gman

Yes, a $40k price point is possible, the question is whether enough of them could be sold to sustain a business building them. The bill of materials could include an Indmar or PCM 350HP state of the art drive line system, ZO, analog dash with digital engine management, digital throttle and shift, decent interior, acceptable amenities and nice trailer with brakes. In other words, you wouldn't have to sacrifice on the mechanical or hull performance aspects, but don't expect billet badges. The OEM margin considerations would render such a venture a labor of love more than a business opportunity. Please don't look at the ROI on this, the business metics say the numbers may not work! Specifically, if the OEM made about $5000 per unit, about 100 per year of them would have to be sold just to cover minimal G&A, insurance, marketing, sales and other expenses. As others have said, used boats from the big 3 impact the reality of a new boat in this space.

This is the new Waterski and Wake Sports Foundation HQ project. It will house the new Hall Of Fame and waterski/ wake sports museum and is intended to be the epicenter for showcasing our sport. Yes, there will be some high profile events once the project is complete. At a total cost of $8M, the plan calls for a 3 event lake, cable park, surf park, pro shop, restaurant and more. The cable park will open this summer and the total build out of the project may be complete in 2019. As of March 12 the 3 event lake is about half dug, and should be complete this fall. They're taking 200 truck loads of material out every day so it's going quickly. Funds for completing the project are coming from donations and a generous $800,000 contribution from Polk County. Adjacent to the site is the the Lake Myrtle Sports Park with 9 baseball fields and 11 soccer fields. That park gets over 1M visitors a year so we should get some excellent exposure with athletic kids.

The GTS 20 runs 50MPH, has excellent wakes into the deepest shoreline and virtually no chine stray. Since we introduced it the rave reviews have been plentiful. It has consistently won top tracking, blistering acceleration and excellent wakes reviews across many mag tests. More recently we upgraded just about everything- New Medallion 5" dash electronics, full digital fly by wire shift and throttle, Indmar 330HP with cruise as standard, new interior and a ton of other upgrades including a full featured trailer designed to retail for about $35k. With performance on par with just about anything out there it's an awesome buy. It's somewhat spartan but it's fun and it delivers. Oldjeep is right I've got a 1996 GTS at my house with 1500+ hours on it that gets used nearly every day. Everyone loves skiing behind it and there have been lots of PBs behind it from skiers owning other brands. We sold it new to tournament skiers who subsequently bought a lot on a ski lake with a club boat. We bought it back a few years ago thinking we'd use it then turn it. Everyone loves it so we've put another 500 hours on it and a family member now won't let us sell it. Yes, Boomerang Sports here in MN has one left. It certainly can be upgraded with ZO, the speedo on the dash is meant to be traded out so it fits and looks factory installed. It's roughly a $1500 option so some dealers elect not to order it. Yes, he's paying monthly interest and since it's nearly October, he's discounting it heavily to move it. It's a sweet deal. If anyone on BOS buys it and wants ZO we'll happily sell them a 3 event system at cost to help. Certainly someone could buy a used boat but getting a new one with the latest engine technology and warranties plus that new boat smell is worth it!

Yes, much has changed at Gekko in the past 2 years. We started shipping Larson built Gekkos in January 2015 and they do look good. If you want to see an impressive boat factory, you should check out Larson's plant, it's one of the best in the world. A 53 acre boat building campus with over 450,000 SF of manufacturing with some of their boat builders being 4th generation Larson people. Up until 2008 they were building about 50 boats per day, the bulk being Larson stern drives. The stern drive business has taken some big hits and there are still too many players chasing dwindling numbers in that category. Larson's quite well managed and we're anxious to see how they navigate the future. Their boat building processes are excellent. As for Gekkos, our V drives were always all glass boats, and the GT direct drive series (GTS 20 and GTR 22) were upgraded with synthetic stringers and floors in 2015. Every aspect and element was overhauled- new dashes, new Indmar power, new digital controls, new engine beds with integrated pylon brackets, new interiors, new rigging practices, new fuel systems, new amenities- everything got touched from top to bottom. But we also need some new energy and we've bitten off 3 massive projects. For any manufacturer, a new boat is a significant project, and expensive too. Tooling alone can cost well over $200,000, engineering costs and new tooling for windshields, handles, custom parts, etc can add another $100,000. Gekko currently has 3 new boats in process. This is causing major anxiety for our CFO! This is a big deal, especially for a company our size. These new boats are going to be different from what's out there, otherwise, what's the point? We're committed to refreshing the brand and doing it from a fresh perspective.

Oh no! A hero taken way too early. There are no words! Andy leaves a gaping hole too big to fill, how heartbreaking. Andy came to Minnesota a number of times and it was always a treat. His easy way and quick sense of humor leave imprints for a lifetime. I can still picture him driving the boat and when I pulled out at the end of a pass to shorten, I said, "Got any tips for me?" Andy replied, "You should consider taking up tennis!" The whole boat erupted in laughter. Hilarious. That was 15 years ago and I remember that pearl like it happened yesterday. He was like that, we couldn't wait until seeing him again.

For skiers, the boat shows are indeed lean in terms of direct drives. At Gekko we started shipping new 2015 v drive boats just before Christmas and the direct drives more recently. Here's a shot of a new GTR 22 at the St. Cloud, MN show this past weekend. Good news, it's a sold one. Our dealer there also has some new GTS 20s at about $35k. We're hoping that these cool, aggressively priced boats bring out some of those buyers in that sweet spot. We've been lucky to have a large backlog of orders, so Gekkos have been shipping to markets where we have dealers established per their show schedules. The Minneapolis show simply came too early for our shipping schedule. At the Salt Lake show 2 weekends ago I counted approximately 60+ v drives on the floor. Lots of them priced at well over $100k+. Sadly, just one direct drive, a used one for about $65k. Being skiers, we are focused on the DD segment and hope that there is long term growth despite high prices. However, as dealers will tell you, they see less risk in stocking $110k v drives than $65k direct drives. +

Here's more information on the statistics on the earlier post, per a request. The data collector is Infolink (www.info-link.com) who collects registrations which means sold boats in the US. Boat companies can subscribe to their data services and they're generally regarded as the go-to source for data about the industry. Here are their results for 20' registrations for 12 months rolling through March 2014 by manufacturer: MasterCraft 209, Malibu 209, Nautique 264, Moomba 93, Tige 129, Axis 83, Centurion 6, MB 1, Sanger 1. Some interpretations: - VD and DD boats are mixed in these numbers. - DD numbers mixed in include Mastercraft, Malibu, Nautique, Centurion and Sanger. - If Moomba, Tige and Axis are selling roughly 100 VDs in the category one might conclude that the big 3 are also selling at least that many. - Thus, at 50% for DD, the numbers may look like: Mastercraft 104, Malibu 104, Nautiques 132 and Centurion 6. Centurion gets 100% since they don't have any 20' VD models. - These figures are for the US and don't include exports or unregistered boats. Personal insights: - In talking with a number of top Mastercraft and Malibu dealers, few sell more than about 5% of their new unit sales in DD. Some don't stock DDs at all. I'd love to be proven wrong on this and there are some dealerships owned by skiers who do sell more DDs as a percentage but those dealerships are few. - I do try to take an objective look without bias in attempting to form accurate assumptions and make sound decisions about the realities of the market. - We used this data for market review purposes a few months ago and while the numbers have probably improved overall the percentages may be somewhat static.

This is a great thread and I love the passion. If you'll humor me, I'd like to share a perspective on this that has me stymied, more on that in a minute. We've brought Gekko back to life and it's going great. The 2015 boats are the best yet and at our Fall dealer meeting we sold 100+ boats and hope to deliver about 150 by July. The ratio of direct drives to V drives is about 1:10 for Gekko, which is high compared to other builders. Want some sick figures? These are from DataLink, a respected data cruncher, and here are 12 month registrations for 20' boats through March 2014. DataLink does not break out DD vs VD in these figures, but if we give it the benefit of the doubt and say that 50% (I'm being generous here) of registrations in the 20' length (all ski boats) are DD then the numbers look like this: MasterCraft 104, Malibu 104, Nautiques 132, Centurion 6. These figures represent roughly 5% of each company's total production. My personal passion is skiing and I've got a new ski here in my office I can't wait to get wet. So these production figures scare me a little. I talk with the principals at most of the ski companies on a pretty regular basis and they tell me slalom ski sales are strong and represent a positive trend. So I'm encouraged but then I have to temper that with market actualities. Ski boats have gotten very expensive. Our government is somewhat to blame with more stringent EPA standards, compliance and liability issues, but the bill of materials costs are significantly higher than what they were a few years ago as well. And performance expectations are higher too. All considered, some builders look at the costs to compete in the market vs expected market share and elect to spend their time and money elsewhere, like on V drives. I'm stymied because we brought back not only the GTR which is a great competitor to the big 3 boats, as well as the GTS 20. The GTS 20 is a legacy boat and most that are 10 years old are selling today for about 60% of what they cost new. Not too many boats have that kind of resale. For 2015 we overhauled it, everything. It now has synthetic stringers, digital shift and throttle, billet machined handles, 330 HP engine, standard cruise, analog and digital dash, top vinyls... all for about $34,000 including a full featured trailer. I'm not trying to sell you on it but know that it works great and it's equipped for today's market. Guess what, we are struggling with this. Why, most dealers would rather focus on selling $90,000+ wakeboard boats because they know these move and move more easily. Yikes! We love it as a builder of VDs but are concerned as skiers. Further, I have a fight on my hands with Gekko's CFO because we're doing the GTS 20 at a slim margin. He's paid to be the fiscal watchdog and is right to be concerned. But I believe that the market needs this. A 20' outboard or stern drive for the same money should be no competition, right? That is if a buyer can live with the DD set up. We should be selling these GTS 20s like hot cakes but we'll see how 2015 really develops. The market has changed too. Dealers, those that have survived, are more careful about where they spend their money and want to make sound decisions, and V drives are an easier sell requiring less expertise. Perhaps it's easier to now see why there are 5 or fewer DD boats even worth considering. Regarding AWSA, it's worth supporting. We will do it again, we just didn't have boats in time this year for testing. Maybe our perspective on this is not unique, but the requirements for Nationals are a mountain to climb and as much as I hate to say it, I'm not sure anyone cares outside the tournament crowd about approved boats. Thus, every company has a CFO looking at ROI when it comes to tournament participation. We look at it as street cred and know that we'll pursue opportunities where having that certification can be leveraged. Another consideration is that the higher levels of waterskiing have gotten so driven to private sites and retracted from the public that having promo skiers talking to the converted is a tough proposition for some companies. Gekko will shortly announce an ambassador program for 2015 that will reach out to skiers on lakes where it all began in addition to attempt to scale the mountain for high profile events. Hopefully this sheds another light on DDs and that they are a complex segment with lots of moving parts. We're optimistic about the segment and do expect growth. We're going to start working on a new DD soon and wave the flag for skiers too!

Here's a huge opportunity to ski and hang out with 20+ of the biggest names in water skiing at 2 locations this month. There are over 20 big names including Smith, LaPoint, Parrish, Lowe, Overton, Roberge, Scarpa, Siepel, Suyderhoud, Rathbun, Sterns and many more on the schedule. Attended either East or West on the weekend of October 24-26, held in Orlando, FL and Gilbert, AZ. Check out this link for details: http://www.usawaterskifoundation.org/#!skiwithlegends/c14ys