Should boat builders get into the RV business?

[Robert Ryan]

They already do in Australia. Seachange Caravans are made by a well known boatbuilder
http://www.seachangecaravans.com.au
Haines own Seachange Caravans and several Boat divisions.
This is one
http://www.signatureboats.com/boats/

Their well known Haines Hunter models
http://www.haineshunter.com.au/limited/limited-range/

[Boxster1971]

Of course with winter approaching you may want on of these when the water freezes.

Home of the Lodge - The most rugged four season trailer, RV certified fish house, and toy hauler on the market.

[wincrasher]

LOL. The Extreme is hilarious. I guess if you like a cargo trailer with a crude interior. I guess they think a cassette toilet and a big heater is considered 4 season. Check out an Arctic Fox or Oliver to discover what a full featured true 4 season looks like in a trailer.

[gregmchugh]

Bigfoot does some nice all season units also...

[Davydd]

Our lakes haven't frozen over yet, but when they do, ice fish houses will spring up in small little towns all over the lakes. There are a lot of winter "lodges" manufactured in Minnesota. They really aren't designed for any long hauling. Some can get pretty bizarre.

https://www.facebook.com/Davydd/medi...0326551&type=3

[Boxster1971]

The winter lodges on the ice now are a lot different than when I was growing up in Minnesota. My Dad and I used a home made portable ice fishing house the was just two sheets of plywood with canvas between them. It had about 4'x6' floor space, but was light enough that we could pull it out on the lakes before the ice was think enough to drive on it. My worst memory was standing in 6" of ice water on top of the ice while fishing in the spring out in the open air. Gives me chills just thinking about it again.

[gregmchugh]

Every appearance to me is that ice fishing may in many cases be an incidental activity used as an excuse to go out with the boys for a few beers and whatever else goes on in those fancy shanties...

[wincrasher]

Shhhh....ice fishing and bowling is about all we have left Greg....

[BobB]

My wife says baseball was invented as an excuse to drink beer in the afternoon.

[wincrasher]

For those that may be interested in the progress on my other Class B (as in Boat), the factory sent me some construction pictures:

[wincrasher]

[wincrasher]

I thought their building techniques were interesting (albeit a little messy). They assemble all the various systems an parts onto the big liners first. Then the liner parts are put together and the tie-ins between these big modules are made. So the way I'm seeing it, there are 3 main parts - hull, interior liner, and top superstructure. Note that even the top superstructure will have all the interior finishes installed before it's put on the hull.

[booster]

That modular method of building makes perfect sense to me, allowing 3 work stations to reduce completion time and easier customization.

[Rok]

Congrats on the new boat, Wincrasher!

I thought this thread would be dull, but it is really a great topic.

Quality for quality, apples to apples, the prices are comparable. The technologies are very similar. I think the conservation of space is a lot more important for motorhomes. Safety and durability is a more important issue for boats as others have posted earlier.

My personal opinion is that an outfitter could benefit from having the experience of the challenges of both worlds. Plus they might be a bit more stable since the two industries don't follow the same business cycles--even though they are both primarily summer recreational devices.

Do boat builders actually build the boat itself, or do they just outfit someone else's boat? That would be a major difference if they actually build the boat itself. Imagine if the manufacturers of Class B's each had their own chassis.

I'm interest to see more on this topic.

....Rok

[wincrasher]

Boat builders build boats. They do the design, form the hull and all the structural components. Most do all the woodwork too. They get all the hardware and fittings and equipment from various suppliers.

Cost wise, what you see here is on par with ARV. It has a deisel engine and 6 wheels too, but fewer batteries.

[booster]

What do you need to have to tow one of those to the water?

[wincrasher]

I'm told that loaded up, ready to cruise it will be around 10k pounds with the trailer.

I have a 3/4 ton deisel pickup that will tow alot more than that. I would get around 11-12 mpg pulling a 15,000 lb fifth wheel with it, so it will probably do 13-14 with this boat.

[Rok]

Wow, I missed a portion of the thread, and now that I've read it all it is even more fascinating.

I think that our hopes would be that if a boat manufacturer got into the motorhome biz, that the quality of the motorhome would be better because of the standards that they were used to maintaining in the boat biz.

For a period of time I was a distributor for a company who is one of the largest boat builders in the world. I didn't sell anything boating related, but I did deal with the company (Brunswick) for a few years when they purchased Valley-Dynamo Limited Partners, the company for which I was a distributor.

I'm sorry to say that the products I bought were immediately cheapened by Brunswick engineers. The quality control standards were a mix--some changed for the better, and others were changed to the level of "you've got to be kidding me".

Brunswick later sold the VDLP division to another company. At, if what I've heard through the grapevine is correct, a considerable loss.

So, it appears that boat builders have no problems building other products at levels that would be substandard in the boating industry.

.....Rok

[wincrasher]

Well, not all are the same. Brunswick owns Bayliner. Not exactly a stellar reputation in the boating world. Built to a price. They have some better products, like Meridian, but the difference may be more bling than quality components.

There are different strata for boat builders just like there are for the RV industry. I'd put Brunswick on par with Thor or Forest River in the RV world.

[booster]

I knew that Brunswick had bought up a lot of the fishing/runabout makers in our part of the country (MN), but I just looked and saw how many brands they actually have now. Lots more than I thought.

Brunswick | Brands | Marine - Boats