Chuck Cashman on MarineMax, Superyachts & the Future of Boating | Yachting USA - PODCAST

Awesome. Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it. Look where we are. We're in Palm Beach. The Palm Beach boat show starts. It's gorgeous South Florida winter weather. Doesn't get better than this.

We are on a 35 Puro Ocean Alexander, which debuted at this show last year. We actually sold hull one. This is hull two. And it's a really good collaboration between Giorgio Cassetta, well-known Italian designer, and Ocean Alexander, a very well-known eastern builder out of Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

And that collaboration has resulted in a boat that's kind of a new class for Ocean Alexander. And it's really over well with clients. The little bit of the European flare with the traditional Ocean Alexander's always been a ship type of a boat that's seaworthy and was sturdy and it's got that and wrapped up in a beautiful package.

I did. So, Bill McGill, our founder of MarineMax, we founded MarineMax formed as a public company in '98. He hired me in 1992. We were basically one store with one brand and started selling Sea Ray.

It really was. I mean, even as a public company for many years, more years than we like, they would still call us the Sea Ray place. And you know, we've tried so hard to be so much more, but honestly, without a brand like Sea Ray, I don't believe we could have ever brought the dealerships together that we did to become public. So, it really, you know, we all had a special place in our heart for that brand. And at the time, it's greatest brand in the world. Certainly the greatest brand in America.

Yeah, that's right. And no, with the common ground there too is I started my business in the back of my dad's shop in Clearwater.

Yeah. Wow. What a story that is.

We did. It was in a time where there was a lot of companies consolidating and going public. Certainly in the auto industry they were doing that and our founder got an idea that Bill got an idea that you know and the idea I got to go back one step. The idea was to provide a better experience to the customer. At the end of the day, it really wasn't about let's make more money, let's consolidate. It was let's provide opportunities for the team, which I can tell you sitting here 30 almost 33 years later, it provided me incredible opportunities for others, but it provides a better experience for the customer. And I'll kind of explain how, but we were basically five Sea Ray dealers, big Sea Ray dealers, but Sea Ray was the common brand that read through it all. And there was enough critical mass at the time. We were somewhere around $220 million. So not a very big company, but at that time big enough.

And it was just big enough to go public. When you think about it, you have to have a big enough company. Sea Ray provided enough business for those companies to form together. And then through the years, we've had, you know, a number of acquisitions that all of the dealerships we acquired primarily had Sea Ray as their main brand. And there was other brands that came in and out, but Sea Ray has been a common thread and today is still if it isn't our largest brand, it still is, you know, one or two. It's right up at the top.

They did in with some collaboration. I'm sure there was a little bit of collaboration early on where they did get a certain stock grant for allowing us to go public because there's dealer agreements with every dealer and we needed their permission to have the dealer agreement transfer from what we were a Gulf Marine to MarineMax. So there was a little bit of a partnership there, but at the end of the day, Brunswick was a manufacturer. We're a dealer, right? You know, we were I would say simply a boat dealer, but at the time it's pretty much what we were pretty simply a Sea Ray dealer and Boston Whaler had entered into it a little bit, but at a lesser scale. Now it's grown to be equivalent with Sea Ray. Some years a little bigger, some years a little smaller, but they're two of our biggest brands year.

Yeah, they are amazing. It's amazing what they've done through the years and I think we've helped for that to be honest.

They are. And Dick is still a dear friend of mine, as is Brad. And you know, they just lost their son Richie, but Tony and I are still pretty tight. And you know, it's a cool family. But, you know, we watched what happened when Vince's company, Gulfstar, got basically consumed. Viking took them over and then as eventually they went away. And I remember the phone call when Dick called me to ask if I'd sit in some design meetings with them because they were going to come out with a new brand called Lazzara Yachts. Yeah. And we integrated davits into the bulwarks of these boats and was very cutting edge at the time and it's been copied a lot since then which is a great compliment.

No, it's a great point. I mean as a Sea Ray dealer we went at that time to probably 58 ft was the most relevant boat that we had and they hadn't come up in the L class yet and then the small Lazzara came out I think it was 76 and they built something smaller 68 maybe and those boats were cutting edge and we lost so many of our customers to that brand because we didn't have an offering for them. It was phenomenal what they did and you know there weren't a lot of lessons learned I think to fall back on for people like that to you know we've got a great product we've hit the mark we're selling a ton logically they think well we need to go bigger because our customer is going to go bigger well you know I don't know that always translates.

It's not longitudinal length, it's volume. It's, you know, they become significantly bigger as you go bigger. You know what that does? It's, and I've seen it, I tell you, this is where when you become a MarineMax, you can get a little bit of influence. And it's really just influence. It's advice. But we've seen it so many times. And we'll talk to some of our manufacturers that just because you dominate the 50 to 80 doesn't mean you should build a 100. And what happens with Hatteras and we were a Hatteras dealer for many years. Love the brand. The intellectual capacity that goes into the and the workload that goes into building a 130 or a 116 could have been used and allocated to keep the 76 relevant or the 75 relevant or make the 80 relevant or build a 90 and instead they're building this flagship for all the right reasons in their head right but the reality is customers don't come to Hatteras you know again I'll say this with a little bit of we're you know hindsight 2020. They don't come to him for that size boat. They come to him for a 70, an 80, a 90. And in this migration where if you have patience and you maybe you do sell a dozen 90s, then you've earned the right to sell 100, build a 100. But you can't go from 75 80 to 116 133. It just doesn't always translate, right? That buyer needs to understand and the builder must let me back up. The builder needs to understand the competitive landscape of building a 133 foot and where that customer is going to go first and are you going to be able to pull that customer out of that swirl out of the baits of the other brands to bite on what you have to offer. And it's not easy.

Most of them don't exist anymore, you know, and trying to be relevant. Example would be look what Westport did. Their 112. It happens to be one of the most iconic boats over 100 feet in the world ever built period. However, you know what happened with that boat, I think, is it was so successful, they started building other boats instead of saying, you know, how do I keep the 112 relevant in the market that we're playing in today where we're dominating, right? Absolutely dominating.

Yeah, there you go.

It's a great question and it's a and I don't know that there's a simple answer. There certainly isn't a short answer. So, yes, I believe in America. I think there's no country like ours. If we decide that we collectively, if we decide that we want to build yachts for Americans here, we'll build yachts for Americans. We'll do a phenomenal job. The challenge that I think we run up against is it starts really with workforce. When you go to Italy, and a month ago I was in Italy and I toured six shipyards with our group and we went.

No, you really did. You go to Viareggio. It's the epicenter of yacht building in the world. It is. But what I love about that place, what I absolutely love about it is when you can talk to people on the line that speak English. Yep. They're second, third, fourth generation builders. My dad did this. My grandfather did this. They aspire to be that. Yeah. And I don't know that the US is such an interesting place right now that I don't know that if your father was a carpenter there's something that's getting in the heads of our youth today and maybe in the heads of the parents ahead of them that I want better for my child. I don't want you to be a carpenter where if you go over there teach you the trade it's art it's artistry right.

It's everything they need. Yes. Is right there. And you go to the Netherlands, the same thing in the country of the Netherlands where you have so many, you know, high-end well-established brands, the infrastructure exists with the labor, the training, the apprenticeship programs, and the some contractors to support this boat building. So even beneath that the aspiration that somebody a young person wants to move into that residence because that's what I want to do.

Yes. Look, I think it's a call it the trades and it maybe it starts with it just a different name, but starting call it the trades. It offers a tremendous future, great stable income. And when I say stable, you'll do it for the rest of your life. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's We need a 100 technicians today. If we could hire a 100, but the problem is you work so hard, maybe you find 30, 40, but we get 20 or 30 of them retire and kind of time out. We're just barely holding serve.

No, that's right. That's right. You know, I had a ice maker at the house the other day and they charged a $225 trip charge just to get there. And you gladly pay it because that's what you need to get it fixed. You want the ice. Well, that technician's making good money at this point, right? You know, or you hope they are. It's certainly not there is I know what we pay our technicians. Our top technicians are making tremendous incomes, tremendous stable incomes. And it's being a technician today is getting cleaner and cleaner with all the electronic products and boats are generally kind of a clean environment anyway. They need to be. Yep. It is. It's something that we need to figure out. And I think that it really starts at the parents level because everybody starts out with got to go to college. Yeah. And you think about it, how many billions and billions if not trillions, billions for sure of student debt did we forgive? Those people didn't want to go through that. I mean, forget what your political belief is or whether you should or you shouldn't. These people are living through massive debt trying to make a better life for themselves, not able to figure it out because even stress, that's no life. No. And if they had gone back in time another a few years and realized that there was a different path they could take. Yeah. 100%. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's the beauty of it.

That's a great question. I would say good for the industry exclamation question mark. There's no easy answer and I promise it'll depend on your vantage point. So passion, you think about our industry. I don't know that you get into the boat industry, into the marine industry if you don't have passion for it. So start with that. Our founder, Bill, is one of the most passionate guys I've ever met. He was unwaverable with his passion, his desire to take care of the customer and provide a unique, you know, just irreplaceable experience. And I think that's translated into the company, right? So I would say I'm a very passionate person not only for my company because I am for sure right and now I'm trying to stretch out a little bit into the industry because I think that you know one of the gifts that you get when you become our size even though we're a called a micro cap in the world in the marine industry we're pretty big you know having the honor of having a voice I like that you know spread the passion right everything we do is about better customer service take care of the team take care of the customer everything else takes care of itself. So, I'm not a huge spreadsheet guy, although we're a company. We certainly have solid financials. We have plenty of spreadsheets. We don't run our business off of spreadsheet, right? We have data for sure. And in today's world, if you don't have data, quite honestly, you were going backwards, right? That will help you make good decisions. But at the end of the day, it's still about the people, still about the passion that those people bring every single day. And you know, so I think the future of the industry is good because you don't stay in it unless you have some passion. You just won't meet anybody that's in our business that doesn't have passion.

You would hope so, right? I mean what they've acquired are some pretty special properties that look every you know we have a lot of waterfront properties a lot of marinas best case use of land would almost always lean into development we've never bought anything thinking that you know hey if we don't like this in 20 years let's sell it to a developer.

It's I do think capable, stable, proper ownership is better than ownership that is subject to the whims of succession in a family where I mean look a lot of our acquisitions that the patriarch said no and then the patriarch gets to the end of the road and realizes that maybe the kids don't want to do it or right you know in some cases maybe aren't as capable. But the reality is maybe they just don't want to do it. Didn't have the interest. You know, right now I want to sell my business. It's, you know, that that's one of the neat things about our business is it's when you think about it is so generational, but you hope that the next generation steps up and as they don't, some of these very unique irreplaceable waterfront facilities come available. And it is a nice monetization moment for the owner. But now you hope that it falls into the hands of a good steward because slips are hard to find.

Me too. Me too. Because fair amount of marinas and I can tell you it never enters into our conversation. We're looking for stickiness with a customer, right? We want our customer to, you know, buy a boat from us, service with us, and, you know, visit our marinas.

Yeah. I would say the seed that germinated into the decision to buy that started in the downturn. We So think about what MarineMax has been were accumulation of boat dealers. So we sell boats but you go through '08 and '09 when boat sales are just you know that's your 90% of your revenue comes from selling boats and then maybe the rest comes from fixing boats. Well back then nobody was buying, nobody was fixing. It was a really tough time. It was a light switch. That's what I saw. It was a big light switch, right? Went off. But we saw dealers around us that own marinas had storage that, hey, people still need to store their boat. So, they had a revenue stream coming in. And as we looked at lessons learned coming out of the recession, we said going forward, as we look for dealerships, we're still in the dealership mindset. Right. Right. As we look for dealerships, we should look for ones that have marinas because when it in a cyclical business, which it is, we will have better insulation if we have

So, that's kind of where it started. We started looking at dealerships that had storage. Well, fast forward as Bill moved into the chairman of the board, his son Brett took over. Brett said, 'Look, I want more insulation from just being a boat dealer. Let's get more active and maybe forget a boat dealership with a marina. Let's just look at a marina,' which was new for us. But marinas come, they're expensive, but they come with a lot of margin. So, it's a good profitable business once you can get past the cost to buy the marina. You got to do a lot of business to pay that back. But they will do a lot of business to pay that back. Well, you know, the boats are always going to come because there's the one asset resource that's not going to be replaced. There's only X number of slips available and there's more. Look at the number of yachts being delivered every year. And the fleet continues to grow, but the marina facilities are not growing to keep up.

But we've started expanding and that's where IGY came in. We had now done a couple marinas. We realized that, hey, we can do this and we can do it better. We can do it bigger. And they had accumulated a really nice portfolio of marinas in areas that we just couldn't pass up. So, we chased it and got it and we're very happy with it. So now, you know, and it'll segue into the superyacht side of our business. So, we have these great marinas all over the world and now we have a superyacht entity that should frequent those marinas. So, now you're just staying in touch with a customer.

Yeah. We're lower margin in the brokerage world, the Fraser, Northrop and Johnson world. Customer wants to sell their boat. We're like a real estate agent. So, we don't own the boat, we don't maintain it, store it, we don't clean it, we represent it, we sell it, and we take a fee. That's right. So, it's a nice clean business. Yeah. So, we like that. We had looked forever at a couple of businesses, actually Fraser a couple times, and we were just never able to come to terms on valuation. But what got us over the hump on valuation was we became a company through other brands... we had Azimut for a while and we're a large Azimut dealer. Our customer was getting to a certain size and then they'd leave us. So we've had the relationship for 15 years and I can name the names. They bought a CRA, bought an Azimut, they bought a bigger Azimut. Now they want a bigger boat, but it kind of stopped where Azimut stopped, right? And they're like, 'We love you guys, but we're going to go buy this or we're going to go buy that.' Or if we were able to sell the boat, they would call somebody for charter. They would call somebody for yacht management. And finally, it was enough. Enough was enough. We said, 'We need to be in that. We need to be relevant.' And we had tried to grow it organically because and actually I was sure we could grow it organically and we didn't to be honest and I am sure we could have, it just wouldn't have been in my lifetime. It takes a lot, you know, it does when you get to meet these people. They're, you know, they're team at Fraser, Northrop and Johnson, they've been at it forever. Passion, their world experience in that arena. I can't train it in 5 years, 10 years.

That's right. And we were... I mean look at the time we knew what we were doing. It's if you lose the brokers, the vast majority of what you bought walks away. So it was we were very thankful that we had a great transition in. We were able to retain all the brokers that we wanted to retain. We've tried, you know, and we still today we try to provide them best-in-class tools that maybe if you were just standalone, you couldn't have these tools. We're working on things right now which are so close to launching. It's super exciting. Customer IQ and Yacht IQ are two in-house proprietary tools that we've developed that will help you with customer analytics, customer behavior, customers engagement with various websites. And then Yacht IQ is all the intelligence around the yachts that our brokers will have on their fingertips. Wow. That no standalone company could build. When you combine a couple with the backing of MarineMax, we can afford to invest in that technology because we can spread it out over 10,000 boats. Right. Right. Between our new boats and our used and brokerage, right? Something that's coming out soon. Yeah. Very soon. Very soon. So, we're... Customer IQ, we've launched it in certain segments. Yacht IQ, we've launched it in certain... It's not universally launched because you want to be careful with something like this. You don't want to pull a lever that doesn't work. But we're past the beta testing. We're now real world testing it at a couple locations, you know, in our call it 70 rooftops. We have stores that are technologically more advanced than others. So the ones that are the early adopters of technology, right? They're kind of beta testing this for you guys. They're getting it out and I would say we're 60 days in Customer IQ and six months on Yacht IQ and wow. It'll be super exciting for our team to have because it's what it's all about. Find that edge. It's never, and I've said it so many times, and I promise I believe it. It's not about being the biggest by any stretch. You have to be the best or all you are is the biggest. I mean, so many companies that were the biggest of everything have failed because they weren't the best, right? So, we want to be the best. Take care of itself. Reinvention. It's you can't sit on your hands. You've got to innovate and listen to what the client wants and be able to, you know, provide or in this case, your people. You know, give them the tools they need to do the best job they can do for you.

Well, the learning curve first of all, you know, we didn't know what we didn't know. You know, we believe certain things, you know, we're... I always say we don't know a lot about it, but we're quick learners.

That's right. No, we didn't. We didn't. You know, we had assumptions and you got to keep your eyes and ears open. But by acquiring great companies, we didn't have to learn, you know, we didn't have to be in the fire to learn. We just had to watch what they were doing and learn from them as quickly as we could. In fact, when we purchased Fraser, it wasn't very long after Northrop and Johnson called us and said, 'Hey, we see you guys are acquiring a bunch and we'd be interested in talking to you.' And we said, 'Let's... we don't even know what we've got. We know we've got a good company. We want to learn this business but before we get more deeply in it. Just give us some time to understand what we are entering into.' Taking that 'look, we don't know what we don't know' approach. We know we like the space. We know that it... you look at it, you want to be part of it, right? The business is real. We like the 360 view of it between yacht management, crew placement, charter management, charter retail, the whole thing. We've got it all. We didn't need it any bigger, but they talked their way into the room to be honest with you because we knew one of the gentlemen on their team who used to work for us. We're like, 'All right, come on. That can't hurt anything, right?' We kind of fell all over their team. And then it was... it's a people business. It is a people business. We know, right? And we thought these are people that can be additive and I would tell you honestly at first thought we're like, 'This will be cool. We'll combine the two companies. We'll be the biggest superyacht provider in the world by every definition.' And you know, now we're the biggest but as we really as we got to know both companies and to some degree both customer bases, people went to those two companies for two different reasons and the brokers that go to work there, the team that goes to work there, they were two different companies. So we chose very deliberately chose to leave them independent. Fraser will be Fraser, Northrop and Johnson will be Northrop and Johnson. We'll build a backend that's invisible to the customer, right? That'll have the benefits. You don't need HR at both places. You don't need IT, website development. You know, all of that can come back.

Well, as an independent, I mean, kind of independent to Fraser that has that. They came with IGY, funny enough. That's right. We had talked to them. We were going to bolt it on to Northrop and Johnson, but unbeknownst to us at the same time, they were talking to IGY and they went the IGY direction. It was disappointing at the moment, but you know, that's life. You don't get every acquisition that you chase. And but then it came full circle. And it came full circle. It is. It is funny how that happens. Yeah. But it's... Yeah, the superyacht side is amazing. Yeah, we love being in it. We're very comfortable with what we have right now, I believe. Although I would have said the same thing when we acquired Fraser. Our growth can be organic. We have all the tools now with all the capabilities. We can keep growing in the space. If I think we'll grow. If we grow, we'll grow. And you know, we're not chasing the next one to say, 'All right, I need another store in there.' We have enough critical mass to be relevant.

Well, that is a great question because we are a manufacturer in the United States, right? We acquired Cruiser Yachts and we acquired Intrepid and you know to kind of set the scale those two companies build about 300 boats a year and new boats we sell about 5,000. So it's not a... People are like, 'Oh my gosh, you're going to vertically integrate?' No. Well, no. We... I need 4,700 more boats to vertically integrate. We're not even close. We don't want to. Both of those had a unique story behind it. We're happy to be in it. But I will tell you that by DNA, I know how to sell them a lot more than we know how to build them, right? And we have the greatest people that are running those companies that are helping us build them. But man, manufacturing is... it's tough. So what would I say? I was just going to say too, I don't know what I'd say. I'd say if you build a really good one, I'd like to be your dealer. I don't know that I would... you know, from my perspective, Chuck, it's going to take the brokerage community to have a little bit of influence into working with a high net worth individual to say, 'Hey, yeah, I can take you to Holland or I can take you to Italy or wherever. We can get you the boat. It's safe. I will get my commission and you'll get your boat in a period.' It's going to take that high net worth guy to say, 'Yeah, but I really want an American built boat' and a right broker to say, 'Yeah, well, here's how we can get this done and map it out.' Because yeah, you know, well-known maybe not so well-known secret, margins in building boats are really small. The margins selling boats too, right? I mean, there's a lot of... and it's not the margin and I'll say this, it's not the margin, it's the costs which ultimately... the gross margin is not bad. But it's just very expensive to realize that gross margin. So at the end of the day, your net profit bottom is probably slimmer than you would like. You don't have to have too many hiccups to all of a sudden see that bottom line really become stressed.

No, I will tell you the timeliness of this conversation. You could add a word to it that could be an influencer in the future and that'd be tariff. So yes, if you know, if tariff votes, that could do exactly what tariffs are supposed to do. It brings production back to the United States. I don't know if that's going to happen. I can tell you this. We talked to a lot of European manufacturers and they're talking more now about maybe putting a footprint in the United States because look in the global scheme of boating the US is very important. I mean it's about a third of the yachts sold in the world come to US owners anyway. So that's a big segment. You can't ignore it.

Yeah, that's a very unique, right? You got the right owner and the right builder and a right partner in the hydrogen company that's going to help them figure out how to make it all work. That's pretty special, right? That's how the technology comes into our industry. So people that come to me in the past and criticize large yachts and the high net worth people that buy these boats and build these boats, I point to the technologies that are on these boats here and the boats that you're selling in production right now and say a lot of that started because somebody decided they're going to invest in that idea and develop it in the larger boat and then once it's perfected, it does find its way down into the smaller boats.

That's right. And it's a gift that keeps on giving, too, Chuck, because after you've delivered it, after it's gone through its warranty period, after the owner's taken delivery, and he's hired the crew. That's right. And he's got the crew on board and he's got all that payroll going on and everything that goes along with that and says now we're going to go use the boat. He goes to an IGY marina and he plugs in and he's paying docking fees and he's paying for the power and his crew's going off to the local markets buying goods and its guests are going to the restaurants. Absolutely. And they're hiring the local tourist boats and it's an economic machine that moves around the world and every place it stops it deposits cash. It does. There's no better way essentially to trickle down wealth from the high net worth individuals into our communities than these white boats.

Well, that would be a great segue to a finish for sure. And I'll just add to it. You know, you look back to Steve Jobs was a great boat owner and or I'm sorry, Paul Allen. Paul Allen. Paul Allen. His fleet and what he did for worldwide environmental research by donating his boats out there. Yeah. Was you could have never done it. Couldn't have done it because he had boats and he had the appetite to do it, right? Where I'm gonna put you on a $40 million vessel. You're gonna go out and do the four remotes and you're gonna... Yeah. Take it for a month or two, do your research and then come back. Really amazing. Yeah. His boat Octopus with that built-in submarine pen and the way he utilized that, you know, John Pinder's program that he was working with Paul Allen was just so powerful and he's just one of many. I mean, that's right. There are others that, you know, Gene Machine that's here at the show, they do some similar things. They get their boat out there and they do a bunch of research and they create a platform for others. I just saw and I think you were in the same forum at Superyacht Forum in Amsterdam where they talked about the number one growing segment in yachts right now is expedition yachts growing faster than anything which really to me kind of warms my heart that you know these are people that are trying to get away from marinas. They're trying to get out there and be self-contained. And they're looking for ways to get out and connect with the environment in its most natural form. So, COVID did that for... you know, that turned on a lot of people to the opportunities of being on the water and away from people and being a little self-contained and all that which is good. And of course, something you and I also have in common in our family boating. I've got a small 30-foot boat that I enjoy and I love and I use and it's wonderful to take the family and do things with them. I know you're a family boater as well. You know, I think that's at the end of the day probably the most important part of this whole conversation is the fact that what's more important than family and what's more important than bringing our loved ones together and sharing a love of the ocean and the ability to be present. You know, agree with that. You're not on cell phones or gaming devices and you know, you're together on the ocean and I think that's one of the most wonderful ways this industry pays us back.

Almost sounds like a Donzi Sweet 16. It was a Scatcraft. It was a tri-hull Scatcraft and it was just modest. I mean, it's the size of... it's smaller than most tenders anymore. Right. Right. But I didn't know that. Right. Kind of majestic. You... I grew up on the water. I just grew up on the water. Like you said, the view is the same. The view is the same. Now the amenities on the other side are all different, but I grew up a boater. And I have no doubt that early interaction with water and that lifestyle, even though it was modest, is why I'm here. Right. Right. Some point something inside says I want to get up and go to work every single day in the boat industry.

No, it's a tough... That's a tough assignment. Really say there's from a money standpoint, there's a lot of easier ways you can make money. It's... But we're all passionate about boating. It really... we really are. I mean, at the end of the day, we sit and we're like, take care of the customer, take care of the team, and everything else kind of takes care of itself. And it seems simple, but it works. And you know, part of the team we've learned, we used to hire really... not that we don't now, but we used to hire really smart people and they're... we'll teach them about boating. You got to love the water to be in our business. No question about it. You've got to love the water. So anymore we talk about, you know, what's kind of cool is you can go to somebody's Instagram and say, if look, if there's no water in your background, you're not for us. Hey, I mean, it's... Think about it. It really is. I hate to say it, it's about that simple.

I'll tell you, you know, I'll leave you with this. Bill told me a couple days into my career, 'A rising tide lifts all boats.' Yes. And it was hard. It took me years for me to really believe what he said because you wanted to, you know, step on the throat of your competitors. You want to win, win. At the end of the day, let's... the more we can do for the boating community, we'll get our share. Oh, yeah. I don't need to worry about that. No. They use that same... I use that same analogy. You know, a rising tide floats all boats. And you know, it's really not about winning. It's a process of getting to where you want to go. That's all it is. And I am thrilled to be here with you today. I hope you have a fantastic week here in Palm Beach. And yeah, well, this is going to be a crazy week. I love it. Thrive on this kind of thing and look forward to the future. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jud. It's been a pleasure. Until the next time, I'm out of here.