Hatteras no longer building yachts?

Only Johnny Morris knows. This was a Bass Pro/White River Marine Move and all production tied up with Mako and Ranger Saltwater and Hatteras SF's. They initially talked about redeveloping the line but then just removed it with no further comments. Has it gone the way of Cabo?

I've found that lines removed are easily forgotten. Tollycraft, Post, Christensen, Trinity.

The White River group is very tight lipped.

An interesting aside. White River doesn't even list Hatteras among their brands on their website. Apparently trying very much to keep them separate. Guess Tracker and Hatteras don't fit together.

The decision making is not known. Were the MY's profitable as many say, or perhaps not as much so. The space they took and the time they took building can be used to build a lot of very profitable small boats. Perhaps MY's did ok, but just really didn't maximize the profit per sq ft and per worker. Just a wild number but in the space it took to build one 100' MY and over the time it took which often was 2 years or more, you could build 70 or so 33' Mako's. I think you'd increase sales dollars by 50% and margin by 200%.

I don't think any of the mentioned boats are the reason Hatteras isn't producing MY's. They are, themselves. Slow and inefficient builders. No changes. No lower helm. Nothing to do with competition. They still had orders. I know of several orders turned down. I think the Hatteras buyer is more likely to turn to OA or someone. The 75 and 95 were nice boats, just poorly marketed and took far too long to build and their building of everything at Hatteras was inefficient. When a brand dies, it's seldom due to the competitors, it's from within.

The orders I'm speaking of were firm orders through dealers and were standard boats. Nothing unusual or controversial. At least one was right before the sale and put on hold and another right after the sale and I'm not sure on the third.

Larger pool is always nice, but Hatteras was booked well out. If you can only build a couple per year of a model, really doesn't matter if you have three customers or you have 20 waiting.

I heard from a very reliable source this past weekend that there was a clean up in New Bern that involved the crushing and removal of some Hatteras molds and all the remaining Cabo molds. If you search for Cabo Yachts online their website is no more and zero activity on social media on years. Sad to see two once great companies fall the way they have.

The facility was full. Orders into the future. New orders very standard. While I believe they needed changes, it wasn't keeping the orders away. I think in the future it might have.

Not only did they bring in the lines to maximize production, they've expanded production and continue to do so. Main limitation today is hiring enough employees fast enough. Today though more profits in Mako and Ranger Saltwater than in Hatteras MY even assuming solid order books for all.

Yes, the Cabo site was taken down some time ago, again with no announcement or fanfare.

What is sad is that they wouldn't sell the Cabo brand. It's like a selfish child. They don't want it, but don't want anyone else to have it. Versa wouldn't and now White River won't.

Cabo was a beautiful boat for a minute.

Well, they refused to fill orders, so that's the contradiction. MY line might not have been growing but it was still selling.

This is not an unusual move for White River to buy capacity as much as brand. I've seen manufacturers in other industries buy companies because they needed the capacity for their existing lines and then shut down some lines of the acquired company.

As to demand, Hatteras MY's are not all that has grown old. Their SF's have needed some upgrades as well. Viking has left them in their wake. Even Jarrett Bay has taken business. Brunswick sat on Hatteras and did nothing with them. Versa did the same. Versa thought the brand was worth far more than it is. The ultimate buyers put some value on the name but a lot of value on the manufacturing capacity for their boats. They now talk about "Heritage with a New Beginning" but haven't clued us in yet on that beginning. Do notice though their SF line has now shrunk to 4 boats. The 45 (really a Cabo heritage), the 59, 65 and 70. They talked initially about some changes there and new methods, but haven't seen it yet. The reality is White River has pushed their plans on Hatteras to a back burner while they build Mako and Ranger Saltwater as fast as they can.

sad to say nothing stays the same forever
thinking back over the years, how many US builders of fiberglass yachts (40 - 70 ft.) are still around and building in that niche, not many i can think of
other than builders previously mentioned a short list of a few i recall.....
Bertram, Chris-Craft, Concorde, Trojan, Pacemaker, Gulfstar, Stephens, Egg Harbor, Matthews, Ocean, and now it appears Hatteras, surely many more i have forgot

Hatteras wasn't doing things to build more of anything. Their investors were just planning the exit. They've been through years of owners looking only for the way out.

Now they have owners with plans but other than building Mako and Ranger Saltwater, we don't know the plans.