Varatti Boats
 

I'm surprised this has been mentioned yet. I've seen some pics and such on Instagram.

https://www.facebook.com/VarattiBoats/

https://www.instagram.com/varattiboats/

I read that someone possibly bought the Gekko Boats molds to use for these? Not sure.

To me they look like they took some styling queues from quite a few other manufacturers out there. Definitely not a fan of the tiny interior that they have.

And go!!

All and all I think they look pretty good! The market is already competitive with low volume but good luck!

website is apparently coming soon. These guys must be new. http://varattiboats.com/

Might as well buy the AMC Gremlin chassis and body molds and start a car company :p

chpthril.lol.

As an AMC owner I'm not sure if I should take offence to that? lol. kidding!

And it's a Pacer, not a Gremlin!!

woah. 90's hot boat color scheme, sea doo rake with a picklefork bow! interesting!!

not my style, but that thing is mint BC!

Looks like they just bought Gekko & put new graphics & a name

Denverd1 - not really mine either. Was my grandma's car before she passed. She bought it brand new in 76. I just lowered the front and put the wheels on. Party On!

I could be wrong but it does not look like a Gekko unless they reworked it quite a bit. I googled Gekko and looked at all the images and could not find a pickle fork Gekko. That does not mean it does not exit but I could not find it on google. The Gekko boats I did find look different. Is it possible they purchased Gekko molds and reworked them?

Looking at the Varatti, it appears the nose is about 4" off the water and you will take on rollers constantly. Is that how you fill ballast quickly? Check these images out:
https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net...88&oe=5C2D93E9

https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net...95&oe=5C5F5FE5

I hope it works out for them but I'm not overly stoked about it after looking at the pictures. I suppose if the price is reasonable it could work but brands like Axis and Moomba already put out great "value" boats and this does not look as enticing as those brands.

Pretty low profile, big bow, small cabin. Wake performance looks puny. Definitely on the old school vibe.

It kind of looks like it might be a decent cross-over boat. Like one of the instagram comments mentions though - why do pickle-fork if you're not going to increase the bow seating area (although if you put too much up there, it'll make taking rollers that much easier). The lines look pretty decent, but I'm not liking how they finished the windshield frame. I never realized before now that Floe had gotten into the boat market. As far as Gekko molds.... there's some similarities, and it's entirely possible they used the bottom mold for the Revo and reworked/remade the top. I'm curious to know where they plan to price them out.

My brother is a Floe boat lift dealer (Floe makes the boats) ... so I'm hoping they'll send one on a tour his way and I can play with it. He hasn't gotten too much info on them yet, I just remember seeing a flying like 6 months ago.

They also have this crazy deck-boat yacht thing too from the same parent company.

Minnesota Made owned by Floe Lifts, they did buy Gekko (also a MN compnay), but as far as I know that was basically to buy the machinery to build boats. I have seen several in person and they look good. Never seen one in action, but sounds like I might be surfing and wakeboarding one this weekend. If I do I'll report.

As I recall the MSRP of a fairly loaded version was around $125K

hell yea!!

One twenty huh?? :eek: :eek: that's crazy

I hope you are wrong. They need to be about 45k lower than that to have any chance. Nobody is going to buy a low profile crossover boat for 125k when something like a much larger Moomba Makai is 100k nicely loaded.

That seems pretty high to me too. Their 40' deck-yacht is like $400k and has dual engines, generator, AC, sleeps 4-6, full head with shower, etc etc.

$125k?! 🤣 they’re high!

Got a complete break down new Purchase. 22'

From a Local Dealer in MN-

Varatti Z22

Base MSRP - $105,036.42

MSRP w/options - $127,380.00

Discount Price - $102,000

Out the Door at $110,032.50

Total Options Breakdown
Base MSRP: $105,360.42
Rockford Stereo: $4,017.61
6" Rockford Tower Speakers: $2,196
Varatti Surf Sytem (tabs, ballast, zero-off): $6,123.07
Cover: $1,170
Trailer (Premium): $8,512.81

Total $127,379.96

No here's the real fun, the dealer accidentally sent the Dealer Pricing. Just like every other boat on the market there is an insane mark up. Dealer Price on the MSRP of $127,379.96 is only $87,261.30 BUT there as a dealer Cash discount of $3,409.45 dropping the dealer price to $83,770.84. Mark up is around $43,609.12 based off of the MSRP price.

I am happy to share the Dealer pricing break down if anyone is interested.

kindve reminds me of a Malibu response.

50% markup. Sounds reasonable. [emoji849]

fits right into the tow boat industry's current line of thinking: cut production in half and double margins

I think you're confusing the rest of the industry with Malibu :D

HAHAHAHAHAHA! I have a buddy who buys a new LSV 23' every summer MSRP around $155,000 and he buys for around $102,000 hardly any margin in them.;)

Actually, in another thread, we analyzed tow boat production figures for the top 5 manufacturers going back 10 years. Units produced began declining about 5 years ago and is currently about 50% of what was produced around 2013 or so.

Tow boat production is way UP over the last 7 years in a row. Everything I've come across shows inboard production and sales figures are way up. Inboard boats are taking market share from I/O's mostly due to surfing. Here are a couple links showing this:

"The National Marine Manufacturer’s Association notes that overall sales of tow boats have been growing steadily over the past five years. According to its 2015 Recreational Boating Statistical Abstract, NMMA notes that sales of inboard-powered ski and wake boats totaled 7,800 units in the 2015 calendar year. This represents a 9.85 percent sales increase over the 7,100 units reported sold in 2014, and steady growth when measured against the 6,100, 5,500 and 4,850 boats sold in 2013, 2012 and 2011 respectively. Not many other segments in the boating industry can boast five straight years of similar increases."
https://boatingindustry.com/top-stor...st-five-years/

Article about strong boat sales: https://www.nmma.org/press/article/21678

Still, IMO Varatti is price way to high. I'd take a less expensive but larger Moomba, Axis, or Supreme over it any day.

perhaps my timelines are off by a few years.. I 'll see if I can find the thread/info we referenced.

I have also heard that Gekko was purchased by Floe Int. Last year at the Minneapolis Boat Show, Mark Overbye was working at the booth featuring the Afina.
http://www.floeintl.com/floecraft-afina/

Before Gekko was bought out, they had teasers for their Komodo model. It was kind of a picklefork that did not have the built in platform. I believe that this boat, the Varatti, is what would have been the Gekko Komodo.

Mark is also currently listed as the CEO of Montara which is the company building/promoting the surf pontoon. Something tells me that Floe International is behind both of these projects.

Nailed it-

I got the chance to go up nort' and drive and ride the Varatti with the owner of the company, while they were in the finishing stages of R&D, earlier this summer. Nice boat - very comfy and the thruster makes it turn super nice in tight spaces. It is targeted to be a crossover boat, and it does that well. We only rode it with stock ballast - the surf wave was nice and my friend and I were both able to do most of our wakeboard tricks behind it (water conditions weren't the greatest, during the 4th of July week).

They are definitely worth checking out during your next purchase!

Ahhhhh no. That nose alone, being just inches off the water, would be enough for me to disqualify it. Plus they are crazy with that pricing.

I'd say the biggest downfall is how tiny the cabin is. The rest of the boat is pretty nice looking.