Yesterday I headed up to Raymond, Maine on Sebago Lake to meet with folks from Sabre Yachts and Back Cove Yachts. Back Cove makes beautiful power yachts and Sabre makes both power yachts and sailing yachts.
The topic was reinvigorating Sabre Yacht’s Blog and Back Cove Yacht’s blog to reflect the passion both companies have for yachting. We also discussed the new social networking sites that flyte recently developed for each company to build community within each owner group. Each social networking site (built on the Ning platform) is by invite only; a place where owners can post photos and videos, share stories, pose questions to Sabre and Back Cove staff, and make plans to hook up in different ports of call.
Damn, I’m jealous.
Anyway, it was a great meeting, and I got another tour of Sabre’s manufacturing floor (I got a tour when we first started working with Sabre a few years back.) Bentley Collins, who showed me around, showed me a physical mockup of a new model they’re developing. It’s pretty cool walking through a plywood model of a boat yet to be built. It gives the developers and designers an opportunity to walk through the yachts, see how the angles work, if there’s enough headroom, etc.
I was a little surprised that so much of their business these days is in motor yachts as opposed to sailing yachts. That’s been the trend for quite a few years now, but I thought with the high price of gas and diesel, there may be renewed interest in sailing.
I also got to see the guys spraying on the resins into the boat hull, and Bentley explained a new method they’ll be employing soon which will result in stronger hulls and less fumes.
In the front of Sabre’s offices was the first yacht they ever built. It’s had a couple of owners, but they were recently able to buy it back. (Most businesses just tack the first dollar they ever made to the wall, but I guess it’s different when you make beautiful yachts.)
There are additional photos from the factory floor and of the Sabre team loading up a motor yacht for delivery to a dealer on flyte’s flickr page.
It’s always great to see so many Mainers at work in manufacturing, a sector of our economy that has been shrinking each and every year. Sabre Yachts and Back Cove Yachts should be commended for continuing to keep manufacturing jobs here in Maine.
Rich,
Thanks for taking the time out of your day to come and visit with us. You have been more than helpful these past few months and I think we really hit the ground with our feet running with the new blogs…. Maybe hit the water with our feet running? Anyway, Thanks again!
-Ben