Topic: I have a question – Smaller Boats why not at BCB

Participant

Have BCB thought about bring back a smaller bass boat? Like a 17 or 17.5 ft bass boat again. I know Stratos has come out with a boat I think the 176 xt. It is 17.5 ft. long with a 84″ beam and is built for low horse power. They are rate for a max of 75 horsepower. I know its not a rocket ship, but with a 50 horse yammi you can get this boat for 12,500. Do to my buget I cant afford spending 20-30000 on a new boat, and dont really want to buy a used boat for the lack of knowing what that boat has had go wrong with it. I think a market like what statos is trying to tap into would be a big hit for basscat, and I know I would buy it. Thanks for the info.Josh

Bass Cat Boats

Keymaster

Yes we have and have had one idea concept designed for a couple of years. Though we have not moved forward with this idea yet.

To understand the complication for a boat manufacturer, price the engine alone and then realize you have to add boat, trailer, trolling motor and depth finders to that package.

The advantage will come if they build only the more expensive 4 stroke engines and increase the overall costs. The fiberglass boats have a price disadvantage and the 4 stroke elevating the boats overall costs makes it more feasible.

Since the price of four stroke may come down some, we softened our enthusiasm for this as aluminum will gain some popularity back.

We shared this in a product meeting years ago with one of our engine partners which we feel may have led to the designs you now see.

Though as you can tell the company mentioned just reduced promotional overheads making an effort to allow that product to compete int hat market.

We have a long heritage of supporting those professional anglers which incite all of us to look to improve and compete. That is our market and we decided the timing is not right for BCB at this time and the project is delayed now.

If the price of 4 stroke engines comes down, so will the price advantage the fiberglass boats now have and people will again be looking at aluminum as the smaller dollar tags will be closer to more budgets.

Then also, several prefer a good used rig with more ponies and options if they can afford the used financing issues of a used rig. That being 3 to 4 year terms, instead of 8 to 15 years.

In other words we think this is an evolvoing market we are still watching and knew it was there before others did. Including our largest engine partner.

BCB