Quote:
Originally Posted by LaAngler
the L&Bs like this are a lot like the champ 24 hull, I wonder if champion used the L&B design?
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Wylie Nagler, who now owns Yellowfin Yachts, designed the hull for the 24 Bay Champ. Quite a few years ago, he designed boats for a company he owned called Back Country Powerboats, which was later sold to Champion Boats. Back Country Powerboats was well known for its 201 Pro Guide flats boat, which Champion modified and marketed as the 202 Pro Guide. If you take a look at the L&B 20 Back Water flats boat, it looks eerily similar to the 201 and 202 Pro Guide, just as the L&B 24 Back Water looks so similar to the 24 Bay Champ. So is L&B copying Champion and Wylie's hulls and modifying them or did he maybe sell his old molds to L&B after dealing with Champion? I'd be curious to know. I may be way off on this but these are just some things I have noticed while researching online and comparing boats and brands. In no way am I knocking L&B boats. I have a friend with a 24 Back Water and it is a sweet rig. I started looking into the L&B's once Champion went out of business because I love the ride and quality of my Champion so much and the L&B was the closest thing to replace it with! I also heard that Wylie designed the hull of the 21 Bay Champ, which i personally own and is the best riding 21 foot bay boat I have ever been on. Wylie also designed the hull of the Yellowfin 24 Bay, which is the most impressive bay boat I have ever fished out of. So after seeing all the great designs that Wylie has put out, it wouldn't be a surprise to me that someone would want to copy his designs or at the least, buy his molds and modify them. I'm sure someone knows a lot more about this than me and I would love to have all of the gray area filled in. This is just my 2 cents about the question of who is using who's hull design! I'm not saying any of this is 100 percent accurate, its just my theory after researching for my next bay boat (I love my Champion and said I would never buy another brand, but since they disappeared AGAIN and after fishing out of a Yellowfin 24 Bay recently, I will definitely go with the Yellowfin when the time is right for me to upgrade. It is a bit pricey compared to most of the other brands, but then again after seeing the quality and experiencing the ride and performance of the Yellowfin 24, no other brands compare).