Livingston Boats

July 2006
Rating: Very Good Product, Sucky Dealer Network

We finally replaced our dinghy and we went with Livingston. In a nut shell, I love their dinghies and their dealers suck my fat ferret's ass.

We bought the 9 foot reinforced, rigid glass, catamaran style dink. It weighs in at 125 pounds which is a lot, but I will never have to patch it and I will never ever again have to tell Amy that "We're sinking because I threw a lobster through the floor".

The dink has twice the inside volume of a comparable inflatable. The extra weight dictates that we get a bigger outboard, but for our life style having a dinghy/otuboard combo that can reliably reach the reefs and the volley ball courts is worth any price.

I wasn't overly impressed with the dealer network. The boats are made out on the west coast and there was only one dealer with in 500 miles of us on the east coast. The guy I dealt with was out of Annapolis and was ok to do business with, but he was definatley small time. The company can do better.

In this day and age, any business that doesn't take credit cards, doesn't reliably answer the phone and can't arrange meetings on the clients' (read: the people with money) schedule should probably find another line of work. It didn't help that the sole mid atlantic dealer only deals Livingston products as a secondary side job.

We love the dinghy, but it's a shame that Livingston doesn't have better quality control on who it selects as dealers and it's unfortunate that Livingston is getting a bad rep because of their distributors. Come on guys, get with the program.