In case you haven’t noticed, the boat business is cyclical. Historically, it rises and falls every three to six years, unless a one-in-a-hundred-year event happens like the COVID-19 pandemic. That pandemic caused a boat business high and we’re now at — or are approaching — the low.
What exactly is going on?
Context for the Current State of Boat Building
In a nutshell, from late spring 2020 to the spring of 2023 there was a boat buying frenzy in the U.S. the likes of which have never been seen before. The public couldn’t buy boats fast enough and prices were often higher than the sticker. Dealers’ inventories were wiped out and builders became back-ordered for 18 months, two years or more.
Human nature being what it is, some boat builders quickly built new factories or enlarged the ones they had and dealers kept ordering boats like there was no tomorrow. Well, today is tomorrow. It arrived on schedule just after the boom subsided.
