Nordic Boats Shuts Down For At Least One Month

ByJason Johnson

Following along the lines of many boatbuilders from California and Indiana to Florida and Michigan and everywhere in between, Arizona’s Nordic Boats announced this week that it was shutting down its production for at least a month for the health and safety of its employees, customers and vendors in light of the COVID-19 pandemic shelter-in-place restrictions.

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Nordic Boats has closed its facility in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo courtesy Nordic Boats

In an email from Randy Davis, the owner behind Nordic Boats and its sister company, Hallett Boats, the performance boat enthusiast and world champion ski race driver explained that he and Nordic general manager Thane Tiemer made the tough call to close the Lake Havasu City facility for at least the month of April.

“This was a really hard decision for us,” Davis explained in a phone call on Wednesday. “We gave our employees the option of coming to work the last two weeks because legally we can still be working on boats, but after further discussion we decided the best thing for everyone was to close the doors and lay everyone off for the month and reassess the situation in several weeks.

“We sold 17 boats at the Los Angeles Boat Show and we’ve had a few more orders since then so we have a ton of work to get it done, but it’s going to have to wait,” he added. “The foot traffic at the factory has been very quiet the last two weeks anyway and we’ve had a couple of customers get cold feet given the current situation of the stock market. We’re still taking orders and quoting new builds, we’re just not constructing or servicing boats.”

While Davis is confident that Nordic is going to weather the storm just fine and be back at full production as soon as possible, he is worried about the economy overall and some lasting effects it could have on the boat business as well as his California-based construction company.

Davis said Nordic will resume day-to-day operations once the current health crisis is the rearview mirror and the state of Arizona allows the company to reopen business operations.

“We appreciate everyone’s support and cooperation during these challenging times,” he added. “If anyone has any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to sales@nordicboatsusa.com for assistance.”

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