At last year's car shows, by contrast, the news wasn't about biggest and fastest but about compactness, breakthrough fuel technologies, lower consumption and emissions. With the dual-fuel Toyota Prius Hollywood and the UK government's car-of-choice, perhaps it is time for the motorboat industry to take fuel-related environmental concerns a lot more seriously.

Has the industry realised that it's fast becoming the last bastion of environmentallyunfriendly consumption? Probably not.

Led by the top end of the market with the current enthusiasm of the global wealthy for ostentatious and ever larger superyachts, motorboating appears to occupy a charmed world of its own; a world in which the increasingly well-established principle that "the polluter pays" doesn't apply. Witness in particular, the attempts by the British Marine Federation (BMF) to lobby for a renewed derogation on duty for red diesel, currently taxed at 6.4p a litre.

It's a stance that would make very little sense to any neutral observer to whose attention it was brought.

The serious environmental and marketing problem that retaining this anachronistic derogation brings to the industry is that cheap fuel places a very small premium on innovation in hull, boat and engine design, as they relate to emissions, oil depletion, wash, noise and economy.

As long as the easy and cheap answer to design questions remains to stick in a bigger engine, there's no incentive for boatbuilders to think anew.

In perspective Let's just put the economy (and ecology) question in perspective. A 40ft powerboat could consume 100 litres of diesel in an hour to travel 40 miles. A 100 litres of diesel in a large family car (BMW 530d) would be sufficient for 850 miles. I know that at one level we're talking chalk and cheese, but the point is that BMW and its competitors have been under the fuel economy cosh for at least a couple of decades (a cosh which has been wielded to a large extent through government policy) and their cars have become both better, by any measure, and more economical.

If diesel for leisure marine use was priced at parity with road diesel, then the boating community would be far more motivated to look at improving fuel economy for the benefit of its customers and the environment. And it should.

Make no mistake, diesel is unpleasant stuff. Every litre liberates 2.68kg of CO 2. That 40ft motorboat on its 40 mile journey puts over a 1/4 ton of CO 2- the prime cause of global warming - into the air.

The RYA/BMF/Federation of Petroleum Suppliers report Seeing Red defending red diesel quotes UK leisure marine use as approximately one twentieth of one per cent of the total UK diesel consumption. This equates to, roughly, 10 million litres of diesel, or 27 million kg of CO 2.But that's not all - diesel emissions contain toxic and carcinogenic substances like arsenic, benzene, formaldehyde, nickel and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Over 40 by-products of diesel are listed by the US Environmental Protection Agency as hazardous pollutants. Burning diesel also creates particulates small enough to be inhaled, where they can cause or contribute to lung disease and other illnesses.

It gets worse. Red diesel is more harmful than road diesel.

Most UK road diesel is now ULSD (ultra low sulphur diesel).

Red diesel contains up to 2000 parts per million (ppm) of sulphur, while ULSD contains 50ppm.

Health hazard This difference makes red diesel more polluting and more of a health hazard.

This appalling level of environmental performance with significant potential human health impacts doesn't chime well with the industry's mantra that motorboating is a healthy and enjoyable lifestyle choice.

There is a strong feeling in Whitehall, moreover, that the UK derogation on red diesel will not continue for ever.

Rather than fight an ultimately pointless rearguard action, surely it would be more in the interest of UK boatbuilding to accept that environmental considerations rightly call for the phased ending of red diesel, and act now to mitigate the effects of changeover.

As with the motor industry this will best be done by tackling the design issues thrown up, in this case: hull form, vessel weight, fuel type and engine capacity, allied to marketing boating as being environmentally friendly.

Quite apart from tax-related and legal issues, attracting new motorboaters will require demonstrating that the activity is capable of being a good neighbour. Other water and beach users often feel that powerful motorboats are a hazard or a nuisance. Largely, this is because of the noise and the wash they dispense.

Whether displacement, semidisplacement or planing, powerboats operating at low speeds in harbours, rivers and estuaries create wash that affects moored and moving boats and can encourage the erosion of beaches and banks.

Push forward the throttles and displacement and semidisplacement hulls can affect boats and people hundreds of metres away. These problems are a result of hull form and power.

Price parity between red and road will incentivise the development of lower-wash, quieter designs which will be better, less-aggressive neighbours.

Under EU jurisdiction, red diesel derogation will likely end in the near future. The BMF makes clear in Seeing Red that a sudden end will damage the industry. Isn't it past time that the motorboat community recognises the bind it has got itself into by effectively ignoring the environmental issues of red diesel and agrees to a change-over from this unattractive, though currently addictively cheap, fuel?

Whatever the BMF's attitude, it is surely in all of our interests to take a more modern approach to our thinking as an industry about the environment.

Will we get visitors back to the boat show if we don't?