New England Boat Show

[powerboater56]

Went to the New England Boat Show last week and heard a little optimism from the exhibitors. The show was smaller than prior years but I was still pleased by the number of exhibitors -- Sabre powerboats, MJM, Eastern, Tiara, Cruisers, Sea Ray, Albin, Nordstar, Ranger and many fishing boat lines like Grady, Pursuit, Hydrasport, Edgewater, Boston Whaler and others. I heard Boston Yacht Sales sold a number of Sabre powerboats, mostly the new 40-footer with pod drives. One yacht broker I know said 2010 started out very strongly. The hall was not too crowded on Thursday but I heard it was quite crowded on some days and evenings.

The sales guy on the Albin 28 was not as optimistic, however.No one stepped up to buy the Albin on display here or at the Providence show as of Thursday.

I learned from him that the transfer of Albin tooling to Northcoast is not complete and may not happen. Most of the tooling is still sitting outside Albin's old plant in Portsmouth, uncovered and deteriorating in the weather. Fred Peters in not in agreement with Northcoast about some details so there is a chance the molds for the 31TE, 35TE, 30 family and 35CB may be broken up and discarded when the old factory is demolished sometime soon. The fellow from Standish Marine said some tooling was destroyed inside the plant before he could move it outside. I'm not sure if the tooling for the 36 express trawler is still around. Let's hope Fred Peters and Northcoast come to agreement before the molds are destroyed. Another person at the show said Fred Peters made an agreement to sell the marina and old Albin headquarters buildings in Cos Cob Connecticut recently.

I just heard Tartan Marine in Ohio just bought the Legacy powerboat tooling and has plans to reintroduce and expand the line.That is a nice line similar to Albin, and Tartan are first-class boatbuilders. At the New England show I was amazed to see that Tillotson/Pearson, who make True North powerboats and Alerion sailboats are starting up a whole new line of Pearson sailboats and are introducing a new line of fishing boats called North Rip. There are optimists willing to invest in new boat lines even in this fragile economy.

[Jeff Lavallee]

I was told by the gentleman from Standish that he was building the boats now and had one on order from a dealer in Newburyport? This was Saturday night.

[powerboater56]

Northcoast may be building a boat for a dealer but as of Thursday they had not sold the first boat they built on spec that was at the show. And I understood from the fellow at the show from Standish Marine that the only tooling Northcoast has now is for the 28TE -- they do not have the molds for the 31TE, 30 Family, 35TE or 35CB.