Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/780450
PWC PWC sales continued to be up year-over-year in December, according to the latest Info- Link Bellwether report. According to Info-Link, the Bellwether report tracks PWC sales across the country based on new U.S. boat registrations on a rolling 12-month basis. Bellwether states are geographically dispersed states representing roughly half of the U.S. boat market (varies by market segment and time of year). The PWC segment was strong in 2016, growing by nearly 10 percent for the year. PWC sales grew by about 17 percent in 2015. Boat sales were up about 6 percent for year, down slightly from the annual rate of the last couple months and the smallest year-over-year increase for any month since 2013. In 2015, sales were up about 10 percent for the year. The towboat segment generated the strongest growth for the year, with sales up by about 12 percent. That was on par with the 2015 growth. Overall, sales of out- board-powered boats were up about 7 per- cent for the last year, compared to sales growth of about 10 percent in 2015. Sterndrive/jet sales were essentially flat for 2016, as they were in 2015. DEAN'S TEAM WRAPS UP 2016 RACE SEASON The 2016 race season is in the books for Dean's Team, with as close to perfect results as one could get. Success isn't something new for Dean Charrier and Dean's Team, with over 30 national and world titles to the name, but it's never taken for granted. This year, the focus was on making the Dean's Team ECU Perfor- mance Reflash the top option for every level of rider and racer. Often lapping a majority of the field, Chris MacClugage shined on his Reflashed Yamaha FZR all season. Aero Aswar pushed him all along the way on his FZR, both at the World Finals and in the P1 AquaX Pro Series. They separated themselves from the competition and had some entertain- ing battles and lead changes. Abdullah Al-Fadhel put another world title to his name and gave MacClugage a run in the Pro Stock class at the World Finals. He shined overseas too, winning a championship series in Dubai. Ali Allanjawi also racked up wins all year long in international races and went to the World Finals and took home three podium finishes. At the Pro Watercross HydroDrag World Championships, Scott Rice cleaned up with wins in the Stock, Spec and Super- stock divisions. Ron Allison won the Stock Speed Alley title, too, posting a high speed of 92.8 mph on his FZR. Charrier is already working toward new goals and milestones next year. Having won the Pro Stock title at the World Finals for three years running, sights are set on the Pro Runabout Open and GP classes for the 2017 season. With two years in a row winning the top P1 AquaX class, Dean's Team will also look to repeat next season. HEYDAY WAKE BOATS JOINS PWT AS SPONSOR Heyday Wake Boats has signed a category- exclusive agreement with the Pro Water- cross Tour to sponsor its series of events as title sponsor in 2017. The PWT and World Championship recently expanded its spectrum to include HydroFlight and HydroDrag competitions, with tentative plans to include wake sports competitions, as well. "This tour sponsorship gives us great vis- ibility as we accelerate the awareness of the Heyday brand," Heyday Inboards president Keith Yunger said. "The watercraft audience is also a strong demographic and user cross- over for us. These are multi-activity enthusi- asts and align nicely with our target audience. This is something we can be a significant piece of going forward." PSB DIGEST 'Highly Scientific Test' series answer Yamaha videos BY LIZ KEENER MANAGING EDITOR After you watch a Sea-Doo Spark hull being hit by baseballs flying out of a pitching machine, you can watch a chef chop food atop a hull, then you can watch how an extra 170 pounds affects a tennis player before see- ing a comparison of the storage units on two different PWC. Sea-Doo in early January launched four videos in a "Highly Scientific Test" series. Each is aimed a dispelling information that, according to Sea-Doo officials, has been shared by Yamaha Watercraft Group, notably in its video "Sea-Doo Spark: How Durable Is It?" from 2014. "Since the launch of the Sea-Doo Spark in 2013, we saw a lot of information that came out publicly on Spark that we felt was totally misleading. That information came from one of our competitors," Sea-Doo global market- ing manager Maude Desjarlais told Powers- ports Business. The videos are built on humor with a man dressed as a scientist leading them. The first, featuring the pitching machine, is about impact resistance. The "scientist" ends the video by hitting the hull with a baseball bat. The second, with the chef, discusses scratch resistance. The third addresses weight, and it features a 170-pound man sitting piggyback on a tennis player to show how 170 pounds can affect performance. The fourth on storage space shows a man trying to get a lifejacket into the Spark's storage space versus a com- petitor's storage space. He has to cut up the lifejacket to fit it into the competitor's storage spaces, while he puts it into the Spark's storage area, with "plenty of room to spare," the "sci- entist" explains. "I believe that humor is a great way to deliver our point, yet in a funny way. I'm extremely proud and satisfied with the per- formance of the products and of course of the videos," Desjarlais said. While the videos, which were developed in partnership with creative agency Cramer- Krasselt, are designed to deliver a laugh along with a message, the points made by them are backed by legitimate scientific research, Desjar- lais explained. "All the claims that we say are scientifically tested with real tests that we did in Florida with our engineers, so in the off-season, we got the models we needed to there to do a rigorous comparison. We would never publish numbers that are not substantiated," she said. With only organic distribution thus far, each video has at least 62,000 views and more than 600 likes on Facebook, with the impact resistance video earning more than 128,000 views as of late January. On YouTube, each has more than 2,500 views. The videos have also been shared in Sea-Doo e-newsletters, on Sea-Doo.com and through dealership channels. They're also being shown during boat shows at which Sea-Doo is exhibiting. "The reactions are extremely good. If you're looking at comments on social media, it's very funny. On our end, I hear a lot of comments from consumers, from dealers who call their DSM, who call us and say that they like it," Desjarlais reported. Overall, Sparks moved well, and Sea-Doo PWC overall hit record market share in 2016. Though Yamaha has introduced its new value- priced EX — the Spark's first rec-lite competi- tor — for 2017, Desjarlais says the Spark is still in a class of its own. "Today the Spark remains the most afford- able watercraft on the market," she said. "And it's still the lightest and the best power out there, versus the closes competitor." Desjarlais expects sales of the Spark, Spark Trixx, and the new GTR-X 230 to per- form well during the 2017 season. She's also excited to see the performance of the 2017 GTI and GTS, which each feature the Spark's Polytec hull. PSB Sea-Doo's humorous videos market Spark 30 • February 13, 2017 • Powersports Business www.PowersportsBusiness.com Sea-Doo partnered with creative agency Cramer-Krasselt to produce four humorous videos in a "Highly Scientific Test" series. Report shows PWC sales grow 10 percent for year DEAN CHARRIER Source:Info-Link Technologies uPWC sales continued to grow year-over-year in December, according to the Info-Link Bellwether report that tracks boat registrations.