[Drum Runner]

Triton, Ranger, and Stratos by buying Fish Holdings LLC from Platinum Equity.

 

[sundrop]

Adios Stratos, Triton welcome to Mako, Rangers will be like AMF Harleys. A high priced name on moderate quality..

 

[meenyt]

Sure hope that the quailty of Ranger, Triton, Stratos don't start going the way of BPS. Then again, maybe the prices will come down? Yeah, wishful thinking. Afraid that sundrop may be right on this one.

 

[Drum Runner]

When you have brand names like those in your stable, it would be business suicide to turn them into Tracker Marine boats.
You have these boats already being built in modern state of the art facilities.

The first thing in people's mind is the negative.....because of conglomerate.
The positive very well could be that quality across the board and boat lines goes up.

Ranger, Triton, and Stratos were already not "theirselves" and had been sold. It just didn't make the news like this one did.

Ranger employees are amped up about it as in happy.

I still think the biggest changes will be on the dealer level and marketing, not the product.

 

[meenyt]

I think everyone knows that all these brands have been sold several times in the past. Just hoping that they don't turn into BPS products where they are all the same, and there is one price. You are right. It would be business suicide to start shorting on quality, but that doesn't mean it won't happen. Sundrops mention of AMF Harleys is spot on for one example.

 

[Jeffonc]

A couple clicks tells a cynical story:
2008 Article:

Financier Irwin Jacobs' (chairman of Genmar Holdings) investment in Ranger Boats of Flippin has "paid back many times what I paid for it," he told a Little Rock audience on Wednesday.

Known primarily as a liquidator, buying bonds for pennies on the dollar, Jacobs focused his attention on Ranger Boats in 1991 after Wood had sold the business to a company that later began suffering financial distress.

"It's magical," Jacobs said, calling his involvement with Ranger "a remarkable financial experience."

Today's article:

Platinum Equity acquired Ranger Boats and Stratos as part of a larger portfolio of boat brands in February 2010 from Genmar Holdings Inc of Minneapolis.

Genmar, a privately held company, filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2009.

Now its BPS's turn. I don't think Johnny Morris makes a lot of bad decisions. He just bought a lot of control and leverage across a piece of the industry and probably paid for it with petty cash from t-shirt & ammo sales.

I grew up wanting a bass boat, but I find myself not thinking about them any more at all. Is that the proximity of salt and center console boats in the eastern half of NC opening my mind to other possibilities, or is it where the bass boat market and marketing has shrunk to? Both, I think. This change of hands has significant disruptive possibilities, from brand consolidation to build quality to dealer networks and that's at least interesting to think about and watch for.

 

[Bread Man 1]

I don't have much to complain about with my "modest" "low quality" Tracker Marine Mako LTS. It has held up just fine and has ran 100's of trips. It has also got us home safe and dry in 40+ mph winds and in a 4-6' stacked river chop. I can't say that on the Rangers that I have fished, they were pretty dang on wet. All production boats have their own small issues and quirks. I don't like my rubrails, will upgrade them in the near future. All of these boats are production, Ranger, Triton, Maverick, Mitzi, etc. you are not going to get a true "quality" or what some view as quality unless you have a custom boat built. That is just the way it is.

 

[Drum Runner]

I owned a Ranger in 1987 bought off the water at the end of the 87 Classic. Boat number 37 Paul Elias. She was 16 grand. A thousand of that was in the cover. 16 grand for a boat that only 50 were built, had some modifications and tuning other boats didn't. A Chevrolet pickup to pull it with was around 14 grand new.
That seemed pretty high back then at the time but today, you could easily have a 100 grand tied up in a bass boat/truck rig.

They used to be somewhat affordable. Today they are unaffordable for most without the creative if not idiotic financing that has taken over the "play toy for adult" world.
Just like a Polaris, I haven't seen a thing about a Polaris ATV worth 16 thousand dollars....But people buy them.

The extremely long term high interest rate financing and a steady stream of economics challenged individuals is the only thing keeping all these companies afloat.

 

[mikeski]

A couple clicks tells a cynical story:

I grew up wanting a bass boat, but I find myself not thinking about them any more at all.

I have wanted one on and off over the years. I ended up with an aluminum v-hull with board seats. It worked for all the fishing I was doing. And it was usable on ponds and such where a bass boat was not.

Now I am happy to fish from my yak. It does not go far fast. But it put's me on fish and I don't have to put my ball cap on backwards going from spot to spot.

mikeski

 

[Drum Runner]

I don't have much to complain about with my "modest" "low quality" Tracker Marine Mako LTS. It has held up just fine and has ran 100's of trips. It has also got us home safe and dry in 40+ mph winds and in a 4-6' stacked river chop. I can't say that on the Rangers that I have fished, they were pretty dang on wet. All production boats have their own small issues and quirks. I don't like my rubrails, will upgrade them in the near future. All of these boats are production, Ranger, Triton, Maverick, Mitzi, etc. you are not going to get a true "quality" or what some view as quality unless you have a custom boat built. That is just the way it is.

Quality and production hull is pretty close to an oxymoron. I don't care who is manufacturing them they all have issues.
The highest quality standards are certainly going to be in one off custom boat building because it is so labor intensive as well as detail intensive. They might be built off the same plan but no two are alike.

I've done a fair amount of restoration. I know where several manufacturers hide the bodies.

I have two production hulls high on my quality list.
Hells Bay and the production hull that Jarrett Bay is building.

Both are about as close to custom as a production boat can get. Both are top performers in their class.

 

[Neilslure]

I owned a Ranger in 1987 bought off the water at the end of the 87 Classic. Boat number 37 Paul Elias. She was 16 grand. A thousand of that was in the cover. 16 grand for a boat that only 50 were built, had some modifications and tuning other boats didn't. A Chevrolet pickup to pull it with was around 14 grand new.
That seemed pretty high back then at the time but today, you could easily have a 100 grand tied up in a bass boat/truck rig.

They used to be somewhat affordable. Today they are unaffordable for most without the creative if not idiotic financing that has taken over the "play toy for adult" world.
Just like a Polaris, I haven't seen a thing about a Polaris ATV worth 16 thousand dollars....But people buy them.

The extremely long term high interest rate financing and a steady stream of economics challenged individuals is the only thing keeping all these companies afloat.

Gas used to be less than a dollar a gallon and you could buy a coke for a quarter. Boats and trucks have gone up in price along with everything else in the world. Boats have also come a long way since the 87 Ranger too, my partner has one. Back then BASS was probably using an 18 ft boat with a 150 carbed motor and maybe a basic sonar unit and 12V trolling motor and little else. There is alot more that goes into bass boats today. Now you have 21 ft boats with 250 hp direct injection and fourstroke engines, plush carpet and seats, 10" color GPS units, 36 volt trolling motors, power poles, and everything else. You cant build a boat now that fits the wants of the average bass boat buyer for the same price as you could back then. Materials cost more, labor costs more and the list goes on.