Sea Ray Boats is an American manufacturer that produces recreational

motorboat A motorboat or powerboat is a boat that is exclusively powered by an engine; faster examples may be called "speedboats". Some motorboats are fitted with inboard engines, others have an outboard motor installed on the rear, containing the inter ...

s. It currently operates as part of the Brunswick Boat Group, a division of

Brunswick Corporation Brunswick Corporation, formerly known as the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, is an American corporation that has been developing, manufacturing and marketing a wide variety of products since 1845. Brunswick has more than 13,000 employees in ...

History

Sea Ray was founded in 1959 by Cornelius Ray as an independent company, Ray Industries, in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

, with

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) is a common type of fibre-reinforced plastic, fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened i ...

boats being made at a factory in

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, Michigan. That company was bought in 1986 by

for $350 million. At the same time, Brunswick purchased the Bayliner brand, making Brunswick the largest pleasure boat producer in the world. Sea Ray opened a plant in 1972 at

Merritt Island, Florida Merritt Island is a peninsula, commonly referred to as an island, in Brevard County, Florida, United States, located on the eastern Florida coast, along the Atlantic Ocean. It is also the name of an unincorporated town in the central and south ...

. It eventually grew to three plants at that location. It employed more than 1,500 workers at its peak. At that time, it produced about 20 sport yachts weekly, each retailing from $200,000 to $500,000. It largely phased out operations during the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.

. In 2017, Brunswick Corporation announced that they intended to divest the Sea Ray line. In July 2018, however, Brunswick announced they had reconsidered their decision and have since retracted any intent to sell and that the Sea Ray would their efforts on building the best sport boats and cruisers up to 40 feet. In doing so, Sea Ray will discontinue production of sport yacht and yacht models.

Today

Sea Ray designs, manufactures and markets boats ranging from power boats to over motor yachts, including the Sundancer brand and, starting in 2014, the "L" Series luxury yachts. Sea Ray is based in

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the Tennessee River and had a population of 190,740 at the 2020 United States census. It is the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division ...

, and it operates two factories in Tennessee and two in

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. Sea Ray designs and markets more than 40 models ranging in boats from . Sea Ray was the first boat manufacturer to use fiberglass in its pleasure boat construction, and it also pioneered the molded-in swim platform when it launched Ski Ray dedicated

water skiing Water skiing (also waterskiing or water-skiing) is a surface water sport in which an individual is pulled behind a boat or a cable ski installation over a body of water, skimming the surface on one or two skis. The sport requires sufficien ...

tow boats in 1991. In 1995, it acquired a new subsidiary, Baja. Brunswick subsequently sold the Baja brand to another entity.

Other Brunswick boats built at Sea Ray plants

* Bayliner * Meridian Yachts

History

Today

Other Brunswick boats built at Sea Ray plants

Notes

Further reading