My personal take on docking and other lights is that you end up blinding yourself and everyone near you with reflections or direct glare.  A handheld spotlight is your best bet for navigating a channel and trying to see the buoys, etc.  Turn the beam on (above the windshield), spot the marker, turn the beam off.  No real need to continuously sweep the area with a beam in most cases.  The more time you keep the big lights off, the better your eyes are at actually seeing things.

And don't put the spot directly on another boat if you can see his nav lights.  You'll blind him and make him want to hunt you down.

15 minutes ago, cowwboy said:

Tommy's is tiny compared to group 1, penske, auto nation etc. 
Big chains seem to be what manufacturers want to work with. 

In the world of Malibu they are MASSIVE.  Lets say Tommys was a Ford dealer and not Malibu.  It would be the same as if 300 dealers were out of trust and lost their franchise and were nearly out of business.  To make it even more eye opening is imagine if those 300 dealers sold 660,000 new fords last year!  That would send a big shockwave through the system.  Yes, manufacturers like big groups, but in Malibus world Tommy's is huge.  Lithia Motors was the number 1 auto group in 2022, selling 670k units, it would be the equivalent to losing that group, BUT they all sold for one manufacturer.

Didn’t wizard lake used to run absolutely crazy numbers?

Didn't Tommy's start out with just a few locations and then suddenly start buying up a bunch of existing Malibu dealerships?

51 minutes ago, bwski said:

One has to wonder????  

One thing Malibu is certainly guilty of here is putting WAY to much power with one dealer.  It seems incredibly risky to make a single dealer or group responsible for over 1/3rd of your total volume.  Then to make matters worse, convince them to take on way too much inventory.  While someone at the dealer has to okay the inventory, someone at Malibu also thought it would be okay to shove a huge pile of inventory on a essentially a single dealer even if they are spread throughout the country.  If that single dealer was crazy enough to take on too much, you risk losing distribution for 1/3rd of your volume!!!  Additionally, if one dealer is selling 1/3rd of the volume that  dealer had potential for incredible influence on the company. 

 

Tommy's is tiny compared to group 1, penske, auto nation etc. 
Big chains seem to be what manufacturers want to work with.