Patagonia told retailers last week that it was exiting the paddlesports business and put all its 2008 product on close-out.
“There are a lot of passionate paddlers here at Patagonia and we love the sport, but we have to evaluate our return on investment and paddling was one where we saw we were not getting the return we needed,” said John Collins, vice president of North American sales for Patagonia.
Patagonia has been making paddling jackets and pants since the late 1980s and entered the PFD market with its 1998 acquisition of Lotus, then a top premium brand for PFDs. At the time, Patagonias Baggie Short was a big hit with paddlers and the sport was growing rapidly. Lotus founder Phillip Curry signed a three-year no compete agreement and handed off the Ashville, NC company.
Reached Friday, Curry said that Patagonia had intended to let Lotus operate autonomously, but moved it from Ashville within two years and laid off many of his original staff. In June 2002, he started Astral Buoyancy to make high end PFDs.
“That brand is very much related to the way me and my staff ran it and operated it,” he said of Lotus. “That is a lot of the fire that stokes Astral.”
Patagonia recruited former Kelty president Casey Sheahan to run its fishing and paddling divisions in January 2005. Eighteen months later, the company said it was pulling the plug on the Lotus brand the only one the company has ever acquired. Going forward, Patagonia said it would begin selling a narrower, PVC-free line of PFDs under its own brand.
But as time went on, Collins said the business shrank and Patagonia opted not to develop a new line for 2008. Efforts to sell the business have been unsuccessful.
“Toward the end there were less champions for paddlesports,” Collins said of the dynamics at Patagonia. “We shifted focus to our surf line and fly fishing line – other parts of our water sports line that are important to us.”
