We are very excited to announce that In August, our team drove up to Lake Oconee, Georgia for the 62nd annual Chaparral & Robalo Dealer Conference. Hundreds of dealers from across the country and around the world were there. What happened? For the 8th Year in a Row Fish Tale Boats was named the #1 Robalo dealer in the world. And for the first time we were named, the #1 combined Robalo and Chaparral dealer worldwide.
What the award actually measures
Plenty of awards in this business are about enthusiasm. This one isn't.
The ranking is built on two numbers at the same time: how many boats you sold, and how much total revenue you brought in. You have to lead on both. Out of a global network of more than 500 dealerships, we finished first in Robalo, and first across Robalo and Chaparral combined.
Eight years in a row is the part we're proudest of. Anybody can have one good year.
Eight straight years as the world's top Robalo dealer isn't about one great season. It's about the way our entire team takes care of customers year after year, from the first sea trial to the tenth service visit. Adding the #1 combined Robalo and Chaparral title on top of that is an honor we share with every one of our employees and every family that trusts us with their time on the water. - Travis Fricke, VP of Operations
Southwest Florida is still growing, and so is the boat that fits it
Two things came together this year.
The first is the market itself. Southwest Florida keeps expanding, and so does its appetite for time on the water. Florida is the boating capital of the world by registration count, with more than a million registered recreational vessels statewide, and Lee County ranks in the state's top five. That's not a trend. That's the place we live.
The second is the lineup. Robalo put boats on the water this cycle that fit Southwest Florida almost perfectly.
The 257 has been the biggest single driver of our growth. It's the boat people keep asking for by name, and it's a large part of what pushed our numbers where they ended up.
The 277 brought Robalo into 27 feet, a class where the brand hadn't had as much presence. The dual console version in particular has been extremely popular here, and it opened up a segment of buyer we couldn't fully serve before.
The 237 DC keeps that momentum going in a slightly smaller package, and the 252 expands the Explorer series.
The mid-20s family boat is where the market is moving
If you want the single clearest pattern we've watched from our showroom floors, it's this: family boats in the mid-20-foot range are growing faster than almost anything else.
The buyer walking into our Fort Myers, Naples or Bonita Springs store increasingly wants one boat that does two jobs. Fish serious on a Tuesday morning. Carry six people and a cooler to a sandbar on Saturday. For a long time that meant compromising on one of the two. The newest Robalo hulls were drawn to answer exactly that, and the sales numbers show buyers noticed.
"Robalo builds the toughest, driest-riding center consoles in their class, and Chaparral has set the standard in family sportboats for decades. When you pair boats that are that good with a team that's been doing this in Southwest Florida since 1996, the results speak for themselves." Ray Jahn, General Manager
Built in Nashville, Georgia
Here's a piece of this most people don't know.
Every Robalo and Chaparral we sold to earn these awards was built in Nashville, Georgia, a town of about five thousand people roughly 250 miles south of the hotel where the awards were handed out. One campus, American workers, boats shipped to dealers worldwide.
That's normal in this industry, and it's worth saying out loud. According to the National Marine Manufacturers Association, 95% of the boats sold in the United States are made in the United States. 93% of American boat manufacturers are small businesses. Recreational boating supports more than 812,000 American jobs across roughly 36,000 businesses and generates about $230 billion in annual economic impact.
Boat building is one of the few consumer industries left where the thing you buy was almost certainly made by someone in your own country. The hull gets laid up in south Georgia, it gets rigged and serviced by our techs in Fort Myers, and then it goes in the water in Estero Bay. That whole chain is American, start to finish.
A new chapter for Robalo and Chaparral
This was also the first full awards cycle since Marine Products Corporation, Robalo and Chaparral's parent company, was acquired by MasterCraft Boat Holdings in a deal valued at roughly $232 million. It was announced in February 2026 and closed in May.
For our customers, the practical answer is that nothing you care about changed. Chaparral and Robalo still operate as a dedicated unit with the same leadership, the same brand identity and the same product lines. What's different is the depth of resources behind them: product development, manufacturing capability and a dealer network that now spans coastal and inland markets under one roof with MasterCraft, Crest and Balise.
Thank you
We've been doing this in Southwest Florida since 1996. Three locations, one family, a service department that answers the phone.
None of these awards happen without the people who bought boats from us this year, or the ones who bought from us twelve years ago and of course our entire amazing team! Thank you. Genuinely.
If you want to see what all the noise is about, the 257 and the 277 are both on our floors right now.