Guilty as charged. The L Series got off to a great sales start but even those who loved their boats had a long list of things to be fixed. Reality is it was introduced before truly ready and never caught up. Then two entirely different engine approaches on the 59' and 65' with pods on the 59 and traditional on the 65. Just poorly executed. One other point and that is as many times as the employees in the Sykes Creek plant were jerked around, they never could get them back on their side. They never believed management and knew deep down the plant might be closed on them again. Whoa......it's deja vu all over again.
This about sums up that topic, already prepared for the inevitable: "MarineMax is the largest retailer of Sea Ray boats in the world, historically representing over 50 percent of Sea Ray’s worldwide sales. The Sea Ray brand accounted for approximately 23 percent of MarineMax’s fiscal 2017 revenue, according to a statement MarineMax issued on Monday. Sea Ray’s sport yacht and yacht division represented less than 10 percent of MarineMax’s rolling 12-month revenue in the period that ended March 31. The company believes its brand and product diversification will allow it to replace the Sea Ray sport yacht and yacht revenue. “Over the years, we have diversified our product offerings by adding complementary products and manufacturers, such that the sales of Sea Ray sport yachts and yachts as a percentage of our business declined to less than 10 percent on a rolling 12-month basis through March 2018,” said MarineMax CEO Bill McGill. “Brands such as Azimut, Galeon, Aquila and Ocean Alexander, have all been growing well and taking market share.”
Access to the side decks and flybridge are all integrated into the design making it all flow better for practical and design sleek reasons. Same goes with the interior layouts, especially on the main deck. In an Italian or European boat most of the things integrate more. American designs on the other hand are more utilitarian, and some peaces of furniture (exterior) look more like an after thought. In more recent designs the difference is not so big as it used to be, but in ten years ago or more the difference was huge.
Hard to picture what that means, unless it's that the flying bridge and side decks are like a Carver or Silverton MYs and SBs starting in about 2000 or so I think... Partly my fault, of course; the exteriors don't appeal to me so I rarely pay attention to magazine articles about them... OTOH, if a boat were to look like a new Sabre 54, I'd want to be all over that... assuming a big lottery win. -Chris
That is assuming SR operates the same as today minus two boat segments. But Brunswick will "reinvent" SR in their vision completely now. Baseline sales of $225M in 2017 as a starting point. While they are indicating product will be up to 40', don't be surprised if the "reinvention" process drops that figure much lower. And they will most likely focus in the tariff free OB markets primarily. Many changes to come. A good read , a roll-out of this magnitude was decided further ahead of today's tariff climate: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4184048-brunswick-bc-sea-ray-announcement-slideshow
Too many generalizations here. Flow and access has been well thought out on many US designs as well as interior design and this has been going on for years. Euro flair can be nice on the eyes but a pain in the ass to board and anchor. And beauty can be skin deep on many euro product, but an aceess and service nightmare beyond that point. Ferretti's being a case in point. We "benchmarked" quite a few of them and the dealer feedback was not very flattering. The main differences have been in the way boats are used in the Med vs US. European ownership is more crewed and less owner operated resulting in awkward "crew quarters" in tight spots on boats that would never have a crew in the US. Mooring styles and destination distances are also a factor.
The only boats that are superior to a Ferretti especially those build till 2005 has to be a sportfisherman from Cabo, Hatteras or Viking. Then yes we are speaking another level. Sea Ray Sedan Bridge or the big Carvers do not even toss a dime to a Ferretti of that period. You could remove an engine from a Ferretti 55 feet in one hour. Stairways that lead to a flybridge on a Sea Ray are an after thought, on a Ferretti is part of the boat, going to the side decks and how safer and flatter the side decks are on European builds. Going side deck on a Carver 530 or a Ferretti 53 is like night and day. Anyways to each his own. But Sea Ray sold a lot of sub 30 feet boats in the eighties and nineties in Europe, people move on to other makes and one more expensive for a few reasons. Off course European designs are made for stern to mooring, and lower floating pontoons. Tender position on the bathing platform has been going on in Europe since the eighties in Italy and 90s the rest.
Note that the reinvention indicates 24-40'. Not likely that Sea Ray will focus on outboard boats and that's Bayliner's game. Brunswick will remain a caretaker but don't expect to see them do anything innovative with Sea Ray. Furthermore, Sea Ray dealers in Europe can't sit around waiting for what might happen indefinitely. Now, the time of year is to Sea Ray's benefit as it's end of boat selling season. You keep talking like the tariff information was just today or yesterday. The coming event has been forewarned and the only thing that changed was it moved from July to June.
There is no "Not likely...." because things are going to change, thus, the reinvent. Boston Whaler is going to be the new Brunswick Boat Group Hub and all the "spokes' will rotate from there. Let's just see how the less than 40' statement turns out, we can revisit that in a year, like I said, do not be surprised.
Connecting the recent tariff kerfuffle to Sea Ray's long term, considerable and ongoing difficulties with new models and market share decline is the stuff of thin air.
My only connection was connecting it with them ending their attempt to sell, going from Plan A to Plan B. The tariff situation started lowering the value well in advance of final announcement and discouraging further the few interested buyers. Just think about this. You're negotiating and the price discussed is 100 (using numbers, not dollars) and you're thinking 90 so somewhat close but then you realize 15% less business and instead of 90 you're now thinking 75 and every bit of negotiation to that point is no longer valid. The parameters have changed completely. Too many moving and uncertain parts for Brunswick to hold out hope for a sale or Plan A. So, Plan B, which they'd had in their pocket, not a sudden new thought, now becomes the operable plan. There was always a "If we can't sell, this is what we do." Then there was the "We can't sell at any price we want in a reasonable time so we need to go on and make some moves." The sport yachts and yachts never fit the Brunswick reason for owning Sea Ray. Sea Ray and Bayliner were owned to sell motors and engines. The boats eliminated did not do that for Brunswick. So, back to building boats using "our" engines. An interesting side question, "Does this effectively kill Zeus as it eliminates their primary customer?"
You may assume I'm speculating and you may be wrong. I really don't care your opinion or your comments like that. I can't disclose names or companies or the sources of my information so fire away all you want.
Well, this is from the Brunswick statement... "Over the last several months, we have engaged in a thorough sale process for the Sea Ray business, which we believed would generate the highest value for our shareholders," Brunswick Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Schwabero explained. "Although there was interest in the business, the offers we received did not reflect an appropriate value for this premium brand, and did not meet our expectations. The lower value was largely due to the persistently weak financial performance of the yacht product category, which complicated and obscured the value of the remainder of Sea Ray." No mention of tariffs. I didn't listen to the next day conference call maybe they did then. If you are tip toeing around insider information of a public company good luck with that. If I seem curt I apologize. I'm worn a bit thin from all the end of the world hysteria being churned up on the news and social media these days.
No insider information as I've disclosed in my private message to you. Brunswick isn't going to disclose all the discussions they've had with potential buyers or the points at which they fell apart. Now, the reality is Sea Ray has very limited value. It decreases with any loss of foreign sales they encounter. It may or may not decrease with the loss of the large boats, doubt they really added any value. They're now a small boat company, built on stern drives, a diminishing part of the boating world, and with over 60% of their sales to one customer. That's really not a very good situation. As to end of world hysteria, I don't know, but as to many persons jobs impacted by what's taking place, that I do know.
Ummm Searay is making most of their models under 40' with outboards. I've seen several 35' ish foot bow rider express types with 3-350 hp verados……..formula too has gone all outboard (irrelevant to this thread).
You're right that they've added a tremendous number of outboards. In the surviving boats, they'll have 15 stern drives and 8 outboards. I wouldn't be surprised to see the outboards selling more than the stern drives. I could picture sales going 70/30 in favor of outboards as they move forward.