why so many bankruptcies with the Laser/Sunfish enterprise??

jaas75

Member
i was just reading a guide for buying used lasers by one of the moderators (BTW thxs for the guide its very good) But omething that always jumps to my attention is so many laser builders went bankrupt!!! same happens with sunfish boats, but WHY??

i mean honestly they should look at the business model and try to adjust, i dont have numbers at hand but lets face it laser and sunfishes are VERY POPULAR if not the most popular class of sailboats, also every 4 years theres a Good money amount with the olympics, And every year we have the worlds.

One of my theories is that the reason of why they are expensive is because they dont sell that many every year, BUT on the same hand if they would reduce the price people would prefer to buy new ones opposed to used ones.
i guess thats a catch 22 as they charge to much cuz not that many sold but they shoot themselves on the foot because prospective buyers prefer to expend less tha 1/2 of a new price on an used one.
i think price reduction would help to bring more people to the hobby and ultimately more sells!!! i mean common imagine a person interested in sailing and not knowing to well about the sport, goes to the local dealer and finds out he /she would need to shell out almost 5000 dls at once to start:eek::eek::eek: that scares anybody !!!

one example of a nice cheap sailboats, but ultimetly failed
is the snark sailboats, remember those kool sponsored sailboats:):) or the captiva sailboats .

what are your thoughts guys?
 
Speculation + vague memories mixed with facts:

The only "big" bankruptcy of a Laser builder was that of the original Performance Sailcraft in 1982 0r so. Just looking at the numbers, this was at a time when the demand of Lasers took a plunge after a few years of insane growth - in the late seventies, nine builders (all part of the same company) around the world produced some fifteen thousand Lasers a year. In 1983, the remaining builders became independent and the trademark was split regionally (which is the root of some of the problems of the class today). All current builders have been in operation since, and in fact started years earlier (Britain in 1972, Australia '74, Japan '75).

I understand that several North American builders went bankrupt later, but that was before the Olympic era of the class. A South American (Chilean) builder was still active in the 2000s, but I have no idea what happened to them.

Any corrections/more info more than welcome.

But the bottom line is, if anyone sells annually thousands of any class of sailing dinghy at this time in history, they must be doing something right, and the price can't be much off.
 
Speculation + vague memories mixed with facts:


But the bottom line is, if anyone sells annually thousands of any class of sailing dinghy at this time in history, they must be doing something right, and the price can't be much off.

you are right as im speculating as i dont have any hard facts but wow if you look at the sunfish and the laser class there were lot of builders that went under!!
just look at a guide for the serial and you would see at least 5 different serials for the laser and more or less the same for sunfish (most of the guides say they went bankrupt?)
that was the reason my question

I do disagree on the price not being much off, theres hundreds of threads open about "clones" , "practice" equipment, etc . And almost always the reason of a market like that is because they can produce comparable quality at less price.
Again
i love the laser/sunfish clases but wow, sometimes this hobby can get expensive!!! (im starting to rig for racing )
 
Several of these builders didn't 'go under'. Rather, the business was sold.
For instance, Vanguard to Laser Performance.
 

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