It is perfectly legal. We are constantly changing our boat designs. The problem with this strategy is that extremely successful boats have longer product life. As a percentage of the sale price, the copier makes a lot more money per boat copy than the original manufacturer. Obviously, our costs to come up with a new design vary from boat to boat, size to size.
Larger boats have substantially different costs.
The copier's only cost is the cost of the boat, transportation and the cost of the mold. When these costs are paid, the rest is gross profit. We have now closed and sold off or are selling off the three plants that we had in North Carolina at Edenton, Shelby and New Bern. Detection of these copies is ridiculously simple. The easiest way for a knowledgeable boater is just to visually compare the Bayliner to the copied boat.