Sunsation’s ‘Winter Boating On Lake St. Clair’ Video Destined To Become A Holiday Classic

Among my family members when we get together for the holidays, the annual debate revolves around one delicate question. And for the most part, we are equally divided on the answer.

Is “Diehard” a Christmas movie?

The answer, at last in my realm, skews along gender lines. Most Trulio-based or associated women say no way, at which point the discussion typically segues into “Love Actually.”

No launch congestion or no-wake zones and the waterway to yourself. Who wouldn’t be attracted to that on a 24-degree day?

Trulio-based or associated men say, absolutely and often anoint it “the best Christmas movie ever made.”

Men, you see, are just big kids are heart. We like to see stuff, along with the bad guys, blow up. We like seeing Bruce Willis as a wisecracking, tough New York cop with a heart of lightly tarnished gold. Cover it all in pretty holiday wrapping and—bam—you have the Christmas movie of the ages. At least for guys.

Wayne Schaldenbrand of Sunsation Powerboats in Algonac, Mich., may be 67 years old but he looks half of that and often behaves as if he’s half of that. Last time I saw him, he was doing burnouts in his muscle-car on the polished epoxy floor of a facility I am not at liberty to disclose.

And because Schaldenbrand is like most men—this one included—an adolescent at heart, his new “Winter Boating On Lake St. Clair” video shot, edited and produced by Brad DiMaggio, the same guy who handles much of the same for the Speed On The Water “In The Lead” video series, is simply brilliant.

“You own everything,” Schaldenbrand says, like a lad unwrapping Hot Wheels cars on Christmas day, as he describes the experience in the three-minute video. “You own the ramps, the no-wake zones are gone and nobody is in the lake—some duck hunters that aren’t real happy, but I’ve never seen their decoys.

“Other than that, you own it,” he adds, then chuckles. “I’ve been out there before, real early in the spring, and buzzed the shoreline and waved to the ice fishermen.”

And then he reveals what really draws him to winter boating on Lake St. Clair.

“I’m an extremist,” he adds. “If it’s outside the category, I’m going to be there. If you’re not living on the edge you’re taking up too much space.”

Eat your heart out, “Diehard.” There’s a new Christmas movie in town.