Everyone is falling into the hype being created. The market is normalizing, not falling. We are not aware of any cash up front demands from Mercury Marine, of companies which are in good standing on the credit schedules.

Bass boats have gone back to where the market was in 2018-2019, it’s no longer a pandemic bubble to fish and go outside. Some companies came in during that era and thought that normal would continue. People are back in work mode and the industry did not slow down soon enough. It’s also normal that when things adjust and production is ramped up, field inventory has to build to slow down the factory output. People had staff and they continued building as the markets normalized.

The expectations for Q2 are slight single digit growth in registrations of aluminum and fiberglass bass markets. Though inventory is definitely needing yo come down. There are two of the long standing bass boat companies down single digits in Q1 data, while one newcomer went from 49 annual registrations to 55 last quarter. The numbers will adjust as reporting gets cleaner.

Mercury Marine reached out and added product lines with plans for the V-12 and V-10 during the pre-CoVid era and continued the growth through CoVid. The addition of new product lines is continuing to produce well as the V-12 and V-10 markets are just now slowing, though the trend for outboards replacing internal engines is strong. This is a new segment for the industry and Mercury has limited competition there.

They have been on a growth spurt since inception of the new four stroke platform since 2017’s intro of product, and underestimated the demand in the switch when they created a V-8 platform. From 200-300 V-8, and the 450R to 500R, they have seen significant growth on their brand. Eventually it’s was going to catch up, and it has to some degree. There also remains to be a back log on certain parts, that haven’t caught up to higher demand, like propellers for example. Fury’s are still hard to come by. This has all been a perfect storm for those in Fon du lac. This is the only domestically produced high HP outboard, while smaller engines are made overseas, by Tohatsu. They also have their own plant in China for 3 horsepower classes.

The international competition could not keep up during CoVid, as Yamaha, Tohatsu, Suzuki and Honda have blocks and parts built in other countries. The complexity of overseas shipping, labor, and CoVid restrictions, restricted their production. While any company would have been glad to had taken of the market spurt, Mercury did.

During CoVid we received less than 12 Yamaha outboards annually during any model year. Yamaha focused on covering their 100% Yamaha clients, and we are not one. Even those clients did not meet the demand for product from Yamaha. Mercury reached out and added market share in some of those companies. They also had a slug of dealer and OEM engine orders that were fictitious and got cancelled when shipments started flowing. Pre-CoVid they couldn’t keep up, and would not add some newer boat companies that started as Yamaha only, Caymas was one example in their early Yamaha only offering.

As for the product year vs. model year, that’s been beat up plenty here and elsewhere. We opposed it then, and we have said so. Both Yamaha and Mercury went that direction, which is complex in states that title outboards. Production in 2024 could be December of 2023 now, for an engine that will be going on a 2025 model year boat.

They build it, ship it to port with a time delay loading, freighter it to Washington or Long Beach, CA, customs and the warehouse there receive it, ship it to distribution in WA/CA, and from there Yamaha goes to the distribution in Kennesaw, to be shipped to boat builders or dealers. They didn’t complete a thorough thought as to how states would title these when they made that decision. With no model year designation those title states are forced to use the production date on the MSO, and that causes the issue.

The sky is definitely lower, but it hasn’t fallen yet. And yes they are too Danged expensive, but everything is and it always hits those price spurts over time. Every tariff, interest charge and importation duty has to be paid by the consumer. Only those receiving incentives at home get insulated from production and CPI costs.

Norris is the East Tennessee playground for some.

My mom used to have a house on Norris in Sharps Chapel. Definitely some go fast rigs out there.