Boat brands you miss

I'm not so sure Bob Roscioli be interested in building a 18' or 22' Donzi classic with an 8' beam and a better hull design!
hehehe

Pacifica and Elliot for the West Coast boats. I miss Cabo, things were never the same after 2/15/06.

Henry and Michael were very passonate about Cabo and really went above and beyond with helping their customers, and adapting new ideas. However, certain things were screwed up in regards to customer service back in the day. The parts guy they had was phenomenal at the factory. In regards to warranty repairs though. The selling dealer was also the servicing dealer for warranty repairs, however for a while they really didn't have a good system setup if the boat went from FL to NY or away from the servicing dealer. So the selling dealer would have to try to get the Cabo dealer for the area the boat was currently in to fix the boat for them, if not the factory would try to find someone. The selling dealers were also responsible for the flybridge installation, engine startups, and outfitting. Which was fine unless you were a foreign dealer and shipping it to a different country and well.....needed the propellors on it and flybridge on it so you could run it to a freighter and run it from a freighter. So the international dealers, many had the boats shipped to Ft. Laud to have pipewelder's, hi-seas, P+R handle the tower,canvas, electronics, but had to find and hire a subcontractor to install the FB, props etc, and do the engine startup first. Whereas with Brunswick and in the years of 2005 on (prior to Cabo being sold) Cabo had their own warranty team to handle the boats that have travelled or went to foreign dealers and needed to be outfitted first, but not before that. I helped with a lot of those back in the day.

Brunswick is still very good with the Cabo warranties and you can have it warranty worked on anywhere there is a servicing dealer now. Same with Hatteras. The guy in charge of operations for Cabo Hatteras is a good guy and will try to help even with boats out of warranty.

The funny thing is Henry and Michael were never powerboat guys to begin with. They built Pacific seacraft sailboats, ended up selling the company and had signed a 2 year non-compete agreement. Well after 6 months they got antsy, went to the Boat Show in California and saw a 29' Phoenix or Blackfin I forgot which and the lightbulb went off and they decided to start building a SF express...and a better boat in that size range......thus.....the 31' Cabo express, then later the 35' Flybridge, then the 43' Flybridge and 45' Express and on and on. They just took the ball and ran with it, but did an excellent job and many customers asked for various changes, such as the fishboxes.....they did the custom changes for the customers back then and then incorporated them into the next boats if they were good changes......Some of them not so great.......one of the owners of Cabo thought a s/s tuna tower on his 40' express was a great idea......until he started using it and realized the weight savings of Aluminum helped a lot with the stability....LOL.....

Steve that handles a lot of the operational stuff and warranty stuff

Sunrunner


A friend has one...great cruiser in rough weather.

I think you have that switched around, the 35 Fly (a Bill Crealock design, who also designed their sailboats for Pacific Seacraft) came first, although they did have a 31 Fly on the drawing board at some time in the beginning.

They had a relentless passion for fit/finish/details, something that had escaped that era of SF builders (Bertram/Blackfin, etc.) and the difference was so noticeable, the rest, as they say, is history...

Do not be surprised to see them enter the boatbuilding waters in one form or another once again......

35 fly first, followed by the 35 express and shortly after the 31. Then came the 45 express, 47 flybridge, 43 flybridge, 35 hull redesign, 48 fly, 40 express, 40 fly, 32 express, 52 express, 38 express, 38 fly, 52 fly then the brunswick stuff, all in that order.

When we rolled the first big flybridge boat out we had the bridge already on the boat, it was the 47 if I remember correctly. We had a big party at the factory where we were going to roll out the boat to a waiting crowd. As the boat got closer to the bay door, we realized that we were about 3" too tall. We had the bay doors made to match the lowest bridge clearance height to the East coast. That's when we started to put the bridges in the cockpit for shipping. It wasn't much fun putting the bridges on, I did a few and it was always an adventure.

Henry and my dad are still not powerboat guys... They are both great listeners and listened to what people were asking for. One prominent figure on the West coast fishing scene is Mike "Beak" Hurt; he came up at the beginning and told us that a few things should be tweaked on the plug. By the time he returned that day from lunch, the plug was being cut and the changes were being implemented. I think being new to the powerboat world and being receptive to doing something different really had a positive impact on Cabo. As for the stainless tower, it's great on our 40. Not sure who told you otherwise. Yeah the aluminum weighs less and we roll more at anchor, but she still gets up and runs 34 knots no problem. The difference really isn't too much and the stainless really stands out in a crowd. Call it a not so great idea but we're happy with it and we'd do it again.

We thought about building a smaller flybridge but we never had enough interest from the dealers. It would have been awesome to do a little 32 flybridge as the 32 was such a huge improvement over the 31.

As for the new venture, you're headed in the right direction...

Hey you skipped PACEMAKER

Brunswick Ruins

When the ruins of Brunswick are spoken, how deep are they? Slickcraft was a disaster, ultimately bought back and then discontinued by the founder. What are the others?

Slickcraft was in the very infant days of boatbuilder acquisitions for Brunswick, driven into the ground for lack of knowledge. Obviously, SeaRay was not the same disappointment. They learned something significant in between, that put some credibility into their steps. But again, the pressure of trying to get bigger may have caused some mis-steps??

I wouldn't hang the Sealine situation on Brunswick, they gave them a lifeline ($$$) when it was needed. Building in the UK is a different animal, especially with regards to labor. The Sealine product was getting its' a$$ kicked from competitors an all fronts...............

I did not say it was cost of labor, but it would include that and more like their efficiency/output and general HR issues. You can not manage a European mfg like a US, try to fire/terminate a portion of that labor like we see in the US and see how far that takes you overseas, there is a totally different set of rules to play by.

The difference with Sealine is they were not at the top of their game like the other big name brands purchased by Brunswick in that era. They were and still are an underperformer.........