Indy

Agree, the younger generation could care less about some kilo run. The older generation is moving on to center consoles, a more practical, easy on the back type of vessel, the numbers don't lie. Make a iPhone that goes 200mph and maybe some of the kids will pay attention...face it, the generations that would have been buying these type of boats is shrinking dramatically.

Nate5.0

don't count on it.

Who would be willing to do it? OL I am sure has moved on from it and I don't see anyone else that would have any skin or interest in it.

boatnt

iTrader: (1)

thats some funny $hit,,
OL came back 10 years later to get the bragging rights and now they have moved on?

boatnt

iTrader: (1)

no one knows what fountains available capital is and I dont think Fountain needs any ideas from Cigarette,

Is Cigarette sales through the roof?I dont know too many people that are buying new Cigs,,do you?

strugglinToolSalesMan

i thought they had to come through the starting line at a certain speed and then excellerate to finish? Like a shoot out?

sprsptr

It is great to hear that Mr. Fountain is getting involved with the company that bears his name again. Regardless of your brand preference, his contributions to the industry can not be denied. I think that offshore performance boating as a whole will gain some notoriety and exposure, which Reggie is a master at capitalizing on. In so far as the trend toward center consoles, it is as real as the shift towards suv 's and away from sedans in the automotive marketplace. As far as I know, only one 39 TG was built in 2017 by Cigarette, a friend owns it. Cigarette center console production when he visited the plant outnumbered performance hulls about 12 - 1. Manufacturer's in both industries must adapt to current trends rapidly, or be doomed to failure. We don't need 2008 all over again. And as for taking lessons from Cigarette, I don't believe that Reggie has ever needed schooling from anyone! .

rak rua

Not sure about the Cigarette reference but I agree with the rest.
Cant find the article right now but I did read somewhere, Reggie admits they wasted a lot of money on racing, helicopters, jets etc, etc. which played a part in the company's problems. Not criticizing anyone here, I would probably have done the same thing if we were lucky enough and smart enough to be in that position in the first place but learning from this, I'd be building what sells and if there's excess money, I'd pursue my more adventurous goals with the excess.

As always, wishing the best for Fountain Powerboats, their owners and the whole team.

RR

Wildman_grafix

Pretty sure from R3's FB post seems a lot of production is CC focused.

As for the kilo run and race boat. If they are building the race boat for someone else and just one for kilo I don't see that it would be a bad thing. I doubt it will ever be like it was, from any manufacture when you are talking race boats.

Seems OL has a race boat on the course now.

Jupiter Sunsation

Capital invested has some type of expected return. Racing/Kilo adds ZERO to the revenue side of the business. Even if they are sitting on 100 million in capital, anything with a zero (or negative) return should be removed from the agenda.

I only referenced Cig because they have simply moved to a platform of boats that sells (CC's). They did racing/kilo in the past and switched focus to building boats that sell. Cig and Fountain actually have similar issues, their sportboats are unchanged for over a decade and now used boats have gotten so cheap that it is cheaper to redo a nice 12-15 year old boat than it is to buy new! If you take a 2005 TG to Phil, tell him to repower with new 565s, new paint/interior/gauges I suspect that would cost you 2/3 of a new factory TG (incl the cost of the actual 2005 boat). Dock the finished product at a big poker run and nobody would think twice that it wasn't a brand new 2017! Fountain would be the same example. The actual hulls are timeless, the paint/power is the only thing that gives the age away.

Look at what CashBar is doing to his Skater.......that boat is going to be absolutely perfect and I suspect it is 1/2-2/3 of what a new one would cost.

Matt Trulio

They can enter the traps at any speed they like. Here's why: A kilo record is derived from the average speed in two passes in opposite directions. Peak speeds may, in fact, be higher during those passes than average speeds.

Average speed through the kilo course is determined by the time it takes to cover that distance.

Here's a decent story on the subject, http://www.offshoreonly.com/articles.../kilo-runs-101.

And here's one on Fiore's perspective of the marketing value of kilo runs, https://speedonthewater.com/in-the-n...-speed-records.