2009 Miami International Boat Show News

No more Shadows? Too busy with "The Sails"?

Any more details on this news? It sounds interesting.

Yeah Carl, come on.
You have wet all of our appetites.
Tell us more eh?

Would you be willing to expand on this? (bold)
I find this very interesting, and would love to hear more of your thoughts on the topic of the boat industry charting the way (in and) out of recession (like) times.

~PB

I think he's half right on that. The timing looks right, but for the economy (humble beginnings). The boat biz may take longer. I agree "that the boat economy leads the general economy into recession", but I'd be more apt to believe that it will follow it out. First people have to know that they still have some money left and that will require the DJ to go up substantially.

The consensus on the docks... and this was a majority quorum... is that people have money to spend, but they are taking a "wait & see" approach. While attendance was down (that's an understatement), there are still buyers in the market, although many appeared to be bottom feeders. Hey, who can blame 'em?

When Loren refers to boating leading the economy, he's looking at a larger picture and I agree with him on this. The big boat buyers are first to return because they often represent the staples of the economy. These sectors continue to thrive, no matter how bad retail looks. People need the essentials. The essentials pave the way.

But what do I know. I'm a bottom feeder.

Megayachts=essentials? It'd be nicer if they put that money back into the stock market to help the ecconomy instead, but I guess that's not their style.

Buying stock doesn't help the economy. Building a yacht, which puts people to work from the people who do design and the ones who manufacture components all the way to the people who do major assembly to painters and polishers at the end of the process, is a real stimulus. Lots of little dogs eat when the big dogs come to feast.

Trading shares of stock really has more of a psychological effect than a direct effect (though increased share values do make a larger market cap which potentially lets companies borrow more at lower rates...).

Buying an existing yacht puts nobody to work, and ordering a new one won't put money into the economy for a year or more. Even at that they are only putting the money into a very limited area and barely enough to make much of a difference, plus they are paying way less than the asset is worth. The organized sell-off in the stock market has eliminated over one third of the investments of the middle-class as a whole. These same people who are burying their money in yachts (bought at the bottom of the market) and other such will later gobble up the stocks (at the bottom of the market) after they've wiped out the middleclass' investments. Yes it is the capitalist's way, but it is despicable at this degree. They and the oil companies may have gotten just greedy enough this time that they may find the price surprisingly high.

I never said yachts were essentials. I said the essentials pave the way for these purchases. I'm talkin' staples, which includes everything from soup to lug nuts.

Although this is a good topic, let's try to keep the thread on heading.

I don't know the full details, but in short, the owner of a Trumpy named "Showtime" is contracting Vicem's yard to build cold-molded boats under the Trumpy name with a design that remains true to the era. I *think* he has purchased the rights to the name, but he may have acquired other assets too. Again, I'm not sure.

One thing is for sure, Vicem can certainly build the boat and dare I say, build it better than the original. This yard is carving a name for itself in wood. They build boats the old-fashioned way... with blood, sweat and years. The result is rather remarkable. Some of their finishes rival gel.

Vicem

As to my knowledge Vicem will build the boats under contract just like they have been building the Windsor Craft for Genmar.

Vicem recently building a composite superyacht around 46 meters, designed by Frank Mulder. No doubt this will improve their capabilities in terms of technical knowhow. Another positive development is that they have employed ex-gm of Grand Banks as their technical manager, who no doubt will bring a lot of good knowledge on the technical front as well.

Trumpy Lives

The story on the Trumpy Vicem starts with Jock West, former publisher of Yachting and marketing entrepreneur, who bought an older Trumpy (now named Showtime) and enlisted a number of marine clients in a brilliant idea: take this vintage yacht and use it as a showcase for their products. He restored the Trumpy beautifully and has taken it on a circuit of all the East Coast boatshows, where show-goers can not only see the classic boat but all the products in a working setting rather than just a booth. In the process, Jock found several people at each show who wanted to buy the Trumpy itself, loving the vintage lines. They wanted classic, but without the effort of doing a full restoration themselves.

So Jock went searching for a builder of modern classics, which had to be in wood...glass would have been sacrilege. Vicem is the perfect answer, with cold-molded hulls using WEST epoxies for strength and longevity. Jock also enlisted a real Trumpy, Johan, grandson of the founding Trumpy,who was delighted to join a team building new-old Trumpys. With original styling and all the modern amenities from stabilizers to bow thruster to a/c, Jock and his team (which also includes Jim Ewing, former production manager at Alden) seem to have a winner on their hands. They are offering the Trumpy 63' Flush Deck Motoryacht with the price set at about $2.9m, for which you can lounge in wicker chairs on that elegant afterdeck and sip Cosmopolitans while sneering at the fleets of white plastic yachts around you.

You can see more at http://trumpyyachts.net/ or in the March issue of Yachting Magazine.

IMHO that sounds right on the mark, but I'll still say from your lips to Wall Streets ears.

Miami boat show attendance off by 26 per cent

By IBI...

I think the Trumpy reborn is pretty neat but it will be inetresting to see if the reproduction/continuation of the Trumpy name will take hold. I would assume owners of "real" Trumpys that were built in Maryland and NJ will sneer at this but they might embrace it.

The name Trumpy will never mean the same thing again. It's just trading on a name to sell boats.