First, I thank those of you who paid me a compliment.
Most of the comments I read regarding Selene and Alaskan are spot on. Both boats are/were of good quality. Selene did have some occasional quality issues caused by turnover at the factory and having inexperienced workers. They also had blister problems off and on. Interestingly, some showed up on the superstructure. A good surveyor should be employed for a pre-purchase inspection of a Selene and even an Alaskan, for that matter.
Brian Calvert, now managing our brokerage office in Subic Bay, Philippines, was a partner at Friday Harbor Yacht Sales. FHYS was the first Selene dealer in the US (1999). The early boats were Solo 43s, designed by Harvey Halvorsen of Kong and Halvorsen, then later, Island Gypsy fame, and built by Jet Tern. Soon, the hull was stretched and the Solo 47 came about. At some point, early on, Harvey parted ways with Jet Tern and the brand was renamed Selene. Early Solo owners were offered a branding kit to change over their Solos to Selenes. Many did. Brian may chime in and offer more information than I as he was there living it. I was just an observer.
Alaskans (formerly Grand Alaskan), designed by Art DeFever were developed by Gary Oviatt (Oviatt Marine). There were some 65+ boats built of various lengths, 53' to 80' by Tania in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Some were flush decks and some were raised pilothouse models. Oviatt Marine succumbed to the economic downturn and declared bankruptcy in 2009 or 2010. At the time of the bankruptcy, John and Jackie Murray had an Alaskan 65 under construction. In order to get the boat finished, they purchased the assets and thought, why not build another, this time, a 70 footer. Many will notice the Alaskans, especially the 65' and 70' strongly resemble Outer Reef's early models. This, because after Oviatt moved his production to another yard (~2006), Tania began building the Outer Reef's.
Well, the economy did not improve right away and the market for new boats was still very soft for several years. (Some would say it is still soft in certain segments.) As the years went by, the Murray's devoted more time and energy toward other interests and Alaskan stagnated.
In 2016, my wife, Jan and I became friends with the Murray's (they are wonderful people) and decided to try and help them bring the brand back as a dealer/distributor. In early 2018, it was decided that the brand needed a face lift if it were to succeed. In order to do that, a significant investment would be needed and we couldn't justify that unless we had more control. It was decided we would make an offer to purchase the brand. We did and the offer was accepted.
We immediately engaged our old friend, Steve Seaton, to modernize the designs. We decided to keep many of the DeFever design features, but "Seatonize" them a bit. We are still in the process but have preliminary profiles and sample general arrangements for 53', 57' and 66' models completed.
So that is what I know.......hope it clears up some thing for some of you.
