They may want to start thinking about people who boat in.

Boat traffic along the coast is growing and the yachting set is generally affluent, representing the sort of visitor that Gov. Mark Sanford believes South Carolina needs to do more to attract.

Statistics on visitors who drop anchor here aren't as readily available as they are for air and road travelers. But there is evidence that transient boating -- particularly big-yacht transient boating -- is on the rise. Between 1993 and 2001, the number of 80-foot-plus yachts in the United States almost doubled, a trend that's continuing today.

Charleston, with more and bigger slips available, relatively cheap docking rates, deep channels and an abundance of shopping and tourist attractions within walking distance of many marinas, is poised to capitalize.

"This is as nice a place as you can stop," said Bill Lawrence, who is in town for about six weeks on the Red Sky, a 100-foot sailing yacht.

Lawrence should know; he's been sailing up and down the East Coast for more than 20 years. He recently came here from Antigua, and he'll make for Bermuda in a few weeks before heading north to Rhode Island for summer.

Unlike a lot of captains that travel the Intracoastal Waterway, Lawrence doesn't need to stop frequently; his boat's 143-foot mast helps him keep fuel consumption down. What's more, there are a lot of places that don't have channels or docks big enough to accommodate a 100-foot boat and, if the captain of a megayacht is looking for the shortest way to get from, say, Florida to New England, the ship is going to pass well offshore of the coastal dent that is South Carolina.

But Lawrence is here by choice, and he can stop in more easily than in past years because he is tied up at the Charleston City Marina's new megadock, a 1,500-foot structure built with the biggest private crafts in mind. The marina got the OK for the expansion in the mid-1990s and started building the dock after receiving $1.2 million in federal money in 2002. In its application for the grant, the city estimated the new dock would bring a $690,000 increase in annual local spending. This is the first full transient boating season -- fall through spring -- that the dock has been open.

Lawrence said the megadock is quickly gaining favor with the higher tiers of the boating world.

"It doesn't take long for word to get around," he said. "Rather than do three trips to the islands, people might start doing two trips down there and one here."

There were about 10 big boats tied up to the new dock late last week, mostly from the Northeast. The dock can accommodate about 30 100-foot vessels.

From May 2003 -- when the megadock opened -- through February, the City Marina booked a 72 percent increase in transient business, compared with the year-earlier period.

Tied up at some of the other slips around the marina last week were a few of the relatively smaller boats that have always made a habit of stopping through here on their way up and down the Intracoastal Waterway.

The owner of one, Joe DiCenzo, a native of Warwick, R.I., has been docked at the City Marina since Christmas. He owns a marina back home, which he turned over to his son a couple of years ago. Since then, he and his wife have headed south for the winter on Romance II, their 61-foot motorboat.

Despite the fact that he brought his own bed and kitchen, DiCenzo has been a tourism advocate's dream. He has rented a car for the entire stay and hit a bunch of tourist attractions and restaurants. He has also spent about $1,100 for his slip and $12,000 getting his boat worked on. "If I could only keep my wife out of the shops downtown," he said, joking. "I try to tell her that we've got to pay just to haul that stuff back."

Boats like Red Sky and Romance II are hard to miss, but they've been sailing under the radar of South Carolina tourism promoters.

The state Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department is putting almost an unprecedented quarter of never specifically tried to pitch the Palmetto coast to yachtsmen.

In the mid- and late 1990s, when a well-publicized around-the-world sailing race started and finished in Charleston, PRT started knocking around the idea of a coastal touring guide. But the race eventually went elsewhere and state budgets got tight.

"We were in sort of an expansive situation and we were saying, 'OK, who have we not really talked to at this point?' " said PRT spokesman Marion Edmonds. "We had no idea of whether it was a tiny market or a huge market. ... But it was obviously a very affluent group of people."

About 300 transient boats dock in state waters on any given night, according to a 1999 study by the University of South Carolina. In the course of a year, these boaters drop about $10.5 million on their way up or down the coast. The city of Charleston has estimated that transient boaters each spend about $340 a day, compared with about $225 for the average tourist.

Cognizant of the potential to tap into more of that business, Kiawah Island Golf Resort is targeting transient boaters as it pitches The Sanctuary, its new $125 million hotel scheduled to open in June. The resort is offering a special package, including transportation, to those who dock at nearby Bohicket Marina.

Charleston's Convention and Visitors Bureau has been slightly more aggressive with respect to winning transient boater visits.

It has helped pitch a number of maritime festivals and races, including a tall ships show coming in June. Still, the CVB doesn't consistently target boaters in any specific media campaign. It is hoping to draw more leisure boaters and will focus on doing so in the future, but so far it's sticking to the high-end travel and Southern magazines, according to CVB Deputy Director Perrin Lawson.

"The types of people with a million-dollar yacht are probably reading many of the publications we regularly market with," Lawson said. "It's certainly a niche market -- a small niche market -- but hand in hand with that is that this is an extremely wealthy demographic."

People in the boating industry believe tourism promoters are missing out.

"This state focuses on history, the Civil War and golf, with the exception perhaps of Spoleto," said L.J. Wallace, who DJs a weekly radio show called "Water's Edge" on 730 AM. "I think that promoting Charleston and the Lowcountry area as a boating destination is greatly underestimated."

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