What ever happened to Land & Sea

**Krazymaan** · 12-27-2016, 08:48 PM

I wasn't in the boating scene back then (too young) but from the tidbits i gather, Land & Sea didn't seem to be such a bad company or have bad products. I happen to have a Land & Sea Hydraulic Jack plate and a Land & Sea nose cone on my 88 Stratos. They still work perfect. I just learned they have "hot foots" as well. I seen those crazy double spark plug heads (I'll stay away from those). I'm sure there is more. So what happened to them?

**Mrzip** · 12-27-2016, 09:46 PM

I had a six pack intake for a 2.4.. it was Great..

**Mr. Demeanor** · 12-27-2016, 10:57 PM

http://www.landnsea.com/

**Scream And Fly** · 12-27-2016, 11:38 PM

I always remember Land and Sea as the company that made stuff that was a bit on the hardcore side of performance. They were sort of like an alter-ego of Bob's Machine Shop. Whereas Bob's Machine seemed more refined in their products, Land and Sea seemed like they wanted to take more risks into performance territory. I still remember a lot of their products from when I was growing up. Definitely an icon of our sport.

Greg

**Mrzip** · 12-28-2016, 12:14 AM

I still have many of there tools that bought in 1995.. Still in use.

**powerabout** · 12-28-2016, 04:07 AM

http://www.dynomitedynamometer.com/

**tunnelmike** · 12-28-2016, 05:41 AM

Now would be a great time to bring the turbo back out !

**Da Bull** · 12-28-2016, 07:37 AM

The Land and Sea distributing company (owned by Mercury Marine) is not the same as the one from the 80`s powned by Bob Bergerone.

DB

**rock** · 12-28-2016, 08:02 AM

When I was young I would drool over that catalog like it was a Christmas toy catalog. I still have several of their old ones laying around somewhere. Grew up, well at least older, and used many of their products.

Rock

**David - WI** · 12-28-2016, 09:29 AM

I have some of their stuff, single and dual-plug heads, foot throttle, foot trim, nose cone, even Torque-Shift props that I have never run because they won't hold up to surfacing for very long. I have seen an HST literally jump up onto the water in one boat length with a torque-shift prop... but they had to be rebuilt all the time.

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They were hard-core performance at the time and I think they over-estimated a lot of their customers... many, many people bought their stuff assuming they could just bolt it on and go when in reality it took some tuning and testing. The "catalog" was more of a "performance handbook" but I think a lot of people ignored the tech info or just didn't understand it:

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We've also had a couple of their snowmobile engine dynos; the early ones were also a little bit "under-designed" but that was partly because snowmobile horsepower was going up so rapidly around the time they released their dyno.

**Krazymaan** · 12-28-2016, 09:43 AM

I wonder when someone walked into the office and said "Were done with this crap" and they were no longer.
speaking of that turbo motor. I have a brand new unused turbo cowl in my garage.

**Ryan Beckley** · 12-28-2016, 09:51 AM

My 24' Skater was built for them. I had V-8 refrigerators on it when I got it!

**David - WI** · 12-28-2016, 10:00 AM

They are still in business and I think they were still selling boat parts in the early days of the dyno business. They were not the first or last hi-performance company that had trouble finding customers that were "smart enough" to use their products.

If you read the "Terms of Sale" you get an idea of what they were up against.