Quite a bit to talk about this week. Go get a cup a coffee on this snowy (New England) day. I will be here when you get back.
I. Our Latest Listing
How about a truly remarkable Vicem brokerage listing? Check out this 54 Sportfish, Enclosed Bridge, Paydirt:
Vicem 54 Sportifsh – Enclosed Bridge
Some people are surprised to hear that we build Sportfish models. Admittedly, we haven’t built that many, maybe half a dozen. Want the insides scoop? We went into it big at first, but we found the marketplace was awfully crowded, and despite all that we do, we had a hard time positioning ourselves in a meaningful (i.e. profitable) way. So now we only build them on a custom basis.
Paydirt is an amazing example of what we can do. Unlike the other Sportfish we have built, she has an enclosed bridge and traditional Vicem-style interior woodwork.
I spend some time aboard her in Florida not too long ago, and she is quite impressive. The upper (enclosed!) helm alone is worth the price of admission.
And at $775,000 she is priced to sell.
Check out the full listing by clicking below. She is in the Bahamas, and can be seen at any time.
II. Vicem 70 FB – Truant Update
Yesterday I went up to Falmouth for a showing of Truant, our spectacular Vicem 70 listing. She is stored indoors, and shows beautifully in a temperature and moisture controlled facility (more on that later). Here are some pix:
The full listing can be found below. Simply stated, she is the most singularly impressive boat we have ever built. As I mentioned last week, I have been spending a lot of time on MegaYachts lately. Trust me, Megayachts are routinely not built with the care and finish shown on Truant. It’s a fact, Jack.
You can fly into Boston or New Haven to see her. I’ll pick you up.
III. What Makes a Great Yard?
I am asked about yard recommendations fairly often. Since I’m usually found in either an airport or a yard, I can offer some good shorthand advice.
WARNING: What follows is just my subjective opinion. You know what they say about opinions.
When I arrive in a yard for the first time, I can usually tell in about ten minutes if they are “Vicem-good”. This “ten minute rule” is not 100% accurate, but I put it at way over 90%.
It comes down to a quick look at orderliness and cleanliness. A yard that has sufficient staffing and managerial oversight to stay clean and orderly has the ability to do your work (and mine) on time, on budget, and on spec.
More importantly if they miss the spec target on the first go around, they have the staff and quality control management to jump right back on it without disrupting the rest of their workflow. After all, seasons are short, even if you boat on the equator!
Truant, as described above, is stored at MacDougals, on Cape Cod. IMHO, they are a great yard. Take a look at these pix, and apply Dave’s rule:
The paint room, btw, is the best paint room I have ever seen (and that includes factory paint rooms). It is floor-heated, temperature, dust and humidity controlled (I could not believe the size and air flow of their air filtration system). Interestingly, when I asked Mark Bancroft and Dan Vullemier of MacDougal what makes a great paint room, their first answered surprised me – Perfect lighting! Check out their system:
Now, as my Southern clients say from time to time, I don’t have a dog in this hunt. But I like quality operations, and promote them when I can. More importantly, the MacDougal crew really seems to get what we are doing here on Planet Vicem. So in that vein, Dan tells me they have a slip opening, from 45 – 100 feet, for my clients (any builder) at a discount rate. If you are interested, please call me right away.
IV. On Cold Molded Construction
There are not that enough companies anymore who build with cold molded composite construction. The labor hours required are just prohibitive over most of the planet. We, of course, have it down. But I was happy to see, in Yachting Magazine last month, an article on a cold molded Jarrett Bay Sportfish. I don’t follow NASCAR, but apparently she was built for driver.
Now, JB’s are built with plywood cores rather than our solid mahogany cores (call me if you would like my opinion on this) but it is still a strong vote for the strongest way to build a boat.
You can read the full article at:
V. Our School
And finally, an update on the school we are building in Bodarie, Haiti.
We just completed our second annual medical trip to Bodarie. Last week we took down over 40 volunteers: 10 Doctors, 2 Dentists, 2 nurses, 1 Optician, 2 Pharmacists, plus translators, runners, organizers, and so on.
Authorities on the ground say that they have never seen an outreach like this in the entire SE region of Haiti!
Several adult lives were literally saved on the very first day by the volunteer Doctors. Hundreds of consultations for both adults and children were given, hundreds of free prescriptions filled, well over a hundred teeth were extracted, and over 100 pairs of glasses were ground and fitted. The thought of children able to see sufficiently well to read for the first time is overpowering to me.
It still surprises me, so it may surprise you, to hear how small we are: Haitian Support has five or six principles. The local community in Bodarie has another six or eight highly involved parents and community leaders. And that, my friends, is our entire team. But it is our contributors who make the dream a reality.
We are teaching (and feeding!) 568 kids on an operating budget of just $25,000 a year. Our capital plan to build the new school (already 1/3 built!) is just $185,000. We are now only $50,000 short of fulfilling the capital plan.
It brings me endless delight to say that the largest single contributors to the Bodarie Project are you – my Vicem clients!
We are almost there. If you can help put us over the top, launch a flare immediately. I will see it!
OK, that’s it for this week. Stand by for next, where I will begin to talk about the Miami Boat show.
Thanks for listening, and enjoy
