Bill Yeargan Plant Nautique Interview

As I am rereading this interview, here are a few of the highlights of my frustration.



JEFF CARROLL:
Are there any major changes coming to the ballast systems in Nautiques? Specifically, some of our members are interested to know whether you’ve looked into the Pure Vert ballast system.

BILL YEARGIN:
Our Product Development team has evaluated numerous ballast systems and concluded that our current system is the most robust system available. However, we are committed to making our boats even better so our team continues to focus on that with a goal of providing the best possible experience on the water. We are constantly looking to improve all aspects of our boats and are committed to providing the best we can for our customers.

I know that the majority of CCF members are advocates for the skiing and classic boat community and that is a question like this may not phase the majority of you guys but this is so untrue. Nautiques (never to be known again as Correct Craft) have a very weak ballast system compared to the rest of the wakeboarding community. If Epic and Calabria with 1/10th of the financial resources and R&D that "Nautiques" have can plumb in 4000lbs of water without having to turn on a pump why would you dodge the question and give a weak answer? It could be he just doesn't know why the guys in Product Development are sticking with the standard ballast take and pump set up?

JEFF CARROLL:
Correct Craft has been known for offering the industry’s best warranty. Are there any major changes planned for the warranty in the near future? Some of our members have voiced their opinion that the warranties could be made more user-friendly by offering a single warranty, instead of one for the hull, deck and stringers, one for the engine, and one for the rest of the boat. Also, they’re interested in knowing the likelihood of the warranty ever being changed so that the second owner is covered without paying the transfer fees.

BILL YEARGIN:
Jeff, we are continually reviewing our warranty and the warranties of our competitors. We will keep doing this but at the current time we do not have any major changes planned.

Weak. Just weak   


JEFF CARROLL:
Do you have any plans for offering a budget-based wakeboard boat or ski boat in the future? Some of our members are big fans of the older 210, and those people are convinced that the older 210 would be an ideal budget-based wakeboard boat. The same goes for the 196. Would Nautique ever consider bringing back those boats? Can you offer some insight on the reasons behind that decision?

BILL YEARGIN:
Jeff, our goal is to have the best water ski and wakeboard boats available. We are not building to a certain price; we are building to be the best.

The Ski Nautique 200 has proven that it is the best water ski boat available and unless you are wearing competitive goggles with very thick lenses you would have to agree. The Ski Nautique 200 has clearly differentiated itself from the competition, it has pulled two new world records, numerous national records and innumerable personal bests, and it is only a year old! That is our standard for new product introductions. I am happy to report that we are being told by customers that we have done it again with the new Sport Nautique 200 we introduced earlier this year.

The older models people sometimes ask me about bringing back were designed and manufactured in a different era. The construction methods resulted in a different production flow which gave more opportunity for inconsistency in the quality. Don’t get me wrong, they were great boats, but we believe our product development process and manufacturing techniques build a much better boat today.

Finally, without commenting on specific programs, you can be sure that Nautique will continue to be the world’s premium producer of high-performance towboats. Our product development team has generated a great track record and we are just getting started. We are excited about the future of our Nautiques.

This one really bothered me. I just explained it to my girlfriend about how Mastercraft did that with the x1 and have done well with their sales of that model. My personal opinion is that if Correct Craft brought back the old 210 hull too many people would buy that over the current 210 hull if the old hull were set at a more reasonable price level than that of 85k for a new 210.   

I think it would be very smart for CC to offer a budget boat like a 210 or a 196. If you haven't checked out the company Standard Boats they basically are making the 2001 hulls with modern materials and a modern motor at a modest price. Standard boats will have a hard time breaking into the market as a new boat brand BUT if CC came out with an idea like this I think because of having the Nautiques name it would have the publicity of a website like CCF and planetnautique.com to get it into the spotlight and sell some boats.




Andddddd thats the end of my rant

I see a few problems, build more and less expensive boats? cant happen, the labor force is matured which means those costs have to be transfered, more boats means paying more hours. it appears to me that their overhead exceeded an affordable boat,
the CFO is in control of the bottem line, you bundle this entire package up, saleries, new state of the art facilty, marketing, R and D, toilet paper lol and you come up with the bottem line...and then you throw your profit in.
I think i have said this before, you make money in 2 basic ways, in volume or in higher prices, volume i mean instead of selling 100 50k boats you need to sell 200. and not cuttting pricing.

Now you have Kevin over at Standard boats, probably in some low rent district, crew of mexican's not mexicant's, building these boats....really if you think about it you can probably by an engine trans package wholesale for 5k, stick it in your glassed hull add a few blings and its an affordable boat.
Standard boats can produce a boat for half the cost and that can be passed onto the consumers.

basically the same exact thing that happened to the auto industry

I would say a buck seventy....i didnt want to post that in case he does care about public opinion

I understand the cost analysis but then how is MC and Malibu able to produce the x1 and the vride at under 50 or 55k?

Jmurph I understand your escalade reference but GM does offer a less expensive version of the escalade, the tahoe. Like I said I understand the overhead involved in CC manufacturing I just don't see why the other 2 major inboard boat manufactures can do it?

This is a rather funny thread, to me anyway.
Let’s break some of this down. For one, Nautiques is the corporate name, get used to it! Their is someone else other then the Meloon family that "owns" the company. If you take a look at the history of Nautique and Correct Craft Corporate presidents in the last 10 years one will see that Mr. Yeargan ("Bill") has survived a near company meltdown because of the economy, He and his staff managed to keep the company healthy during this crises and has now been able to re-hire workers that had to be laid off during this time. Bill has also been involved with bringing the new manufacturing facility up to current modern levels and has in house one of the finest design teams in the industry. Bill has held the reins longer then any other during the last 10 years. If any of you get a chance to meet Bill you will see that he has a easy manor about him and he has a passion for most of the same things we all have towards on the water activity's and all things Nautiques and Even Correct Craft. He might even take you closet Tubers up on a tube ride! (Pete?)
As for bringing back a low budget Nautique, 196 or 210 well this will not happen in the Nautique line. Nautique products are compared to BMW or Mercedes in the Auto world. They (we) don’t not want to build the most but build the best product available. Sorry but Nautiques does not build boats addressed towards the lower middle class, they build boats for the upscale professional and those that can afford a Nautique, Want a boat for the masses buy a Malibu or Tige or some lesser built boat. Their are plenty of great buy's on previous own very nice Nautiques that are very affordable and will offer many years of reliable, stylish and even a re-sale for the second and third owners second to none.
In the words of George Harrison "All things must Change" Correct Craft has changed and is now Nautiques!! They must be doing something right as they are a healthy company coming out yearly with innovative thought provoking products that are setting records and allowing skiers, riders and water sports enthusiast many pleasurable hours of on the water enjoyment in a family style format.
Live it!!
Cheers and Happy Holidays!
Jody Seal

Fl Inboards wrote: Nautique products are compared to BMW or Mercedes in the Auto world.Live it!! Cheers and Happy Holidays! Jody Seal

Jody,
BMW does make the 128i at about 30K and Mercedes the C Class at about 34K!!

Almost forgot to mention, the best example of all: Harley does it very successfully with the Sportster. Yeah, the Sportster takes some sales away from their Dyna line, maybe, but an awful lot of people ride Sportsters that would never normally ride a Harley. And, most importantly, a huge number of Sportster owners graduate to bigger and more expensive Big Twin Harleys.

M3Fan wrote: Note that Malibu discontinued their Sportster line a few years back and MC discontinued the SportStar and "19 Skier" models after only a couple years. IIRC the 176 didn't make it long either. If these were good plans, why did they discontinue the models?

Could not agree more!!
I have actually sat in marketing meetings that were new product oriented and lobied for a "price point" boat and for every point I came up with to engineer one the marketing and production staff could come up with five reason not to. The biggest reason is that it takes nearly the same amount of resourses to build a price point boat as a top of the line boat! So why mess with a sales margin?

As for selling older molds to other boat company's that will also never happen with Nautiques do to libility reasons for one and why would Nautiques sell production molds to a competitor???

Pete Mercedes and BMW build in one week (maybe one day) the amount of cars our whole Niche industry builds in a year. Nautiques even in the powerboat world are a small custom boat company.

Keep it in perspective The amount of sales for a Nautique price point boat just is not their. Their are plenty of low hour great priced, previous owned top of the line Nautiques available for the price of a "price point boat". If you can not find one give me a call I have a line on numerous very nice late model Nautiques with low hours at great prices.
Cheers!

Also, Pete- BMW's different models are not budget-oriented. They are purpose-oriented. The 1-series is targeted toward those who think the 3-series have gotten bloated (they have) and long for the size and "tossability" the 70's-era 2002 models or the E30 (84-91ish) 3-series. Incidentally the ///M 1-series is coming out soon and that will target the ///M3 series fans who think the same thing. Nobody in the market for a 5-series would buy a 1-series because of budget constraints- it's a totally different animal.

Back in the spring, East Coast Flightcraft had a mint, low hour, Malibu Sportster priced at $14,500. It lasted exactly one day before it was sold.

I think it was more or less a Response hull, right?

I was going to mention the Mustang. There's two Mustangs on my lake and two more Tiques. People seem to hold on to them up there because they're a nice size for smaller but ski-able lakes and ponds.

The Sportster came out on the old Response hull at about time time the Response got an upgrade to its hull. The Sportster never got AWSA approval or was any kind of official tournement boat. The idea behind it was to get the entry level buyer into it who would then upgrade to a Response a few years later. Seeing that Malibu ended it leads me to believe it didn't pan out they way they wanted it to.

Sportsters seem to have a following and sell pretty quickly, although not for big bucks.

Correct Craft has certainly dabled in the recreational boating market over the years, but seems to have settled into the water sports only market for now. They don't even make a luxury cruising version of any of their VD'd do they?

With CC at its current size, it seems unlikely that it could focus on more than one thing at a time, no? Yes, they have the molds, experience, and R&D that's already paid for but to bring the old boat back wouldn't that take away from pushing innovation and spending resources on moving technology forward? Also, it seems that we are still in the type of economy where price point or not, these boats are pretty much being built to order, right? I don't think dealers are placing 5-10 boat orders for spec boats (even price point spec boats) like they used to so wouldn't CC find itself scrambling just trying to be too many things to too few people?

Not trying to argue against a lesser priced boat, it just doesn't like it could work effectively for CC. Malibu sells their former generation hulls in the vride series but that seems like it kind of screws the guy who bought a brand new wakesetter that after a couple of years and a Malibu hull upgrade, finds that his wakesetter has perhaps lost significant value b/c a buyer can go buy the same boat (in the vride series) brand new vs. buying his used wakesetter.

Regarding Standard. It seems like they have a good idea, but would've been substantially better had they made the boat in a more family friendly vdrive. The direct drive, lack of marketing and the economy surely are not helping, but seriously folks. To many out there, these are hardcore watersport boats and the guy with money who is considering the Standard or other price point boat is also going to be looking at runabouts with towers and wakeboard packages. To that guy's wife, the Sea Ray, Chapparel, Bayliner probably look more appealing.

Riley wrote: The Sportster came out on the old Response hull at about time time the Response got an upgrade to its hull.

I know this is OT but I believe it actually is based on the "Tantrum" hull, again at a much narrower beam than any Response.

One thing being overlooked here is brand loyalty.Entry level products are introduced to get buyers into a product in hopes that they will want to upgrade to a nicer model later. This is EXACTLY why the japanese motorcycle manufacturers build kids products. They are heavily regulated and there is zero margin in them but they do it anyway in hopes to build a lifetime of loyalty at a young age.
   I know several people who wanted to buy Nautiques but they weren't in their budget(did not want a used boat) so they ended up with Malibus and Centurions. You know what? They all got great boats that they have had excellent luck with. Chances are next time they won't spend extra for a Nautique due to brand loyalty, seeing that they got a good product even though considered lesser by some. Will the resale be less? Absolutely, but it's negligable because they paid less.

   Nautique markets boats for the higher end customer-absolutely.

   Problem I see with that is that sooner or later 1/2 of those people(not the real die hards,but the people who bought one cause it's cool) stop buying, or lose interest and they dump them overwhelming the used market. Have you seen how stellar Harley Davidson is doing lately <sarcasm>? They build motorcycles for the upper end consumer also and don't really do much to target new consumers, which is absolutely killing them now that the baby boomers are going away. The market is flooded and used bikes are a dime a dozen(and cheap). Manufacturing products solely for the high end consumer can be rewarding, but it can also be a big gamble.

   And as far as the cost to manufacture an entry level boat being almost the same as a high end boat? Well hell I wouldn't be bragging about that. If Malibu can sell an IRide for 50K , and gets a 100K for a flagship Wakesetter that costs almost the same to manufacture, then one of two things is happening. Speakers, ballast, and bling cost more to add than the actual boat costs to build, or someone(meaning everyone) is getting boned when they buy a top of the line boat. Which is it?

    Mike