About Crownline

Creation Story

When Fred Claxton turned on the TV set the morning he started Crownline Boats, he saw missiles tracing the sky over Iran. It was the first day of the first Gulf War. The last thing anyone would be thinking about today, he said to himself, would be buying a new boat.

And he couldn’t stop now. Fred already had recruited 15 people whom he considered to be the best of the best to join him on his quest to build a better boat company. They had left their security and good paying jobs behind to join him and his fledgling boat enterprise. He couldn’t let them down.

That year, the first boats were built in the Whittington School gymnasium and Claxton and his crew discovered that consumers did want new boats after all. The next year, they moved to the old mark Twain boat factory. Within five years, they moved to a new state of the art Crownline Boat factory.

Today, Crownline is a leading manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of sterndrive powerboats. Crownline Boats is the fourth largest boat brand in the world in the 18’ to 32’ long category, and third largest in boats that are 21’ to 32’. Today, Crownline and their staffing partners employ in excess of 500 people.

Today, the company is led by Kevin Riem and is one of the most respected brands in the boating industry.