ASHWUABENON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – After last years boating boom, the trend continues in 2022.
Mitch Mogensen of Ken’s Sports believes people assume boats aren’t available, but the Resch was full of Pontoon’s over the weekend.
He tells FOX 11 like many other industries across the country, some manufacturers are struggling to keep up with supply.
“There’s definitely some slowness around some things. Especially right now with electronics, fishing graphs and trolling motors, that kinds of stuff.”
The boating industry is not immune to supply chain and inflation issues, but there’s still time to get your new boat in the water for the start of the season.
Bret Uptagraft, of Skipper Bud’s in Oshkosh, tells FOX 11cost hikes are hitting the industry hard, and it goes further than the price of parts.
“There’s inflationary costs of labor, there’s inflationary cost of materials, you’re seeing price increases on a lot of this stuff. There’s fiberglass manufacturers that have had a problem getting resin for a long time, there’s canvas manufacturers having trouble getting the material, there’s engine manufacturers having trouble getting this part or that part or whatever else.”
Still, he adds those issues have improved over the last 18 months.
He has this rule for smooth sailing.
“The good news for consumers is if we order the boats early and got them in early. We’re avoiding those price increases, so obviously pricing is better now than it’s going to be in July.”
One of Skipper Bud’s major suppliers, Mercury, is struggling to keep up producing engines due to the high demand.
