• Welcome to the Checkmate Community Forums forums.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions, articles and access to our other FREE features.
    By joining our free community you will be able to:

    » Interact with over 10,000 Checkmate Fanatics from around the world!
    » Post topics and messages
    » Post and view photos
    » Communicate privately with other members
    » Access our extensive gallery of old Checkmate brochures located in our Media Gallery
    » Browse the various pictures in our Checkmate photo gallery

    Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact support by clicking here or by using the"contact us" link at the bottom of the page.

Current Caldwell Checkmate production

Just to add more clarification. Pete Caldwell has the molds. No Pulsare molds were sold to anyone, or any of the molds that were purchased from Global Marine Power/Hustler. Maybe Coop can chime in to clear things up. Coop had some smaller Checkmate molds that he salvaged from Checkmate but not the Pulsare molds.
 
JUPITER PULSARE said:
Just to add more clarification. Pete Caldwell has the molds. No Pulsare molds were sold to anyone, or any of the molds that were purchased from Global Marine Power/Hustler. Maybe Coop can chime in to clear things up. Coop had some smaller Checkmate molds that he salvaged from Checkmate but not the Pulsare molds.
Click to expand...
Hey Jup. Pete has all the molds that he bought. But I also have what I have.
 
Word on the street is Global Marine is buying back all the Checkmate molds and brand. Joe’s son will be running it, supposedly. There are still some financial entanglements related to Caldwell that need to be sorted out. But I guess at some point the brand may come back, who knows how long that may take.
 
jjg said:
Word on the street is Global Marine is buying back all the Checkmate molds and brand. Joe’s son will be running it, supposedly. There are still some financial entanglements related to Caldwell that need to be sorted out. But I guess at some point the brand may come back, who knows how long that may take.
Click to expand...
I also spoke to Joe a few months ago. He told me he has no intention of bringing Checkmate back. It’s hard enough keeping the manpower working at Hustler let alone trying to sell them to a very narrow demographic…unless something has changed….
 
Have there been any new developments?

Or is the brand seemingly lost forever?

-Chris
 
I sure hope not, I as well would like to know how things are moving along. My self and a very good friend of mine have been talking about what it would take and how to go about to resurrect and keep Checkmate in business.
 
Hayabusa said:
I sure hope not, I as well would like to know how things are moving along. My self and a very good friend of mine have been talking about what it would take and how to go about to resurrect and keep Checkmate in business.
Click to expand...
We will want to see someone resurrect Checkmate, but I think it would be difficult in our current economy. I think boat sales will take a significant drop in 23 and 24 so not the best time to get back in, especially if you need a significant investment. If Caldwell would not have run into the legal issues they did, I wonder how many per year they would have built at $125K for a 2400 / 300R? I picked up my 2400 / 300R in Nov 2019 and I think it was the 5th or 6 th boat they built that year. So they were selling 5 - 6 a year for $75K - $80K. So if we assume they were making money, how much per boat? Maybe $25K (only my guess)? If so they made $150K per year. At the time they had Dean and Kip (Kip was laid off in late 2019) plus 4 other employees from what I saw. They had to rent the building and order materials. I don't think there was much meat on that bone.
Now if you could build and sell them for the price in 2019, but perhaps sell 12+ / year and net $250K / year that would sound much better. However if it would cost closer to $100K to build in today's dollars and you had to sell them for $125K, I am not sure how many orders you would get.
 
Everyone has an opinion. I love our Pulsare 2100 Bow Rider. I think for possible future hulls, a removable fiberglass bow section would be great. Basically the owner could have a long deck and a bow rider with the same boat.
 
Madtown said:
That is a terrible opinion piece especially about the bow rider comment. Um Checkmate would be dead long ago if they did not do bowriders.
Click to expand...
The guy definitely has strong opinions, as I’ve seen in other articles of his. However, his points on refreshing the models do have some merit. Of the OB models the 24 is the newest, and could use a refresh. But his comments on the 260 and the 2600 are pretty brutal.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top