigs.

Quick Tip
PROTECT ‘EM Trim tabs live a dangerous life on trailered boats. If you leave them down when the boat is on the trailer, the bunks are likely to bend the plates or break the actuator arms. Cheap insurance is an automatic retractor. When you turn off the ignition, the tabs come up. (Around $55, 954-427-1400; www.bennetttrimtabs.com)