| The
results of this year's J.D. Power and Associates Boat Competitive
Information Study aren't much different than the results from last year
— or of the year before that, or the year before that ... In the Coastal Fishing segment, which ranks fiberglass saltwater boats from 17 to 28 feet with built-in fuel tanks, Grady-White had the highest customer satisfaction index for the sixth consecutive year — out of the six years J.D. Power has done the study. And in the Bass Boat segment, which ranks fiberglass bass boats (not multi-species, walleye or fish 'n' ski models), Bass Cat won out for a third consecutive year. Bass Cat, incidentally, also had the highest customer satisfaction index in the entire study — which also includes express cruisers, small runabouts, large runabouts, pontoons, and ski/wakeboard boats — for the second consecutive year. What's Included and What's Not? Does that mean Grady and Bass Cat make the best saltwater fish boats and bass boats on the market? Maybe and maybe not. While the study is certainly interesting, it does have some very significant limitations. First, customer satisfaction indexes are based on nine categories: cabin, engine, ride and handling, helm and instrument panel, design and styling, sound system, maintenance, water sports, and fishing. Obviously, not all of these factors are relevant to bass boats and saltwater fishing boats. J.D. Power says that not all segments include every factor, but doesn't specify which segments include which factors. Second, the study includes a relatively small number of manufacturers. The only bass boat builders represented are Bass Cat, Triton, Ranger, Skeeter, Stratos and Nitro (in order from best to worst). Twenty brands of coastal fishing boats are represented, but four of them — Parker, Pursuit, Sea Boss and Triumph — aren't actually ranked because of small sample size. The 16 that are ranked include Grady-White, Boston Whaler, Scout, Century, Polar, Hydra-Sports, Key West, Sea Pro, Sea Hunt, Sailfish, Wellcraft, Seaswirl, Angler, Pro-Line, Sea Fox and Trophy (in order from best to worst). Obviously, a lot of manufacturers are missing — big and small, top shelf and bargain basement. Not a single catamaran builder appears, nor do big names like EdgeWater, Triton and Robalo, nor innumerable smaller outfits. Even considering only production builders (not custom or semi-custom like Farallon or Blackman) of fiberglass, offshore (not bay or flats) boats from 17 to 28 feet, the 20 brands included in the study represent less than half of what's avialable. Third, the study only looks at new boats. In the case of the 2007 study, only owners who registered new boats between June 2005 and May 2006 were surveyed. That means a major component of overall quality — not falling apart after a few years of use — wasn't factored in. With the jaw-dropping prices of fishing boats these days, longevity is a more critical concern than ever. How Much Do Boat Owners Know? The study's most important limitation, though, is that most boat owners don't really know very much about boats. That sounds bad, but think about it. Most car owners have owned, driven, or at least ridden in a huge variety of cars and thus are fairly capable of rating the relative quality of their current cars. But very few boat owners have anything close to the breadth of experience with boats that car owners have with cars. In fact, fully 30% of boat owners surveyed by J.D. Power for this year's study were ranking the first boat they'd ever owned. It's tough to offer an accurate assessment of your boat when you have little or no experience with others. I would even go so far as to suggest that the J.D. Power rankings — and the general perception of the quality of boat brands — are self-perpetuating. In other words, it seems entirely possible that relatively inexperienced people who buy expensive boats with good reputations are less likely to find fault with those boats just because they're already convinced of how good they are. Likewise, people who buy "price point" boats may well be more likely to find fault because they're looking for it. As a writer, I've had an opportunity to test-run and examine more boats than most people ever get to. (Boat dealers, after all, are notoriously stingy with sea trials.) In most cases, quality is fairly proportional to price and reputation, but not always. I've run boats from top-dollar, top-shelf builders that didn't hold a candle to competing models that cost literally half as much. But few boat owners have chance to make that kind of side-by-side comparison. I don't mean to run down the winners of the J.D. Power studies, nor the study itself. Clearly, the builders that come out on top — especially those that do so year after year — are doing a lot of things right. And you have to applaud any attempt to provide objective, unbiased ratings of boat quality. That kind of information is extremely difficult to come by and also extremely valuable. Independents vs. Conglomerates One interesting pattern appearing in the J.D. Power studies is that independent builders like Grady and Bass Cat consistently rank higher than builders owned by big conglomerates like Brunswick and Genmar. Smaller single-brand builders, says Todd Markusic, senior director of powersports practice at J.D. Power and Associations, "tend to be more nimble than the larger companies in making changes, correcting problems and adopting new technologies ..." Among the fishing boat brands owned by Genmar are Ranger, Champion, Stratos, Triumph, Seaswirl, Wellcraft, and Hydra-Sports. Albemarle, Boston Whaler, Sea Boss, Sea Pro, Triton, Trophy, Crestliner, Lowe, Lund and Princecraft are Brunswick's small fishing boat brands. The company also owns Mercury, Mariner, and Cummins MerCruiser Diesel. Another big conglomerate, Tracker Marine, owns Mako, SeaCraft, Nitro, Tracker and Fisher. The fourth and newest of the conglomerates is Godfrey Marine, which owns mainly pontoon and deck boat brands, but also Polar and Polar Kraft. Certainly, some conglomerate-owned brands rank well in the J.D. Power studies, including, in the fishing segments, Triton, Ranger, Boston Whaler and Polar. Overall, though, the single-brand builders do seem to come out on top. That, though, like the rest of the study's findings, should be considered only a valuable piece of the boat-buying puzzle — not taken as gospel. |