Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/556112
May 2015 | Boating Industry | 41 www.BoatingIndustry.com /// Market Trends /// fiberglass boat has always had," said Wachs. "We basically give you a fiberglass boat that feels like a pontoon boat but yet has the perfor- mance aspects of a hull that a triple tube pon- toon boat will never give you." Wachs says part of what makes a deck boat is its stabilization, which helps the segment com- pete, as well as the safety the boat provides. "Hurricanes have always had high sides on them so people feel very comfortable and safe, and a lot of bowriders have dropped the points of the bows down and they're very narrow, and there's maybe six to eight inches of fiberglass be- tween you and the water, and a lot of people don't want that. They want to feel safer in the front of the boat," said Wachs. Chaparral said consumers still want the look and feel of a deck boat, which is why the Sunesta line has remained so popular. "It has style and it looks like a Chaparral, but it gives all these different type of amenities and I think appeals to a buyer who would not be suited for a pontoon," said Baldree. "That customer still wants a boat that is all about performance and a boat that still allows them to participate in all their water sports." Some manufacturers are creating crossover products to appeal to deck boat and pontoon customers. Bayliner recently released the Ele- ment XR7, which is a crossover utilizing the hull of a deck boat and the top side of a pontoon. Bayliner wanted to give consumers all of the features they enjoy in a pontoon with the performance of a deck boat. Yobe said that Bayliner found customers were on the fence between a deck boat and pontoon when they walked into a dealership, and chose one or the other for different reasons. However, they ended up with buyer's remorse years later be- cause the boats are missing a feature the con- sumers wish they had. "If we can alleviate that on the front end and give them a boat that gives them everything they want, that helps the brand out [and] that helps them out from an overall perspective of want to be on the water and have fun," said Yobe. "It's just a way to take all the learnings that we have from all of the consumer research we do and fig- ure out a better mousetrap, and that's what we came out with [in] the XR7." Deck boats by design Hurricane has been building deck boats since 1973, "before it was cool" to build outboard deck boats, said Wachs. Now, the segment is exploding. "They've always been popular because by their very design, they're open boats, they're shallow draft," said Wachs. "They're very quick planing boats because of the nature of their hulls. We can get on plane and stay on plane with less horsepower than a bowrider is ever going to be able to of because we're not as deep of a V." Because the segment continues to grow, new manufacturers enter the market to meet increas- ing dealer demand. However, Wachs said that deck boats are their own segment with their own unique traits, and it takes dedication to be a true deck boat. "We have a saying 'Wide in the front all the way to the back' for a reason. We're not a pointy bow. We're not a modified boat that became a deck boat," said Wachs. "This isn't something you can sort of put your foot in the water with and say 'Well I've got this 20-foot runabout. We'll put a flat deck on it and make it into a deck boat.' That simply isn't how this is done. It's never worked … You have to build a deck boat by design. You can't just modify a boat to become a deck boat. … It's a design concept from start to finish and the top deck boat brands are really doing well." "You have to build a deck boat by design. You can't just modify a boat to become a deck boat. … It's a design concept from start to finish." — Bob Wachs, director of dealer development, Nautic Global Group