West Marine bankruptcy brings back memories

When I heard the news that West Marine had filed for Chapter11 bankruptcy protection on May 17, 2026 it made me sad and brought back memories. I worked for West Marine at the beginning of my career when I was shifting from being an active paid boat captain to finding a more stable land-based job in the marine industry. I wound up in California in the summer of 1990 following the promise of a marine electronics job in LA that never panned out. Captain’s jobs were tough to find at that time, so to stay in the industry I got hired at the Marina Del Rey West Marine as the electronics manager. I had experience in marine electronics from running boats, and from having worked a season at the Boat US Marine Center in Ft. Lauderdale. Yes, Boat US used to have stores.

The Early Days of West Marine

At that time, West Marine only had 15 stores, all of which were on the West Coast and the company was still privately owned by the founder Randy Repass. We were kind of a big family back then with Randy and West Marine’s second employee, Geoff Eisenberg, still in charge. The company had relocated a few years earlier to a new headquarters that included a massive 120,000 sq ft warehouse known as 760 which was located at 500 Westridge Dr. Watsonville, CA. This was a huge step from West Marine’s humble beginnings in the San Jose area where Randy famously sold rope out of his garage to get things started. Despite the fancy new building everyone still knew each other for the most part, as the number of associates was still in the hundreds not thousands. That said, the company had big ambitions which included an East Coast expansion (top secret back then) and eventually wanted to go public, which they did several years later.

Marine Electronics in 1990

The marine electronics that I sold back in the early 1990s were a bit different than today. Cellphones existed but no one had them and the coverage was spotty at best. VHF radios like today were important for safety and communication but lacked DSC (Digital Selective Calling) and other modern features. Electronic chartplotters were primitive, used monochrome CRT tubes (like an old television), and the electronic cartography used on them was still under development. Nearly everyone plotted positions on paper charts. For nearshore use, Loran C was the most common marine navigation system since GPS was in its infancy. Loran used shore-based radio towers to triangulate boat position along the coast and was accurate to 200-1,000 meters. Loran calculated positions by measuring the time differences (TDs) of signals sent from a master transmitter and comparing it to signals pulsed from other stations. It worked pretty well in most coastal areas, and its repeatable accuracy (returning to the same spot) was 15-90 meters which fishermen liked. Transit satnavs picked up where Loran faded offshore by using orbiting satellites. They provided global coverage with similar accuracy to Loran but only delivered a fix every few hours. Between the fixes you had to update your position using dead reckoning. The units were somewhat large and cumbersome with an internal computer connected to an external cylindrical antenna, they also cost a lot more than Loran.

Vintage Magellan GPS and it still works.

The Dawn of GPS

I happened to start selling marine electronics around the time GPS became available for use by private citizens. In the early 1990s the satellite constellation was still under development meaning intermittent coverage. The first GPS I ever saw was a Magellan Nav 1000 handheld unit that had been returned by a customer because he was disappointed that there were still long pauses with no position fixes. This early GPS model was a waterproof handheld unit run off common AA batteries. It had a digital readout that provided latitude and longitude as well as speed and course all delivered in real time globally, which was pretty amazing back then. It sold for around $3,000, if you could find one.

Competition in the GPS market quickly heated up when a new company released the ProNav GPS 100. This portable unit had a more user-friendly horizontal profile that was easier to mount on a boat and had features like a detachable antenna, waypoints, reversible routes, arrival and anchor alarms. It even had a built-in simulator which was very helpful when demonstrating the unit at West Marine to prospective buyers. There was a trademark issue with the name ProNav, so in 1991 founders Gary Burrell and Min H. Kao merged their names, creating the company Garmin which remains a top electronics company today that I’m sure many of you are familiar with.

Selective Availability Limits GPS accuracy

Early GPS accuracy was intentionally reduced by the US government to around 100 meters for non-military users by a system called Selective Availability (SA). Even with the degraded signal, this new GPS system was still more accurate than existing systems at the time. I remember plotting the digital positions provided by those early GPS units onto paper charts with dividers and pencil and marveling at the accuracy. SA ended in May of 2000 which improved global civilian GPS accuracy to better than 10 meters. This change allows modern smartphones, navigation apps, and many types of commercial tracking we all currently use to function. There are now other more modern ways than SA to prevent the system from being exploited by nefarious users and new and better satellites have improved GPS.

West Marine Catalog

In the early 1990s the internet was mostly just an idea so aside from their stores West Marine did a robust catalog business. The catalog included “The West Advisor” which by the time I came on board was being run by Chuck Hawley who expanded and refined the program. As far as I was concerned Chuck was “The West Advisor” and he and his team tested products and produced in depth analysis that was published alongside items in the catalog. This valuable information included side by side comparisons of marine equipment that helped boaters understand what types of products were right for their boating. I recently got hold of him to reminisce and talk about his role heading up the product information department back then and the early success of the company.

Hawley the “West Advisor” from 1992 to 2002 recalls, “Randy (Repass) came up with a very brief list of the company’s secrets of success, a few of which I still remember. The first was ‘The customer comes first, always’. This easy-to-say, but difficult-to-execute, secret was backed up by our ‘No Hassle Guarantee’. Like many good retailers of that age, we told customers they could return whatever they bought from us at any time, even if it had been worn or damaged. That bought a lot of customer loyalty. The second rule was to never b*llsh*t the customer. If you don’t know the answer, ask someone who does, or call the manufacturer. Don’t guess and don’t fail to answer the question.”

That early dedication to service, combined with providing customers with information that improved their boating, help to make West Marine special. “The West Advisor” columns and product testing highlighted in the annual catalog were a big part of that. It would be interesting to look back at those old West Advisor columns now to see how much things have changed. Some of them might still be relevant today and am working on ways to revisit them.

Seattle Bound

After a few years selling marine electronics in Los Angeles for West Marine under various managers including John McEwing, affectionately known as Johny Mac, and Barry Kelley who eventually became the Senior Vice President of both stores & Pro (their wholesale division), I was recruited up to the Pacific Northwest. In Seattle I was based out of the appropriately named Mercer store. At the time, the store was on the north side of Mercer Street which was a one-way street. Currently at that exact location you would be literally in the Westbound lanes of the now two-way street. West Marine brought me to the Northwest, and I still live in the region today and for that I am very grateful.

Growing West by Going East

During those early days at West Marine, we worked hard but also had fun. I grew sales at Mercer till it was the top store for marine electronics in the company. Gary Williamson the electronics buyer and I collaborated and became friendly. We went to IMTEC (International Marine Trades & Convention) together in Chicago which was a precursor to today’s IBEX (International Boatbuilders’ Exhibition & Conference). We were able to get Raytheon (now Raymarine) to allow West Marine to sell their radars as we had been previously relegated to their retailer’s brand called Apelco. Standard Horizon, which was run by long-time industry veteran Ken Ungar (who I now count as a friend and mentor), had a famous dinner party at IMTEC. Many shots of tequila were consumed, and since I was a rookie, they cut my tie off. I was a part of the team when West Marine went east to the surprise of their competitors. I helped set up the electronics displays at the first store in Miami and subsequent stores on the east coast and Texas. 

West Marine was growing fast at the time and moving toward their IPO in November of 1993 which put them on NASDAQ as WMAR. In 1996 they merged with East Coast competitor, E&B Marine, and then in 2003 acquired the retail and catalog divisions of their biggest competitor at the time Boat US. Soon West Marine Associates numbered in the thousands, and eventually Randy, Geoff, and a lot of the original core associates either cashed out their options, backed away from the day-to-day operations, or moved on.

The Modern Era 

In September of 2017, West Marine was taken private with private equity firm Monomoy Capital Partners paying in a leveraged buyout $338 million (or $12.97 per share, less than the original IPO price of $14). It is hard to say how that worked out for them but in April 2021, Monomoy sold their controlling interest in West Marine for an undisclosed amount to a larger private equity group called L Catterton. What can be said is that over the years West Marine had become the largest marine retailer in the United States with over 200 stores. Now in May of 2026, West Marine filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The restructuring was stated as necessary because of slowing retails sales, a heavy debt burden (reportedly $549.2 million in secured and unsecured debt), and rent obligations that add up to $55 million annually.

I appreciate that West Marine is trying to restructure in order to survive, but it still makes me feel bad. The fact that some of the local stores nearest to where I keep my boat are closing along with many others across the country is also sad. I hope West Marine survives this bankruptcy, but no matter what, I will always cherish my memories of working there.

https://www.westmarine.com

List of West Marine Store Closures

Arnie Hammerman Publisher

Boats and the ocean define my life. From teaching sailing to captaining yachts, marine publishing, and marketing, I’ve spent decades sharing seafaring tales. At Best4Boats, adventure awaits—welcome aboard!

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