Local boat builders busy again

Local boat manufacturers have begun hiring to build more watercraft, an encouraging sign of a thaw in the deep recession that engulfed the marine industry.

Sea Fox Boats in Berkeley County plans to add 25 workers, and Scout Boats of Summerville recently brought back about 35 workers. Key West Boats of Summerville beefed up its fleet of workers last year.

All three said they expect to produce significantly more vessels than in 2009. That year was a low point in the rough seas of the boating trade.

"It's beginning to feel a little bit more like normal," Scout Boats President Steve Potts said. "It's not normal yet."

In January and February Scout recalled workers who had been laid off over the past two years during the downturn, and added a handful of new ones. The boat builder now has 110 employees.

Last year, the company produced between 350 and 400 boats. Potts expects to double that number this year.

At Sea Fox, President and Chief Executive Freddy Renken is in the process of hiring 25 people within the next two weeks, to be able to double the number of boats it produces. Sea Fox now employs 50 people. Last year the company manufactured 500 boats; at its peak in 2006 it sold 2,500 pleasure craft.

Key West Boats added about 25 workers late last summer when its model year changed. It produced 900 watercraft last year.

"If we keep up the pace we have now, it will probably be 1,400 or so this year," Key West Sales and Marketing Manager Tom Marlowe said.

That won't bring the company back to its more buoyant days of launching 2,400 boats a year in 2005, but Marlowe said that many were too much for the market to bear anyway.

"Realistically, I hope no one goes back to the same level," he said. "We were producing at an unsustainable level. There were too many people producing too many boats."

Three things are causing the current upsurge in boat-building, Renken and other boat builders said: Increased sales at boat shows from recession-weary buyers coming back into the market, dealers replacing depleted inventories, and some dealers picking up new product lines.

Sea Fox signed up seven new boat dealers at the Miami International Boat Show last month, which accounted for 70 boat orders. It also sold 15 boats at retail during the show, three more than last year.

"The recession hit the boating industry extremely hard, and now we are finally starting to see the turnaround," Renken said.

Last year this time Sea Fox was building 10 boats a week, and the sales department had no backlog of orders. "We literally were living week to week on orders last year at this time," said Jeff DeBar, Sea Fox vice president of sales and marketing.

The company now has 250 boats on order for immediate delivery and is gearing up to construct 20 boats a week.

"Although it appears we are starting to pull out of the recession, people still are very conscious of price and value," Renken said. "This will continue to be the trend."

Credit for boats remains tight, so people are putting down larger cash deposits or paying cash outright, Renken said.

"I think there would be more increase in retail if banks would loosen up," he said.

Potts said another factor is helping to sell boats.

"There's been so much gloom and doom for so long that people are tired of waiting to see what's going to happen," he said. "They realized it's not the end of the world, that they are going to enjoy life and do the things that a year and a half ago they were afraid to do."

Marlowe summed up the state of the boat-building world.

"It's not rocking and rolling, but it's rolling," he said.

Reach Warren Wise at 937-5524 or wwise@postandcourier.com.