The Return of the Challenger
 

News feed this morning on my industry site says Bayliner has aquired the Wake Tractor boats.

https://view.e.aimmedia.com/?qs=61c8...b74198c4b785dd

That pretty much sums up wactractor right there . Guys who built it want nothing to do with it.

I see Campion just released their new "Surfable" boats as well.

Jokes aside, it is hard to make sense of this. I wonder if it is simply the "money grab" that it appears to be. If the younger Dorton was that passionate about this project, he wouldn't let it go so quickly after getting it stood up to the bottom rung of Brunswick's marine holdings.

Or maybe "Heyday Inboards" was a quick r&d effort for Bryant, and now they get to spin it off for cash and apply what was learned to the Bryant line in the future.

I am guessing it is the later option.

Why continue on with a sub brand when you can have the real deal with your branding. It will be no competition if they drop a real drive under the bryant name,

Either that or they barely sold.

It looks like Ben Dorton is staying with the boat. As a part of the deal, he is actually joining Bayliner as the manager of business development. John Dorton is going to consult for them.

This makes sense to me considering the first show units looked like they had the build quality of a Bayliner. I saw this boat from day one as going down in a ball of flames. Bayliner buying it is like bringing the paddles out to revive a corpse.

I'm guessing they just ran out of money. All of the marketing, R&D, Mold cost, location, payroll, etc... all has brutal costs. And have they sold many of them? Doubtful. So the only way to continue is for a larger parent company to buy into it.