West Marine filed Chapter 11 in 2026 — 247 boating stores, 91 closures, $429M debt

West Marine was founded in 1968 by Randy Repass as West Coast Ropes, a small supplier of marine hardware in Sunnyvale, California. It grew steadily, opened its first retail store in 1975, and went public on NASDAQ in 1993. By the time of its peak, it operated 247 retail stores across North America and was the dominant specialty retailer for boating and fishing supplies.

Two private-equity takeovers loaded the company with debt. Monomoy Capital Partners acquired West Marine for $338 million in 2017 and took it private. L Catterton bought it in 2021. The debt from these transactions, combined with costly store leases, left the company with a fragile capital structure.

On May 17, 2026, West Marine filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with $429 million in debt. The company blamed heavy lease costs, bad weather affecting boating seasons, and a post-pandemic hangover in discretionary spending. In June it announced 59 store closures across 23 states; by July that had risen to 91 stores — nearly half its fleet. A vendor controversy added to the chaos: suppliers reported receiving purchase orders 10–20 times larger than normal just before the filing, leading to fraud claims that went to court.

The bankruptcy shows how two rounds of private-equity leverage can turn a healthy specialty retailer into a debt bomb — and how the final trigger can be as mundane as bad weather and a consumer pullback.