U.S. trade officials are working with eight jet boat builders and a boat trailer maker, all in the Lewiston-Clarkston area, to capture sales of the boats in Europe.

Janet Bauermeister, director of the U.S. Department of Commerce's Spokane Export Assistance Center, says the nine companies will entertain a delegation of distributors, agents, and dealers from Germany in early November in the Lewiston-Clarkston area after the delegation attends a U.S. boat show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Then, the Lewiston-Clarkston jet boat contingent will attend a huge boat show in Dusseldorf, Germany, Jan. 22-30, during which they will staff a Snake River Boat Builders Pavilion they'll rent there, Bauermeister says.

"I think the result, in a year or two, will be astounding," she says. "Europe buys what America buys."

Bryan Bentz, president and co-owner of Bentz Boats LLC, of Lewiston, says, "There are several companies, including ourselves, that have done some exports. This gives us an opportunity to introduce ourselves in markets that we may be somewhat familiar with."

A key, he says, will be having a chance to explain jet boat technology, which isn't broadly known.

The sturdy welded-aluminum jet boats use converted automobile engines to run pump-jets, which collect water from under the boats and eject it in a powerful jet from a nozzle in the stern. Because the boats don't use propellers, they can operate in just a few inches of water, can avoid many rocks and other obstacles that other boats would hit, and can run up brawling rivers such as the Snake, Salmon, and Clearwater.

"You don't have to worry about prop strikes or groundings," Bentz says.

Gary White, of P'Chelle International, a Tri-Cities marketing firm that is working as a consultant in the export effort, says that while European countries don't have many welded-aluminum boats, it's believed that the jet boats might have ready uses in law enforcement, commercial applications, leisure, and recreation.

Bauermeister says that while she was doing research on how to help the Lewiston-Clarkston companies land European sales, one of her counterparts, Paul Warren-Smith, a senior commercial specialist in Frankfurt, Germany, for the Department of Commerce, was preparing an effort to bring European companies to the Fort Lauderdale show. They began working together, and in June, Warren-Smith and Klaus Emil Schneiders, editor of Skipper Boote Und Yachting, a German magazine, visited the Lewiston-Clarkston area, and Schneiders piloted some of the boats. Bauermeister says Schneiders has said the magazine will publish a series of articles on the jet boats.

Seven of the nine Lewiston-Clarkston companies have bought plane tickets and reserved hotel rooms for their representatives to attend the Dusseldorf boat show, and the other two companies, which are the biggest of the nine, are making their own arrangements to attend, White says. He says the recession hit the jet boat makers hard last year.

"What we're seeing is their business is coming back this year," he says. "Some of the guys told us they laid off half of their employees last year. They're starting to hire back."

The companies are Aztec Fabrications Inc. (Phantom Jet Boats), Bentz Boats, Custom Weld Boats, Gateway Trailers, Hells Canyon Marine, Renaissance Marine Group Inc., Riddle Marine Inc., Thunder Jet, and SJX Jet Boats Inc., which is based up the Clearwater from Lewiston in Orofino, Idaho.

"We're optimistic that opening lines of communication and showcasing our crafts will lead to new opportunities," says Doug Riddle, of Riddle Marine. "We know things won't happen right away. We're flexible and can easily customize to handle specialized needs of boaters all over the world."

First, though, the jet boat makers and Gateway Trailers will have to work through "five months of pretty solid classes" in which they'll learn about tariffs, distributorship agreements, packaging requirements, licensing, payment options, and protecting intellectual property, while also working to qualify for a so-called "CE mark," which would let them sell their products anywhere in the European Union, White says.

Bauermeister, who will make the trip to Dusseldorf, expects that Commerce Department colleagues in Spain, Italy, and other European nations besides Germany will bring groups of potential customers to the show to meet the Lewiston-Clarkston jet boat makers.

"We're looking at all of Europe" as a potential market for the jet boats, she says.