Hatteras no longer building yachts?

Only Johnny Morris knows. This was a Bass Pro/White River Marine Move and all production tied up with Mako and Ranger Saltwater and Hatteras SF's. They initially talked about redeveloping the line but then just removed it with no further comments. Has it gone the way of Cabo?

I've found that lines removed are easily forgotten. Tollycraft, Post, Christensen, Trinity.

The White River group is very tight lipped.

An interesting aside. White River doesn't even list Hatteras among their brands on their website. Apparently trying very much to keep them separate. Guess Tracker and Hatteras don't fit together.

This has been speculated about for a while and it s a real shame. They ve been pushed aside by foreign builders, I guess quality doesn’t sell these days as buyers aren’t willing to pay the extra.

I am afraid you may be correct. I do think style has something to do with it as well. Oldsmobile anyone? Not that Olds and Hatt have any resemblance regarding quality and longevity but style comes to mind.
I would not be surprised to see Hatt MY a thing of the past.
Azimut, Maritimo. Riviera, Princess, Sunseeker, Absolute, heck; even Prestige and Galeon are part of the reason Hatt MY is out of the picture.

Again, not discussing quality of materials and workmanship, just trends with usage and style preferences.

The decision making is not known. Were the MY's profitable as many say, or perhaps not as much so. The space they took and the time they took building can be used to build a lot of very profitable small boats. Perhaps MY's did ok, but just really didn't maximize the profit per sq ft and per worker. Just a wild number but in the space it took to build one 100' MY and over the time it took which often was 2 years or more, you could build 70 or so 33' Mako's. I think you'd increase sales dollars by 50% and margin by 200%.

I don't think any of the mentioned boats are the reason Hatteras isn't producing MY's. They are, themselves. Slow and inefficient builders. No changes. No lower helm. Nothing to do with competition. They still had orders. I know of several orders turned down. I think the Hatteras buyer is more likely to turn to OA or someone. The 75 and 95 were nice boats, just poorly marketed and took far too long to build and their building of everything at Hatteras was inefficient. When a brand dies, it's seldom due to the competitors, it's from within.

I think you are correct about the Hatteras MY buyers. Despite turning down several orders, which can be for many reasons no one is privy to such as contract demands not being aligned with Hatteras standards or capabilities, would not a larger pool of Hatteras MY buyers be ideal? You see I still think the styling lead to a smaller pool (as you indicate there was a pool) I think it was just too small. And, I think the lines I mentioned, and sure OA, have something to do with that.

I was under the impression that Johnny Morris was a sport fish and bass fish enthusiast anyway, so I think your take on the sale and profit margin on his favorite boats aligns quite well with the demise of Hatteras MYs.

The orders I'm speaking of were firm orders through dealers and were standard boats. Nothing unusual or controversial. At least one was right before the sale and put on hold and another right after the sale and I'm not sure on the third.

Larger pool is always nice, but Hatteras was booked well out. If you can only build a couple per year of a model, really doesn't matter if you have three customers or you have 20 waiting.

I think Hatteras’ demise in the motor yacht segment is due simply to Hatteras no longer offering what motor yacht buyers wanted. Whether it was styling or pricing or lack of features or dealers that didn’t order spec boats for immediate purchase or build time or production capacity or whatever.

I think it’s a safe bet the new owner is making moves to maximize output from the New Bern factory. They said from the outset they were going to bring in additional product lines. So it’s out with what isn’t working and in with what is. What Hatteras accomplished from the 1970’s through the 1990’s in MY sales means nothing today.

I heard from a very reliable source this past weekend that there was a clean up in New Bern that involved the crushing and removal of some Hatteras molds and all the remaining Cabo molds. If you search for Cabo Yachts online their website is no more and zero activity on social media on years. Sad to see two once great companies fall the way they have.

The facility was full. Orders into the future. New orders very standard. While I believe they needed changes, it wasn't keeping the orders away. I think in the future it might have.

Not only did they bring in the lines to maximize production, they've expanded production and continue to do so. Main limitation today is hiring enough employees fast enough. Today though more profits in Mako and Ranger Saltwater than in Hatteras MY even assuming solid order books for all.

Yes, the Cabo site was taken down some time ago, again with no announcement or fanfare.

What is sad is that they wouldn't sell the Cabo brand. It's like a selfish child. They don't want it, but don't want anyone else to have it. Versa wouldn't and now White River won't.

For the sake of discussion only, as I have no iron in the fire, I don't exactly buy that. There are some businesses that have to take risks to grow. For instance, Seawind catamarans was a small builder of uniques cats. They have exploded with new model offering and very interesting move from Monohull to Multihull. Whether that is thanks to YouTube and the influencers, it matters not. They increased their pool of buyers is such a way with new designs they expanded manufacturing facilities as we speak. Hatteras MY line had done no such thing. Granted the world buys more 45-50' foot catamarans than 60-90 foot MYs but Princess and Ferretti and SunSeeker are selling 60-90' flybridge motor yachts.

I just don't think it all stacks up to focusing efforts elsewhere, they had to as the MY line was not growing it's pool and the other lines are more in demand. If the MY yacht line was in demand, they would be happy to fill orders, or find a buyer/manufacturer to sell to to fill orders. It would not just wither on the vine as it appears to be doing.

Regardless, we may have be seeing the end of an era. #nothappyaboutthat

Cabo was a beautiful boat for a minute.

Well, they refused to fill orders, so that's the contradiction. MY line might not have been growing but it was still selling.

This is not an unusual move for White River to buy capacity as much as brand. I've seen manufacturers in other industries buy companies because they needed the capacity for their existing lines and then shut down some lines of the acquired company.

As to demand, Hatteras MY's are not all that has grown old. Their SF's have needed some upgrades as well. Viking has left them in their wake. Even Jarrett Bay has taken business. Brunswick sat on Hatteras and did nothing with them. Versa did the same. Versa thought the brand was worth far more than it is. The ultimate buyers put some value on the name but a lot of value on the manufacturing capacity for their boats. They now talk about "Heritage with a New Beginning" but haven't clued us in yet on that beginning. Do notice though their SF line has now shrunk to 4 boats. The 45 (really a Cabo heritage), the 59, 65 and 70. They talked initially about some changes there and new methods, but haven't seen it yet. The reality is White River has pushed their plans on Hatteras to a back burner while they build Mako and Ranger Saltwater as fast as they can.

sad to say nothing stays the same forever
thinking back over the years, how many US builders of fiberglass yachts (40 - 70 ft.) are still around and building in that niche, not many i can think of
other than builders previously mentioned a short list of a few i recall.....
Bertram, Chris-Craft, Concorde, Trojan, Pacemaker, Gulfstar, Stephens, Egg Harbor, Matthews, Ocean, and now it appears Hatteras, surely many more i have forgot

To expand on my previous post, Hatteras even prior to being purchased wasn’t doing the things they needed to do to build a lot of motor yachts. I’m not saying they couldn’t. I’m saying they didn’t. I think that’s because they had plenty of other things they’d rather be doing at that time. Which was building sport fishers. Now the new owners are bringing even more other things to do.

I don’t know why Viking builds motor yachts either. Maybe I’m wrong but it seems they don’t build many. Building a few of something different in a production process kills efficiency. Why bother? Besides, Viking could build sport fishers 8 days a week.

Hatteras wasn't doing things to build more of anything. Their investors were just planning the exit. They've been through years of owners looking only for the way out.

Now they have owners with plans but other than building Mako and Ranger Saltwater, we don't know the plans.