currrent sea ray crop

[Bt Doctur]

Looking at the current list of boats offered the one I find missing is your regular run of the mill family fishing boat. Could this be the beginning of the end?

 

[sbw1]

I just looked at the website. You are right about the absence of a fishing boat line. What is somewhat eye opening is the numbers of small boats offered. There are lots of them, although not any that seemed much different from the myriad of other small boats that are available from all of the different builders. In other words, not distinctive. Some brands stand out. Master Craft, for example, is known for ski boats and they have made a few great ones. Boston Whaler makes fishing boats and timeless small boats for knockin' around lake pulling kids on water toys. There are others that are distinctive like Hinckley and their Picnic Boats. The SR current offerings look like a lot of those boats that you see for sale by owner sitting on trailers in people's yards. Not meaning to sound harsh, but that is what the website shows. Of course it also shows the big yachts that are no longer being made. The company needs to clean that up too as it sends a confusing message to the buyer. Why advertise product you don't offer?

 

[fwebster]

Generally, Sea Ray has never been a fishing boat builder, but the company has occasionally made an effort to sell a boat suitable for fishing. They built decent decent boats, but apparently, fishing either isn't an interest of their designers or was not deemed to be a viable market segment because the fishing lines......Laguna's, Wide-body 33/34 EC/AJ's and the Wide-Body 37EC........were treated as "One & Done" product lines. That is very unfortunate because all of them were really great boats.

I think you can probably trace the abandonment of the above lines to about the time Brunswick hired a marketing consultant to advise Sea Ray on their future designs. Fishing boats need to be utilitarian, excellent handling sea boats, efficient and reasonably quick. I'm not sure any of those attributes fit the marketing experts view of the future Sea Ray........slick, Euro styling, fake wood and plastic.

The company has never been a fishing boat company and I don't look for that to change under current management/ownership.

 

[ttmott]

It was probably more strategic to eliminate dedicated fishing boats from the SR line. Brunswick has Boston Whaler, Lowe, Lund, and Thunder Jet as their fishing lines and in past had Cabo, Hatteras, and Wahoo lines. It would be like GM allowing Pontiac to directly complete with the Chev. Corvette; not going to happen. Not that it's best for the customer but how it comes down.

 

[Bridog]

10 years ago there were 41 different SR models to choose from. Now there's 14. That's less than most every other boat builder out there. Except maybe Larson. Yes, Larson....sigh......