July 14, 2026

I was out on my deck much of Canada Day and the weather was glorious, but I had been in the sun quite a while and I went in about 4:30 or 5:00 and started doing things in the house. I walked past the window about an hour later and the sunny day was gone, replaced by a sooty grey sky and winds that were bending the trees way over. Branches were flying around, the livingroom windows were visibly flexing in and out and then there was a loud crash. Within a few minutes, the front has passed and things were calm, but the temperature had dropped from 34 C to 24 C in minutes.

The crashing was from two big sections of aluminum flashing that hit the house. Inspection after the weather had passed showed that the sheets of aluminum were not from my house or any of my neighbours. It may have been a twister that hit and I learned later that two people had been killed. I live at the south end of Lake Simcoe and the people were out on SUPs without lifejackets or PFDs. The weather hit without much warning. We know people don’t want to hear warnings about PFD wear, but it’s our responsibility as an industry to put those warnings out.

In this column last week, we wrote about the ongoing discussions around mandatory PFD wear and the two Canada Day SUP fatalities clearly show the result of not being prepared for a sudden storm.

OK – we are going “light” this week with some good advice about launch ramp etiquette shared by the CanBoat people. Again, you are welcome to make use of this material in your own customer communications. We will have a steady stream of useful information that you can use, coming out all summer. Watch for it and take advantage of the opportunity.

The highlight of my week last week, was the Boating Ontario meet and greet hosted at Hucks Marine Resort in the Thousand Islands. This is a full-service marina with boat sales, repair, storage, slips and a store, all in a very impressive resort. For those in the business, it’s well worth investigating.

One more thing that’s an uncommon story for Boating Industry Canada News Week Digest is the “Smart Prototypes Summit”. This is a cutting-edge event for engineers and designers that is focused on “vehicles” and automation but it’s free to attend, it’s held at Multimatic in Michigan and for a young designer, boat builder or manufacturer, it could be a real eye-opener.

There is lots going on this summer. We will be searching for the news for you.

Andy Adams – Editor