In an effort to help the region’s struggling boat dealers, the Northwest Marine Trade Association is holding a spring sale aimed at the state’s largest boating market: small boat owners.

To be held Friday through Sunday at Totem Lake Mall in Kirkland, the Spring Boat Show Sale will include about 200 new and used boats ranging in size from eight to 34 feet, plus accessory and services exhibitors.

John Thorburn, the NMTA’s director of communications and marketing, said the association hopes the event will attract sales for local boat dealers after a bleak start to the year.

“Creating an event that helps dealers sell boats at the start of the boating season was something we thought was necessary to give them a boost right now,” he said.

Since boats 26 feet and under account for 90 percent of sales in Washington annually, it made sense to focus the event on smaller boats, said George Harris, the NMTA’s vice president and boat show director.

“It’s an important segment,” Harris said. “When you go to the marinas or out onto Lake Union you see all these boats that are 30, 40, 50 feet long and that leaves a really strong impression that that’s boating in Washington state.

“But the numbers say clearly what boating looks like in Washington.”

The NMTA has held a spring boat show at the Everett Event Center each March for the past five years, but this year’s event was canceled due to the recession. Last summer, as boat sales dropped precipitously, the NMTA decided it needed to do something to help its members. It sponsored an August show focused on smaller boats at Qwest Field in Seattle. Almost 25 boats were sold over three days, and organizers are hoping the Kirkland show is at least that successful.

The upcoming sale is among several ways the NMTA is trying to help its members increase business. The association is offering advertising space for boat dealers and manufacturers on the Seattle Boat Show website, typically used mainly just in the months leading up to the annual event. It’s also partnering with KING 5 TV’s “Evening Magazine” show on a contest that will give 12 families the use of a new powerboat on Lake Washington for a week this summer.

To sweeten the deal for buyers at next weekend’s event, there will be banking representatives on site to help with financing, along with appraisers. Boat owners are encouraged to tow their boats to the show for trade-ins, Thorburn said.

“The idea of people bringing their boats to an event and driving home with another one the same day, that doesn’t usually happen,” Thorburn said.

The NMTA is underwriting the $75,000 cost of the event, and Harris said there’s been strong interest in the event from dealers. It’s a marked contrast from previous years, he said, when dealers were often too busy delivering on boat sales to participate in a spring show.

“They’re hungry right now and they want to sell some boats, so there’s a lot of interest,” he said. “It’s absolutely a buyers’ market right now.”

The Spring Boat Show Sales runs from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. May 1 through 3 in the parking lot at Totem Lake Mall.