paulyjsob

What a shame..

https://www.polaris.com/en-us/news/c...x0nTDaNEmtFFdQ

Swift Buzzard

That is sad.....
I bet someone will buy them. I can see them with E-tec's hanging off the back!

jobowker

My 2009 Striper has always had an E-tec hanging off the back. I wanted it that way.

Thalasso

Just discontinuing certain models.

The company will continue to produce its Bennington, Godfrey, and Hurricane boat brands in its two campuses located in Elkhart, Indiana.

Vitalsigns

I was looking for a 21Striper WA as my first boat, the first one I looked at was actually an 18' and the price was too high. I walked into the showroom and bought a 21 Century cc new instead. It was a better deal at the time, still always liked the Stripers though.

rambo486

What a shame. I just bought a used Seaswirl Striper 29 and was blown away at how it handled 3-3.5ft chop at 25-30mph.

RivaMike

They pulled the plug on Rinker also - I know not a lot of love for them on this board but they had been around for over 50 years and allowed a lot of people to enjoy the water at a reasonable cost. They actually had a pretty nice runabout lineup, most of which was new in the past couple of years, but they all drained into the bilge and had a lot of wood (treated or not) in their construction.

Certainly a sad day for a lot of workers.

6104696

My 2005 Rinker 232 Captiva was one of the best boats i ever owned. Had it for 10 years....no issues at all. When I had a couple of questions I called Rinker Customer Service, and Randy Rinker used to answer the phone....and this was right around the time that they first got bought out. Randy knew his stuff.

I don't know how many times they changed hands since 2005 though....nor do I know if Randy or any other family members stayed involved with the company.

offroadr

The shift to pontoons is real. Went to the St Louis boat show in January 70% of the boats were pontoons. Talked to a dealer and they won't even take a fiberglass open bow runabout on trade anymore

wstanford277

There will be a lot more boat brands that disappear in the next 3 years. As a guy on the leadership team of a major manufacturer told me - all the boat production lines less than $100,000 won’t hardly run. The $300,000 boats will be impacted but still sell.

Round one of layoffs happened 4 weeks ago. Plants idled 2 weeks ago until who knows when.

jayyy

I've been wondering about Seaswirl Stripers, for a few years they have been downsizing there line up. The 29 and 26 ft were gone and nothing over 22 ft offered. I've spent time on a 26 and 29 I thought they did a great job at making full featured mid tier fishing boats.

Reachport

This is a harbinger of the future. Lower ticket priced boats are becoming obsolete in favor of larger, more expensive ones.

For example, it was a shame when Hydra-Sports was bought by its present company because the smaller models were discontinued.

Hydra-Sports was always considered a high end boat.and its second life after Irwin Jacobs sold the company was welcome, but that didn't last long. The molds were sold to it's present parent company and the VX's were discontinued. The discontinuation of the VX series was a setback for boaters, but it apparently was more profitable for the new owners to concentrate on the larger, more expensive models. Boating continued becoming an even more expensive sport.

If you take a look at Boating Magazine, which used to be a showcase for average priced boats, you'll see that it has become a showcase for boats costing several hundred thousand dollars. This is short sighted. The entry level and "moving up" models are disappearing. Where will new boaters start ? Sure, there are plenty of used boats still around, but they won't last forever and if someone is looking for a new boat within a reasonable budget, the available selection is becoming very limited.

jobowker

Agreed. It's a short-term plan that only slows the bleeding, and does nothing for long term health of a builder.
Margins are bigger on a bigger boat, so lots of companies start dropping their smaller ones, trying to keep profitable by sticking to larger models.
The only problem is that you only sell so many of the larger ones, and they forget that the smaller ones are stepping stones to larger ones. Most people who buy a 30' are selling their smaller one and upgrading. If you no longer sell small ones, the sales funnel for your larger ones begins to dry up. A percentage of people with a 21' Striper will upgrade later to a 29'. But if no one can buy a 21' any more, you are hurting future sales of your bigger boats.

Prior to 2008, boating became accessible to a lot more people - trash Bayliner all you want. Then, once the post 2008 inventory dried up, many smaller builders exited the market, boat prices went through the roof, and now boating magazines are all stupidly expensive boats that most cannot afford.

wajski

There are still small boat builders and a lot better than Striper and Rinker, Larson was a good boat I know some one who had a Rinker dinker and had nothing but engine problems. The engine was not the problem it was the factory install that was the problem.

captpepin

It's a cycle all the big "Players" drop their small boats do to the margins on the smaller boats, it's "Economies of Scale" but on small boats they can't make them do to "Dis-Economies of Scale" (very high fixed costs for a huge building payroll of all of the book keepers etc).

Then smart people usually people that worked for the bigger guys for a while find a mold or 2 they can use and start to build smaller boats out of a small building. This is where all of the "Big Guys" came from heck not long ago Freeman was building out of his garage. If you want a smaller boat if you search around there are plenty of boats you can buy from smaller shops that do great work and some day may eventually become a "Big Name" or be bought out.

SVG

I went through this years ago when Polaris dropped the Victory motorcycle brand.
I'm not a huge fan of Polaris.

JBS

Unfortunately, I'm seeing this trend to. Smaller boat companies disappearing.,even before the virus crisis. On our big lake,80% of the boats are pontoons. At our home on the coast, most of the new boats are big, multi engine CCs that cost like a nice home. I just dont see the market for the high end stuff. I guess I'm missing something?

Raybo Marine NY

pontoons boats and center consoles make up all the sales these days
the stern drive market is dead

HS2300

Apparently, AQUASPORT (EBBTIDE) saw value in "smaller" CCs as they bought the Hydra-sports Vector 22 and 25 molds and are producing them again. Not sure how the build quality is... but it does demonstrate that not everyone is giving up on non-mega CCs.

Personally, I think the shift by some of the big name builders was due to other builders entering the market or stepping up their game.

resh

I own a 2018 Striper 220 CC. Are buyers reluctant to purchase boats that are no longer built? I'm thinking three or four years from now when I go to upgrade this might have an impact.