Cabo Yachts Coming Back

Give them their shot. They've had time to take it. What's their hold up? What are they waiting for? Why so slow? Why only one boat? Take their shot....

I know they're your friends, but I judge on what they do and so far they've done nothing. No more than Hatteras has done with the rebirth of Cabo. However, Hatteras has the capability if they so choose. They still have employees who have built Cabo and build one Cabo model already. They have functioning facilities turning out many boats. They have the molds. Now, they may never do anything.

I'm not overly excited about either one of them, Hatteras Cabo or Mag Bay, until they actually do something. Nothing however for either is the same as it was in 2007.

I didn't say what they'd be today had they continued. I said that during the recession they likely would have dropped from 500 to 100 active employees. Just like 95% of all boat manufacturers. They might or might not have grown back.

How are they taking on the establishment? They're been at it for what 4 years now? I haven't seen a single boat on the east coast, save for the demo boat at FLIBS 4 years ago. How many boats have they produced and sold? From what I saw, the build was top quality. The size well, just missed the mark, as nobody really wants a 32'. The transom, well not my cup of tea.....forward of the transom to the bow looked good.

Nortech seemed to crack the center console market with a sledge hammer......they went from producing NO center consoles, to them being everywhere...…...and I mean everywhere...…..in a few short years. Look at Scout, they too were a next to nobody up until 7 years ago, you couldn't give one away. Now, you can't get one.

Why would anyone even want a center console cat? What is the redeaming quality? You can't get the height between the tunnels and still be trailerable…...in 5' + seas when the wave stuffs the tunnel, they ride HORRIBLY. They don't handle weight well, which is what you're doing with a center console when fishing hard or a tournament, full baitwells, full fishboxes, bunch of guys and rods.....

OK, I will spell it out for you:

In one corner, Hatteras, established in 1959, has mostly been a large corporate behemoth, henceforth part of the Boat Building "establishment". Releasing a fresh 41' Cabo Express. In the other corner, Mag Bay Boats, established in 2015, nimble private small enterprise, releasing new Mag Bay 42 Express.

But you are way off the mark on the Offshore Catamaran CC/SF market, the likes of these are ruling the waves at the moment:

http://www.freemanboatworks.com/

That is about the safest statement anyone can make , but OK, its fair.

I have no personal relationship with the principals, old or new, knew a few of the engineers awhile back, have worked with common suppliers who trade notes over the years, and can go back to my High School days driving by the Pacific Seacraft plant. Buts friends, not really, common Industry interests, most likely.

Ruling the waves WHERE? Come to Fort Lauderdale and find me 1 Freeman center console, anywhere here, and I will take you to Ruth Chris for dinner! There aren't any, not a single Freeman in the yachting capital of the world, and they build them 2 states away. I can show you half a dozen Jim Smiths in Fort Lauderdale , a dozen Merritts and we're talking about boat builders that produce 2-3 boats a year.

I just looked at a review on the Freeman 40', 60 MPH top end with 4-300HP Yamaha's are you kidding? I ran a 39' Seavee (NON Z model) with 3-350HP Yamaha's and it topped out at 63 mph, the standard non Z model 39' Seavee with 4-350's on it does nearly 75mph the Z model is almost 7mph faster with the same power. The hull sides are so high, how do you release a billfish or boat a really big fish?

Releasing a 42' Express on paper, and building several dozen of them, are 2 totally different things. Hatteras can produce dozens of the Cabo 41' and will, just like the 45' EX. If Hatteras wants to build a 41' Cabo, the mold will be brought into the factory and work could commence on it TOMORROW. They don't need to find a buyer for it first, or funding to build it. Now, does Mag Bay even have a mold? Or is it a pipe dream on paper at this point? I would love to see Mag Bay succeed at this. I would love to see some good innovation in this segment. But the reality, well, we shall see.

Pipe dreams and caviar wishes.

Good grief, If you want to talk Catamarans, start another thread. None of the mono-hulls you mentioned have a top speed faster than a Cat, here's one doing 70mph with a pair of 350hp OB's:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?...4D4AA220518AEDBFADE14D4AA220518AE&FORM=VDQVAP

With that cleared up here are my 2 cents. Mag Bay will have little issue getting up an running. They already have the mold for the hull. They are building the boats in the same exact factory that produced the best Cabo's to ever hit the water. They are building the 42 Mag Bay with the same employees the built the Cabo's from 2000 to 2009. Have you ever heard the phrase "get a Cali built Cabo" that had to have been said for a reason. I have zero doubt the Mag Bay will be an incredible boat. I hope they have much success so they can move onto a Flybridge model which could be my next boat. Dealer network will be the hurdle for Mag Bay and capital but none of those affect the quality of the boat being built but rather how many hulls they can get on the water in the first few years. As a buyer I am more concerned about quality and price not how many boats a builder told dealers they had to buy. With that said I also hope that Hatteras executes well on the rebirth of the Cabo line and the 41 is a success. The biggest change I have heard about with the 41 is the prop pockets will be updated to the Hatteras style pockets which apparently is some patented design and works very well. Outside of that they are updating the tooling as they begin production. Of course with Hatteras' dealer network and Private Equity capital they could build as many boats as they want out of the gate but I am not sure yet if it will match the quality of the Mag Bay. When I sold my last boat I searched for months to find the cleanest and newest 40 Cabo Fly on the market that was built in Cali. I have an 08' and have spent countless hours upgrading systems and have fallen in love with the boat and am blown away at the quality and attention to detail. I have flown to Lauderdale and have seen Hatteras built Cabo's and there is an 11' with zeus that just came to market you can look at pics of. I don't care for a few of the interior changes Hatteras made to the boat which gives me reservations about how they will update the 41 at this time. They aren't big things but rather little details or preferences.

Overall I am very excited to see both builders come to market with a 41/42 ft twin diesel express as I think it will be great for the industry. I hope they both succeed. I will without question be flying to the first show to see them both when they debut. Fingers crossed Miami 2019.

Boy a lot of you guys really seem to know all there is to know about Cabo and Mag Bay. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions but I'll just leave it at this, some of you are way off.

To set the record straight, Henry Mohrschladt and Mike Howarth (my dad) founded Pacific Seacraft. They sold that company to an overseas shipping company. They were hungry to build a powerboat so they went to a boat show to look at the competition. After going to the show, Cat Harbor Boats was concieved and tooling started for the Cat Harbor Boats 35 in a rented shed behind a Mexican restaurant in Victorville CA. During that time, Henry and Mike acquired a smaller West Coast center console company named Cabo that had been around for some time. When they bought Cabo, they decided to rename the 35 the Cabo 35 and they planned to call the entire company Cat Harbor Boats. Long story short, the previous owner of the center console Cabo brand had not disclosed some major financial issues and next thing you know those molds were taken. Mike and Henry decided to keep the Cabo name and when the 35 was released in 91 it was the Cabo 35 by Cat Harbor. We reluctantly sold Cabo on February 15, 2006 to Brunswick and the rest is history.

The "new" Cabo 41 is the old Cabo 40 with a new helm deck. Same hull mold we tooled up in 2002. Truth be known we were well down the road trying to acquire our old company last year. So far down the road that I had shipping quotes lined up for the molds and dates set. Just when we thought things we're supposed to finish up, Hatteras abruptly ended the deal. My understanding is the mold for the 40 was brought inside shortly after to be looked at. I'm not saying this Cabo 41 introduction is directly related to us splashing our 42 next year but the timing definitely is interesting. I wish them nothing but the best with their 41 and I hope they sell a ton of them.

I have 13 employees that work at Mag Bay. Two have been with our family for over 30 years, 3 for over 20, 6 for over 10 and the other two are doing just fine. One of my employees, Pancho, literally changed my diaper once when I was a baby, thats how far back we go. The ONLY reason we are in this horrible business state named California is because of those guys. Period. We are not a big company by any means and thats fine for now. I'm hoping to do 10 33's this year out of our small 12,000 square foot facility. To date I have delivered 22 boats and have three in production. Of the 22 delivered, I have two in CA, one in Mexico, one in Michigan, 6 in the North East, one in the Seychelles, one in Alabama, two in Puerto Rico and the rest are in the FL/Bahamas area. Cant J. we've been at the three major Florida shows each year for the past three years in the same spot. Have we grown as fast as we had hoped to in four years? Nope. But, we have learned and we're constantly striving to build a better boat every day. We've started production on a brand new 52,000 square foot facility and should have that ready to move into in about 6 months or so. That will be a real game changer for us.

Our 42 may look similar to our old 40 but it won't be. My dad built a 40 for his personal boat and we drove that boat on its own bottom from CA to Panama and put a few thousand hours on her during the time we had it. We've taken everything we've learned and put it into the 42. The hull design is different, the interior is different, the motor packages and layouts will be different. We have some tricks up our sleeve don't you worry. I'm not trying to build another Cabo, i'm trying to build a Mag Bay that will take on any company that comes at us. Guess what Older Boater, I do have a hull mold and its a darn nice one. I received the gelcoat for hull 1 this afternoon and we're going to spray hull 1 on Tuesday. I have my deck plug ready to be cut we're just waiting on the c&c machine to open at Janicki. I'm sorry that we haven't moved as fast as you'd like, trust me we wish we could have moved faster too. If I could have the boat in the water tomorrow I would. We're not waiting on funding, its not a pipe dream, we're a father son combo with a passion and one hell of a drive to build the best friggin 42' boat on the water. We're still on track to splash next year and the 42 will debut at FLIBS 2019.

Reading some of the comments on here is pretty comical. I know many of you on here started your own business at one point; think back to how that went. It was no easy task i'm sure. Mag Bay may still be the little guy in the room but don't count us out. If we're not on the map yet, we're definitely going to be there soon enough.

My main point was that you are a start up. With all the experience in the world that doesn't change as you indicated the challenges of starting up. You had 540 employees at one time. You have 13 now. While those may be some incredible key people, they're still only 13 per your count. I'm shocked at the number of boats you've built with that number, but clearly the new boat is going to require more. I wish you the best of luck but you're still a challenging path away from shipping the 42. Hatteras may be equally far but they have the facility you're six months from having and more employees. I hope you both get the boats in the market successfully and then more models. I think your challenge is considerable. On the other hand, I am not at all certain of Hatteras' commitment to any sort of Cabo line.

MBY - That is a great amount of information from the real deal. Your eloquent words and life long passion for the Industry come through. I doubt many can understand the effort and vision that it takes to be a boat builder in the state of California, the commitment has to be off the charts to overcome the unfriendly manufacturing laws in that state.

The good news is that the Cabo name you guys built still sparks a tremendous amount of interest in this and any marine forum. Their is something to the legacy that will always be a part of your team, and that history from the Pacific Seacraft days to the new line still resonates among many - that says a lot for your family and team.

It is interesting that I dared to post a bit of a David versus Goliath take on the new developments and that triggered such a reaction. Still scratching my head on that one. I tend to view that response as an East Coast bias thing.

The old man built the first 35 with 7 guys up until the end when they hired 4 more. They had less than 15 for the first 3 years. Our biggest challenge with Mag Bay hasn't even been with the boats, its been with the city of Hesperia where our new facility is being built. We had our building plans submitted for approval well over a year ago and the amount of hoops and BS we have had to jump through is honestly laughable at this point. We never intended to be building the 42 where we are now as our shop just isn't big enough. The plan all along was to do the tooling for it at the new shop that we've designed specifically for boat manufacturing. Unfortunately it took nearly a year for final approval of our plans when it should only have taken a month.

We have a long uphill road ahead of us theres no doubt about it. There's a lot at stake for our little company which is why we are really trying so hard to bring a solid boat to market. I'll have two models of the 42 to start with and a convertible is on the drawing board. The eventual goal is to have a few models of inboard boats and a few models of outboard boats, all with the same quality and attention to detail.

Honestly, I just laugh now at everything with California. The amount of items I can't get in CA seems to grow every week and we're constantly finding ways around these hurdles. Add in all the taxes, bureaucracy, environmental restrictions, shipping constraints and its a nightmare.

The David vs Goliath thing will always be there. We just had a competitor (no name needed) kill a deal I had been working on for over 10 months with a reputable dealership who we had in the past at Cabo because our new 42 was going to be a competitor to them. Why such a large powerhouse would feel threatened by a small group of guys from CA is beyond me; I guess it just means we're doing something right.

As for the legacy end of things, we're just happy to be building boats. Shortly before our departure from Cabo, the guys made my dad a plaque. "I will always build the best boat. At a profit if I can, at a loss if I must, but I will always build the best boat." We're just trying to have some fun and put out a good product that we can be proud of.

I think you've done an excellent job of highlighting what you have faced and do face. Just because one has done it in the past doesn't mean it's easy this time. As to competitors worrying about competitors, I think often there is way too much of that. The success or failure of Mag Bay or Cabo has very little to do with what happens with the other, but is largely what each does on their own. I have seen companies so focused on their competitors, they lose sight of their own business. Gas stations fill all four corners of an intersection. Groceries build across the street from each other. Restaurants congregate in a group. Even malls represent competitors going at it together. I think if Mag Bay and Cabo stir interest, then both will benefit.

Someone got upset because I referred to 2007 as ancient times. However, you point out many issues you've faced that are very different and tougher than they were when you owned Cabo. Governmental hurdles have certainly been a big one. You bring experience and a legacy with you but to a new place and a new time. They make it easier on you than it would be for someone without that experience, but definitely not the same as it was. I note your comments on a few models of inboards and a few of outboards and that definitely highlights a major change in the past 10 years. Ten years ago, builders didn't think of 42' outboards. None of us know what things will be like ten years from now.

I sympathize with you on the dealership thing, but laugh a bit too as I remember a story I was told. It was about the launching of Bayliner in my home town area of Charlotte, NC. Many huge dealers, but either they weren't interested or their manufacturers blocked them from carrying this new line. Beyliner had to settle for this small shop on Lake Norman where the primary business was running a camp ground and stocked no new boats, but ordered about 3 Correct Crafts a year. Well, it wasn't long before Wher-rena was the largest boat dealer in NC and the others were trying to figure out what happened. Whoever, you find instead of the deal that was blocked, may turn out to be aggressive and fully committed to only your boat and very fortuitous.

I find your start up most interesting and appreciate you providing the information you have. I'm sure it's been filled with tremendous excitement and pleasure with some sprinklings of horrible frustration. Definitely not easy.

You’re very right about the changing times. Today, it seems like the importance of quality has taken a back seat to the amount of speakers or lights you can fit into a boat. My generation seems to care less what resin is used or how its assembled; as long as the motors turn on and the seats are comfy that’s all that matters. You’re right about competitors worrying about other competitors too, just look at the catamaran’s like was mentioned earlier in this thread. One guy is doing well and all of a sudden there are four companies coming out with similar product.

We’re focusing on just us. I’m honestly glad there will be another boat that’s close in size to us on the market. I like competition and feel that it drives everyone to hopefully want to build a better boat which in the end benefits everyone. The companies that try and make it hard for us just give us more fuel to build a better boat, simple as that. At the end of the day, I get to follow my passion of building boats and I get to work next to my biggest mentor who is my dad which is the greatest thing in the world.

Back in the 1990's I developed a product line that I displayed at the Miami Boat Show. A gentleman stopped by my booth and asked a few questions about the products. His name was Ron Doelcher. If the name is familiar, think Doel-Fin. This was an outboard cavitation plate lifting wing that enabled faster planing by adding lift at the stern. This enabled slower planing speeds and increased fuel economy. Ron spent years trying to educate the market on how the wing worked and why consumers needed it, but sales were dismal. Consumers were reluctant to buy the Doel-Fin because they didn't understand it and questioned the need if outboard manufacturers didn't incorporate this into their original design.

Ron had only sold a few thousand units over the course of a few years. Sales finally took off AFTER other companies began to copy him. At one point, there was about a dozen manufacturers knocking him off, but they were doing him the biggest favor... they were helping him to educate the market. Soon after, Ron was selling a million units a year thanks to competition. Moral of the story, better to have 50% of a market than 100% of NO market.

Kudos to you Barrett. You've already figured it out. Wishing you continued success!

Best we can do is wish them luck as the industry grows. We need to be thankful that there are people in a position to purchase and maintain their expensive toys. I remember working well into the night on a boat here in Fort Lauderdale. I was with a well known Carolina builder. We were tired, sweaty, and he turned to me and said, "always remember, it's just a boat". That could be interpreted many ways. I saw it very simply. Every boat purchased equals benefits to many people and companies throughout the life of the boat. All the best to Cabo. Build a **** good boat, Tight Lines!!!

I’ll take it as you directing that comment to me. Certainly not upset, more like incredulous.

We have always been dealing with change in CA, greater than other parts of the nation, especially because of CARB and the state interpretations of OSHA. We always have to adapt, one day acetone is ok, one day it’s not, and the next day it is good to go again. It is part of a manufacturing climate well known within the state.

I have bit of a boating historian in me - what mattered 10 years ago , 20 years ago, even 30 years ago, has relevance. Experience counts and the successful businesses build upon it. Past mistakes matter as much as past successes, especially in products with long development times and long life cycles. We are not Silicon Valley. Being able to adapt does matters as well. Being dismissive of pre-2007 experiences is not an open mindset in my point of view.

Designers, Naval Architects, dreamers have had a lot of designs on their computer “drafting boards” 10 plus years ago, even large CC boats with outboards. It takes a lot of stakeholders to sign up for the vision in a coroporate environment, fewer in a small enterprise, but they eventually come to the table.

I just found out that hull #1 of the 41' is being started next week and already sold.

And some info straight from the CEO:

https://www.tradeonlytoday.com/manu...abo-will-take-on-large-center-console-segment

30 x Hatteras 45's sold in the last two years, mainly to ex-CC guys, not too shabby........

It's not hard to sell hull #1. I fished from two Cabo's at Pacific Fins resort in Guatemal - a 35 and 40. The 40 thru roostertails and was wet. Too much power from the MAN's.