Northern Marine Reborn?

[dhays]

Welcome Jayb100. I wish you success in your venture.

 

[BoatBoay]

It is always interesting to read comments from people who sound like they know the facts on a given subject but in fact know very little about it. The original Northern Marine that was started in 1995 was a fairly large boat building company with 330 employees at their height and an average of 180 employees for several years. Not a $2 million dollar a year company when selling 5 boats a year averaging close to $3 million a piece until later when they were closer to $20 million each and still doing several boats a year. Occupying over 100,000 square feet of buildings it was not a small business.

 

[BoatBoay]

Bud is not a part of the operations of any of the past businesses

 

[BandB]

It is always interesting to read comments from people who sound like they know the facts on a given subject but in fact know very little about it. The original Northern Marine that was started in 1995 was a fairly large boat building company with 330 employees at their height and an average of 180 employees for several years. Not a $2 million dollar a year company when selling 5 boats a year averaging close to $3 million a piece until later when they were closer to $20 million each and still doing several boats a year. Occupying over 100,000 square feet of buildings it was not a small business.

I admit to not knowing the ancient history. Just know the sale, bankruptcy, resale, bankruptcy, resale, resale of the last 10 years or so. That's the relevant history, a company averaging through all that less than 2 boats a year and dwindling to one small building and fewer than 50 employees before finding themselves upside down and in the water. I'm not going to discuss inside details here on a public forum.

 

[JustBob]

Bud is not a part of the operations of any of the past businesses

This sentence doesn't really make sense? You are mixing tenses. What are you trying to say?

 

[BoatBoay]

you actually don't know the real history, just what you want to think that you know. living here in Anacortes and knowing all of the real players, i know the history. i wish the new venture well as i do with all new ventures.

 

[BoatBoay]

Sorry, never the best in English class. Meant to say that Bud was not a part of the ventures after his original sale in 2006.

 

[chriscritchett]

Seems there’s a ‘tude on the forum....

 

[dhays]

you actually don't know the real history, just what you want to think that you know. living here in Anacortes and knowing all of the real players, i know the history. i wish the new venture well as i do with all new ventures.

Welcome BoatBoay

As I mentioned before, I wish the new venture well. However, I don’t know the history of the company, the company name, or the folks involved. I also don’t frankly care . I am also not among those that can actually afford any of the boats they may produce, although I wish I was.

I do understand some of the issues behind running a small business. I deal with those daily (btw, anyone want to loan me $500k on a building I am upside down on? I am good for the loan. I promise).

However, folks here either know who I am, or can easily find out. I am very happy to have another Washingtonian join TF and welcome you. However, it is hard to give proper credence to your assertions on this matter unless we know how you know the players, the history, and the current situation in the company.

I am happy to see a new boat builder on the scene. I wish them success and really would enjoy seeing some very nice yachts on the water. I hope the investors are financially successful. I assume that potential buyers who can afford these new boats are also financially savvy enough to ensure their interests are protected.

So... while the viability of a new company and the veracity and abilities of the individuals involved is definitely germane to the interests of the TF community, it probably isn’t worth a big argument.

 

[stubones99]

We probably should have gone aboard Agave yesterday at the Palm Beach Boat Show but instead went aboard our new favorite next door, the Kadey Krogen 50 Open. I mentioned the Baaden incident to Michelle and a guy walked over and tried to gloss over the accident which didn't sit right... I read the reports that were public but living on the opposite end of the continent, I had no first hand knowledge. I did wonder why someone would try to revive Northern Marine after such a public image problem. It did look good from the outside, hulls fair and quality of workmanship seemed good. But I didn't go aboard.

 

[sean9c]

Seems to me the name Northern Marine comes with a lot of baggage, a lot of that, accurate or not, is negative. I guess I wonder why a new company with new owners would want the name? I'd think you'd get tired of explaining that your weren't the NM that built Baaden or any of the other earlier catastrophes.

My intention is to show off the product in boat shows. I prefer not to sell Agave, but if it sold I would rebuild the same boat for myself again.

Bud no longer owns the name. North Ocean Yachts owns the name.

When I mentioned heyday, I was referring to the peak of the trawler production, 1995 through 2005.

 

[Jayb100]

We probably should have gone aboard Agave yesterday at the Palm Beach Boat Show but instead went aboard our new favorite next door, the Kadey Krogen 50 Open. I mentioned the Baaden incident to Michelle and a guy walked over and tried to gloss over the accident which didn't sit right... I read the reports that were public but living on the opposite end of the continent, I had no first hand knowledge. I did wonder why someone would try to revive Northern Marine after such a public image problem. It did look good from the outside, hulls fair and quality of workmanship seemed good. But I didn't go aboard.

I wish you had come aboard. You could have talked to one of the marine architects that participated in the review of Baden. I would also like to point out that Baden was not a Northern Marine design. An outside marine architect redesigned an existing hull, extended it, added another deck and converted it to a yacht design vs the traditional trawler/expedition design. The new Northern Marine is staying with trawlers and expeditions, for which Northern Marine has a great reputation.