Casting Off: Maritime News
Bad news, good news
By Peter Hull
WADE SPEES
The Post and Courier
A hoist brings a 40-foot Sabre from the Wando River to the Charleston City Boatyard
When the economy turns south, demand for boat maintenance and repair heads north
It’s not often that Sid Brantley gets the chance to inspect the hull of his “pride and joy.”
So when “White Mist,” his 40-foot-long sailboat, was lifted out of the Wando River at the City Boatyard this spring, Brantley, owner of Brantley Construction, was right there to check how it’s aging.
Brantley bought the craft a year ago from a previous owner in New York, and it was time to clean and paint its bottom. It took 60 years to buy the boat, Brantley said, and he’s keen to ensure it’s taken care of.
“She’s my dream boat,” he said.
Thanks in part to the time of year — and a general economic downturn, a time that historically favors the industry — the area’s boatyards are thriving, operators say. Many of Charleston’s yards were full this spring, each working a niche that helps keep business afloat.
Similar to a downturn in the real estate industry, when many homeowners choose to stay put and remodel, a lackluster economy often sees boat owners pay for repairs and maintenance rather than shell out for new, bigger toys.
Charleston also has other advantages. The area offers the only yards that can accommodate larger recreational boats along a 300-mile stretch of coastline from Wilmington, N.C., to Savannah.
Add the natural attraction of the Charleston area for transient boaters who follow the best weather up and down the East Coast, and it’s small wonder the area’s industry has an optimistic air.
Andrew Oleksiak, yard manager at Rockville Marine on Wadmalaw Island, said that at his yard at least, effects of the economic downturn have yet to be felt.
The yard, which employs about 13 people year-round, was full this spring, with 30 boats being readied for summer. Many were in for “paint and scrape, bottom service” work, Oleksiak said.
“The economic downtown isn’t affecting everyone,” he said.
‘Bottom-feeders’
One of the area’s best-known names, the Beach Co., became a player when it bought the former Halsey Cannon Boatyard in Cainhoy three years ago. The company renamed the yard the City Boatyard and embarked on an 18-month, $1.5 million environmental cleanup, which included removing about 30 abandoned boats from the site. The company also installed a $40,000 water recycling system for its pressure washer to prevent run-off into the Wando.
The investment appears to be paying off. At the turn of the year the boatyard recorded its busiest months ever, said Ron Gift, the yard’s general manager.
The yard employs 30 tradesmen who paint, scrape, replace propellers, shape
fiberglass, even rebuild boats.
The yard works on about 1,700 boats a year, Gift said. So far, the business has exceeded expectations, he said.
“As much as I’d like to hop on the bandwagon of doom and gloom, I really can’t,” Gift said.
Along the nearby Cooper River at the former Navy base in North Charleston, Charleston Boatworks has developed a niche servicing the sleek sailboats of the local racing community.
The 8-year-old yard — owned by sailboat racer Teddy Turner, son of media mogul Ted Turner — also services recreational craft, including a once-submerged boat that the yard is rebuilding from the inside out, and a cruiser that jumped a jetty and tore deep scars into her hull.
Others are in for an annual checkup — “bottom-feeders,” as yard manager Jay Bowen called them.
“This business is a roller-coaster ride,” Bowen said. “We’re busy, and that’s good for us.”
Drying up
But the boatyard business isn’t all plain sailing.
L.J. Wallace, host of “Water’s Edge,” a weekly radio show for boating enthusiasts, said the business can be tough, and up and down the East Coast the boatyard industry is threatened.
The industry continues to struggle with accusations of yards ripping boat owners off, Wallace said, when very often the owners, even the most experienced boaters, know little about boat repair.
Further, despite the options for owners in Charleston, the area is limited, Wallace said. Yards here can’t accommodate craft weighing more than about 75 tons because of the capacity of their hoists to lift vessels out of the water. Owners above that threshold typically head to Savannah, Wallace said.
And one of the biggest threats to the boatyard business is developers, he said. By definition, boatyards occupy some of the most sought-after property — waterfront land — in their region. So when a developer comes calling, multimillion-dollar check in hand, the offer can be too good to refuse.
“The boatyard business, much like many waterfront businesses, (is) drying up because there isn’t the incentive to keep it,” Wallace said.
Sinking sales
Perhaps nowhere is the volatility of the boating industry more apparent than in the sales sector, where the economic slump has stirred up choppy times.
For example, MarineMax Inc., the nation’s largest recreational boat and yacht retailer, recently laid off 10 percent of its work force as its profit fell nearly 50 percent during its last fiscal year.
Industrywide, sales of new boats have slipped virtually every month since mid-2004, when the nation’s consumer confidence began to slide. Sales closed out last year down nearly 15 percent from 2006, according to market research data.
Even more troubling, souring sales, which began with smaller, cheaper boats and progressed to 30-foot midsized models, are beginning to infiltrate the yacht market, where years-long waiting lists for the 50-foot-plus, multimillion-dollar vessels are evaporating.
Since the beginning of 2007, Lake Forest, Ill.-based Brunswick Corp. — which makes more than a dozen boat brands, including Bayliner, Sea Ray and Hatteras — closed or announced plans to close seven factories and laid off more than 1,300 workers. The company’s boat segment lost more than $81 million last year.
At City Boatyard, Gift said that in the current economic climate, the industry’s challenge is finding people new to boating to replace those who leave the pastime every year. Without a regular stream of newcomers with Brantley’s passion for boating, the yards won’t survive.
As he darted from starboard to stern inspecting the hull, Brantley was almost oblivious to the spray of the yard’s power washer.
“You can usually tell the owner,” Gift said. “No one else is so interested in their bottom.”
Source: The Post and Courier and The Associated Press. Peter Hull is a reporter for The Post and Courier. Reach him at 937-5594 or phull@postandcourier.com.
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