Continued: Lund, Crestliner aren't facing cuts -- for now -- in soft boat market

Brunswick Corporation's announcement on Thursday that it plans to scale back its recreational boat manufacturing won't have any immediate effect on the company's two Minnesota-based subsidiaries, Lund Boat Co. and Crestliner Inc., said Brunswick spokesman Dan Kubera.

But he added that the company will eliminate about 50 jobs at its Bayliner boat factory in Pipestone, Minn.

Citing declining sales in the wake of escalating oil prices and a sluggish economy, Brunswick expects to close 12 plants by 2010 and eliminate about 2,700 jobs.

Dustan McCoy, Brunswick's chairman and chief executive officer, said the retail demand for boats was down 21 percent in the first quarter of 2008.

Numbers for April and May, usually hot months for boat sales, "have shown no release from the declining trend," he said Thursday morning.

According to Statistical Surveys Inc., which tracks new boat registrations, first-quarter aluminum and fiberglass boat sales were down 20.4 percent from 2007 nationally.

Minnesota boat sales in the first quarter were down 34.1 percent, but Minnesota's boat builders say it's not quite time for panicking.

Irwin Jacobs, chairman and chief executive officer of Minneapolis-based Genmar, acknowledged tough times for the boating industry, but said he isn't too worried yet.

"There is no question that we're in a different world, business-wise, today," Jacobs said. "But is the world coming unglued? No, not for us."

Genmar is the largest privately held boat manufacturer in Minnesota. Jacobs said Genmar has had some layoffs and has reorganized some production facilities to be more efficient. But he said sales for fiscal 2008, ending next Thursday, will be only about 5 percent lower than the year before.

"We do not have the same problems that Brunswick is projecting," Jacobs said.

Despite rising fuel costs and a pinch on disposable income, one thing remains true: Minnesotans love their boats.

"[Boating] is really woven into the fabric of our society in the Upper Midwest," said Luke Kujawa, president and COO for Minneapolis-based Crystal Pierz Marine, a family-owned boat seller since 1956. "People aren't going to give up boating very easily."

Emma L. Carew • 612-673-7405