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Old 11-05-2016, 12:25 PM   #21
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As with many other builders, GB suffered mightily with the departure of Tony F. It took awhile. Of course Fleming thrived.
I'm a huge Tony Fleming fan and a Fleming boat fan. However, when we talk about Fleming thriving and GB suffering we need to be careful. The number of boats Fleming thrives on selling in a year, would be suffering for GB. They were structured as a volume producer. Fleming thrives on far less volume.

There are many reasons for GB's demise as a product line (I'm saying the traditional GB vs. the company itself). Some external, many internal. They include ownership discord, high costs of manufacturing, failure to adapt, destroying their sales channels, being undercut in price by Marlow, Retail pricing structure created by them selling through dealers, slow build times, distance of management from their primary market, distraction caused by spending time on raising more capital vs running the business, ownership groups with different objectives, dependence on volumes that couldn't be maintained through hard times. The list goes on and on.

I'm happy the company appears to be on the way to survival, although I do not believe necessarily they're out of the woods yet. One year of profit after many of loss is just a start.

I'm sad that another iconic brand is gone.

I'm still waiting for others to step up and fill the void of 40-60' semi-displacement spacious cruisers. A void created by reductions and eliminations in GB, Baylineer, Tolly, Californian, and others. Beneteau Swift Trawler is the one that has taken leadership in that regard. Sabre has a good product in that range.
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Old 11-05-2016, 01:26 PM   #22
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I'm still waiting for others to step up and fill the void of 40-60' semi-displacement spacious cruisers. A void created by reductions and eliminations in GB, Baylineer, Tolly, Californian, and others. Beneteau Swift Trawler is the one that has taken leadership in that regard. Sabre has a good product in that range.
Here in the PNW, there are many "others" seen everywhere we travel. These include American Tug, Nordic Tug, Helmsman, and North Pacific. We also see many of the experienced Asian and North American boats making up the more affordable side. There is a trend here towards the smaller cruisers, such as Ranger and Cutwater...which we also frequently see.

Getting back on topic, I like lines of a GB - I just don't want to spend the maintenance time and money towards its requirements, which the others are mostly free of. I suspect I am not alone.
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Old 11-05-2016, 02:06 PM   #23
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Here in the PNW, there are many "others" seen everywhere we travel. These include American Tug, Nordic Tug, Helmsman, and North Pacific. We also see many of the experienced Asian and North American boats making up the more affordable side. There is a trend here towards the smaller cruisers, such as Ranger and Cutwater...which we also frequently see.

Getting back on topic, I like lines of a GB - I just don't want to spend the maintenance time and money towards its requirements, which the others are mostly free of. I suspect I am not alone.
Those others are all nice and while at first I tend to think of their smaller boats, they all have larger now. I guess the difference in them and some of the ones gone by the wayside is styling and looks. They're excellent boats and appeal to me, but not sure how much they appeal to the former buyer of the now deceased brands. I guess North Pacific does most easily of those you mentioned but rarely see them in the Southeast and many boaters have never heard of them.

In the southeast, the trend is larger, not smaller, so not toward boats like Ranger and Cutwater. They are here at the show.

Some of the PNW brands really could use some better east coast representation. American Tugs has pretty good representation in the NE. As an interesting aside, the largest US yacht builder is in Washington, but their sales office in Fort Lauderdale and the waters of Fort Lauderdale covered with their boats.
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