By Steve Klamkin WPRO News
More than 160 boats are on display and hundreds of exhibitors are filling the halls of the Rhode Island Convention Center this weekend for the 22nd annual Providence Boat Show.
Governor Gina Raimondo rang a bell to open the show, and praised the marine industry as a key to helping to grow jobs and businesses in the state.
“If we’re going to turn Rhode Island around we have to have to focus on industries where we can be national leaders, and the boat industry, the marine industry is one where we have a competitive edge. We’re the Ocean State, we have a long history of this,” Raimondo said.
“We want to be making things in Rhode Island, and if that means boats and composites and marine equipment, so much the better,” she told a crowd of more than 150 industry leaders and exhibitors during Friday morning’s program opening the show.
“It’s so exciting this year,” said Wendy Mackie, Executive director of the Rhode Island Marine Trades Association, which took over the operation of the boat show in 2014.
“We have about 165 vendors, 164 boats, and 65 different special events happening throughout the weekend,” Mackie said. She added that boats ranged from kayaks, and the largest boat on display was 41 feet long.
During the opening ceremony, Bart Dunbar was presented the 2015 Boater of the Year Award. The President at Bowen’s Wharf Company, he chaired the effort to revitalize the sail training tall ship SSV Oliver Hazard Perry.
