Is Sea Ray in the game now ??
 

I came across this boat by accident. I was up early and reading my local craigslist boat listings and up pops this Sea Ray. Now I have heard all about the reverse facing stern drives but this one is a 24' V drive with a bunch of cool options. What do you think Could this boat actually be a player ?
https://www.searay.com/page.aspx/pag...SLX-W-230.aspx.
https://portland.craigslist.org/wsc/...749255892.html

I don’t know anything about this boat but that swim platform is nice.

Its nice because its a straight up ripoff from Cobalt. They got sued, lost and continue to steal it. WTH?

https://boatingindustry.com/news/201...-sea-ray-case/

The short answer is no, this boat never really made it off the ground. As I recall, market share numbers from last year indicated that only two or three of these were registered in the entire country.

Interesting. The Cobalt I/O "surf boats" represent 50% of their sales at this point.

Where does this data come from? My particular lake has a super successful Cobalt shop and I would guess they sell 10% surf models at this point. Hardly any.

I found the info about cobalt surf boat sales info in Boating Industry magazine. The article is 2 years old at this point. The CEO of Cobalt was quoted talking about their surf boats. Quote: "It’s not a one-trick pony,” said Cobalt CEO Paxson St. Clair. “We’ve had tremendous feedback from our dealers on the success they’ve had with our new Surf Series product with the Volvo Penta Forward Drives. Now, the surf boats represent about one-third of our production, and we’re forecasting it to be almost half of our production as we move forward.”

Here is the link to the online article: https://boatingindustry.com/top-stor...st-five-years/

BTW, Cobalt is owned my Malibu in case anyone did not know this. Malibu acquired Cobalt about 1.5 years ago.

This has been out for awhile now and don't think it ever got any traction. I remember seeing it at the Seattle boat show probably 3 years ago? and checked it out for awhile. Definitely was not in the same league. They had a pro surfer their as a brand ambassador... Can't remember who it was now.

1/3 of production in 2016 doesn’t come close to meaning 1/2 of current sales BTW. That was a tongue in cheek production forecast, and I would be shocked if true. They seem to sell very few Cobalt surf boats. For surfing, they suck in a relative sense. Granted our dealer is an n of 1, but it’s a top 5 dealer nonetheless. They sell a few a year, and sell a buttload of huge bowriders, some of which are $300k 302s. That would skew sales toward bowriders quite a bit. For real surfers, they sell Skier’s Choice AND Nautique. It’s a big shop.

The VDrive market has responded nicely with “everyday” boat amenities that takes the wind out of the forward drive story. They aren’t one trick ponies, either. They’re controllable, big, deep, and comfortable. And getting moreso each year.

Lol I thought "real surfers" surfed in the ocean.