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Posted by Ted on 18:10:13 06/02/03
The prowler maybe a reality after all. The following is from Johnson's second quarter report.
"Watercraft
Although Watercraft's brands continue to experience strong customer acceptance and gains in volume, operational inefficiencies in certain businesses continue to hamper results. Second quarter sales decreased 10% to $19.9 million and the segment had an operating loss of $1.1 million compared with a $0.8 million operating profit in last year's second quarter.
Johnson-Leipold commented, "We continue to invest in new systems and new people, and there are some signs of improvement, most notably Ocean/Necky. While these major changes disrupted operations to an extent during the second quarter, we believe they will have a positive impact on productivity over the long term. We have a good track record of improving businesses and, while we're beginning to see some positive indications at Watercraft, we know this is a long process and more time will be needed to get all of the businesses back on track."
Johnson is a publically traded company if you read the quarterly financials, it is easy to see why they shelved the Prowler last year. It will be interesting if they can bring this boat to market by August 2003.
Even if they do bring the prowler to market, their R&D/design team suffers from a sever case of HUB. You need to look no further than their latest releases of the Venus, Mars, Ambush and Agean. I would be harder on the drifter, but it does have a good application for diving since you are already in several inches of water in the cockpit.
It would be nice if they could get it together and get this kayak out of dry dock. This reminds me of waiting for Windows 95.
-Ted
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