Big Red
Well-known member
I thought I would never read this or here the words come out of your mouth. Congrats man it must feel good to come clean. Kinda like biting into a york peppermint patty when you get that cool sinsation.
Hats off to you big guy for coming clean now I can move on.
POSTED ON October 12th 2010
Smart Moves at Checkmate
Under the leadership of Doug Smith, the founder of Baja Performance Boats, Checkmate is weathering the economic storm.
In a strange way, all roads lead to Bucyrus, Ohio—at least for Doug Smith. Smith started building the Baja line of go-fast boats there in 1971. He sold the company to Brunswick in 1994, and stuck with it until 2000.
Just down the road from Baja, which was later taken over and relocated by Fountain Powerboats, was a smaller performance-boat company called Checkmate. The family-owned company, which built less than 100 boats a year, never approached the 500-plus-unit production volume of Baja, but it did establish a loyal regional following. Checkmate became known for building spirited performers with outboard-engine power—at affordable prices.
After Smith sold Baja, he did what most hard-driven middle-aged men do when they retire: He went stir crazy. He rode his Harley. He got into his grandson’s go-kart racing hobby. He spent time in Florida. And though he says he enjoyed it all, he couldn’t sit still. Smith was, to put a fine point on it, bored.
So in the spring of 2007, Smith bought Checkmate. Though the Checkmate line and its reputation were still largely intact, it’s fair to say that the previous owners hadn’t done much to expand or improve the brand.
“The boats had not changed in five or ten years,” says Smith. “The graphics were the same, the seats were the same, everything was the same. So that was the first order of business—the boats needed to be reconfigured. We had to work with the tooling we had, but we changed all the seating. We upgraded our interiors. We had McLeod (McLeod Design Group) do the stand-up bolsters for us. We built cockpit liners for the larger boats.”
Other upgrades included new windshield and improved gelcoat graphics. But while Smith and company made significant changes to the existing line of outboard-powered Checkmate models, something was still missing—a stern-drive/inboard line-up.
Strangely enough, the solution came from Baja, Smith’s former company. When Fountain acquired the Baja line and moved production to its plant in Washington, N.C., company principal Reggie Fountain was only interested in the larger Baja models. Tooling for the smaller sport boats was left behind. Nobody wanted it and, according to Smith, the hull and deck molds for several once-popular Baja models were discarded.
"HERE COMES THE BEST PART"
“The tooling was at the dump,” says Smith. “The Fountain people were gone and didn’t want it. The Sea Ray (another Brunswick company) didn’t want to know about it. Nobody wanted it.
“Checkmate has always been known as an outboard sport boat company,” Smith continues. “Adding inboard models reconfigured from the Baja tooling gave us the ability to attract dealers who wanted to offer those boats as well.”
What “reconfiguring” means, according to Smith, is building the four Baja-based models, which range from 24 to 35 feet, in the “Checkmate way.”
“We hand-laminate all of our boats, and we save weight,” he explains. “Right out of the box, the 24-footer ran 5 mph faster than it did when it was a Baja—it’s lighter, and we raised the X-dimension. All of our graphics are done in the gelcoat. And the (Baja-based) models have all the updated features of the rest of the line.”
Not that Checkmate has abandoned its outboard-power, small-boat roots—far from it. In late September, the company introduced a 20-foot V-bottom called the 2000 BXR. With a 115-hp Mercury outboard on the transom, the V-bottom model rings in at $29,995.
“With the 115-hp engine, the boat runs 55 mph and gives the buyer a real performance-boating experience,” said Smith. “If you put the same buyer in a Bayliner, the boat runs 35 mph—it’s a slug. And when he goes to sell it, it won’t be worth anything.
“The goal was to offer a boat a guy could afford for $300 a month,” Smith adds. “That’s what it costs once you pay sales tax and put a trailer under it.
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