You don’t expect to see your soon-to-be new boat rolled up like a stray piece of fabric.
But that’s the first thing you encounter on the assembly line of a production boat plant. And it’s your first clue that building a boat-even a cookie-cutter production model-is a far cry from building a car.
While workers on an auto assembly line use high-tech equipment from computers to robots, their counterparts in a boat plant are using rollers and squeegees.
The difference in technique goes a long way toward explaining why even a moderate-size production boat can cost as much as or more than a home.
“This is literally a handcrafted industry,” said David Slikkers, president of S2 Yachts International, based in Holland, Mich. “We have no automation.”
S2 Yachts, with facilities in Holland and Ft. Pierce, Fla., makes three lines of fiberglass powerboats: Tiara Yachts, Team Pursuit fishing boats and Tiara Sportboats. A trip down the Tiara Yachts production line in Holland shows Slikkers wasn’t exaggerating.
There are about 350 major boatmakers in the U.S., according to the National Marine Manufacturers Association. They produced 457,000 boats in 1992, down from a peak of 749,000 in 1988.
But including the small companies-those producing only a few boats or the smallest ones-manufacturers probably number in the thousands, the Chicago-based association says.
The manufacturers make boats ranging from dinghies only a few feet long to oceangoing yachts of 100 feet or more. Powerboats outnumber sailboats in this country by about 4 to 1. The most common boat sold in the U.S. is the 16- to 18-foot runabout with an outboard engine; the average cost is less than $6,000, the association says.
On the Great Lakes, larger boats are more prevalent; in the Chicago Park District harbor system, for example, the average boat measures in the mid-20s.
Boats are made of a variety of materials, including aluminum, wood, steel and fiberglass. For boats of the size used on the Great Lakes, fiberglass probably is the most common material.
Each boatmaker has its own style and idiosyncracies, not to mention design and trade secrets. Tiara is commonly regarded as the top of the line (read: expensive). But much of Tiara’s production line is similar to what you’d find at any plant making fiberglass pleasure boats.
Making the biggest of the company’s boats, the Tiara 4300 (a 43-footer), takes about 12 weeks from start to finish.
As with any product, building a boat begins with design. Once that’s set, a mold is made for each piece. This may be the most exacting part of the process.
Step 1 is building a wooden “plug,” or piece that is exactly the shape of the mold desired, said Thomas B. Slikkers, director of international operations for S2. (Thomas and David are sons of S2 founder Leon Slikkers; brother Robert is vice president of finance and sister Susan recently joined the company’s international operation.)
Even the slightest imperfection in this wooden plug will be transferred to the mold-and then to every boat made. “These things are just big, reinforced Jell-O molds,” said Thomas Slikkers.
“These are the real, real true craftsmen,” said Patrick D. Cunningham, vice president of sales and marketing for Tiara.
A fiberglass cast, or mold, is made from that plug, just as a sculptor uses a clay model to cast a bronze statue. These molds typically are 1 to 1.5 inches thick. Again, because any flaw in the mold will be transferred to the boats, the piece must be near-perfect. If it’s not, it’s scrapped and the job starts over, Slikkers said.
When the mold is ready, there’s no longer any need for the wooden plug. “You saw it up. Trash it. It breaks my heart,” Cunningham said. “It’s like destroying a piece of art.”
This process is repeated for each part of a fiberglass boat. “We have one set of molds per boat,” Slikkers said.
The Tiara 4300 has 53 molds; the 22-foot Tiara has about 10. There are eight Tiara models, eight Sportboats and more than 20 Team Pursuit designs. A few molds can be used on more than one boat. In all, the company uses 38 sets of molds, Cunningham said.
It took about a year to design and produce the molds for the Tiara 3100, which has become the company’s most popular boat in its two years of production. The cost of designing and producing the molds was about $750,000, Cunningham said.
While insiders marvel at the skill that goes into producing these fiberglass molds, the first step of making a boat is likely to grab an outsider’s attention.
The paint goes on first.
The mold sits in a metal frame, to ensure the shape won’t vary, in a work bay that Slikkers describes as akin to a racquetball court. The inside of the mold then is sprayed with paint, called gelcoat. Because this is the outside of the boat, it becomes clear why the mold has to be perfect-everyone will see it.
Meanwhile, fiberglass, a woven material that looks and feels likes bolts of fabric, is prepared to be layered onto the paint, which will adhere to the fiberglass when it’s removed from the mold.
Tiara uses about 15 types of fiberglass; the kind used depends on how the boat will be used and the loads a given part of the vessel must support. A lamination schedule (“another word for `recipe,’ ” Slikkers said) is set up for each boat: So many pieces of specific weights of fiberglass, cut to specific shapes, are required. These pieces are cut by machine, and a person sets them up on a cart. The first piece of fiberglass to be needed is on top; the last piece on the bottom.
Each cart is labeled by the boat’s hull number; at any given time, dozens of such carts are being assembled or used at Tiara. Having a lamination schedule ensures that all boats of a given model are the same.
The surface is “wetted out” with resin. Employees lay each piece of fiberglass by hand and smooth out the fiberglass with rollers and squeegees.
“We’re trying to get good adhesion,” Slikkers said. “You’re trying to get all the voids out.
“The other thing we’re trying to do is get all the excess resin out. The strength is in the fiberglass, not the resin. It’s like a car. Do you want a car built out of sheet metal or a car built out of nuts and bolts?”
Resins frequently are among a builder’s trade secrets. Tiara has a lab on premises-off limits to outsiders-that tests and experiments with resins. The boatmaker has two 40,000-pound resin tanks at the plant (resins are measured in weight, not volume); one tank needs refilling about every three weeks, the other about every six, Slikkers said.
Resin is kept on tap, like water, at the plant.
Tiara is experimenting with new types of fiberglass and resins but says the cost of next-generation products is too high to make it worthwhile for pleasure boats. “The customer would not be getting added value for the higher price,” Slikkers said.
In the hull, the first layer of fiberglass is followed by a layer of balsa wood. Light but strong, it helps the boat keep its shape. The hull also gets a system of bulkheads and stringers, pieces that reinforce the boats’ shape. In the finished boat, parts of the bulkheads often are visible as “room dividers,” and stringers, running the length of the boat, generally are below deck level.
Once a piece is done, it’s taken from the work bay to an open production area, removed from the mold and weighed. There’s a “perfect” weight for each piece and deviation means too much or too little resin was used. If the part deviates too much from the desired weight, it’s scrapped.
The piece is hung upside down from the ceiling, and employees scrutinize it for even minor imperfections, which are marked with grease pencils and repaired. Edges usually have fiberglass strings that must be hand-ground, for example. Employees use metal tappers to detect air holes, which could create weak spots or lead to internal damage if not repaired.
Others begin marking where the next set of pieces, such as plates-aluminum strips that reinforce areas that must bear weight or strain-will go. Plates are put into place and covered with fiberglass, becoming part of the boat’s structure.
At Tiara, work on the large parts of a boat, such as the hull and deck, are handled on the main floor, where the huge work bays are located. Smaller pieces, such as swim platforms and heads, or bathrooms, go through the same process on the mezzanine. Any fiberglass part, no matter how small, starts with a mold, just as the hull and deck do.
Tiara also has a mill room to make wooden pieces; because of the cost of the exotic woods commonly used in boats, production boats tend to feature wood only as decorative trim inside. More and more builders are using wood look-alikes, often plastics or recycled composites; Tiara uses a product it dubs “polyblank,” made largely of recycled milk cartons, for all “wood” in the cockpit, which is exposed to sun and rain.
This work occurs in a plant kept at about 76 degrees, both for workers’ comfort and to ensure even drying of the fiberglass. Tiara purifies and recycles the air to remove chemicals and fiberglass bits. Recycling keeps the heating bills to “only” $1,000 a day in the winter, Slikkers said. The filtration system can exchange 100 percent of the air in the plant every five minutes, he said.
Once all the boat’s parts are complete, they’re taken to a separate building for assembly.
“Now you’re going to have to take that big jigsaw puzzle kit and put it all together,” Slikkers said. “This becomes very hand-labor intense. This is probably the most time-consuming point.”
The various pieces take time to meet up. The hull starts at a staging area. It’s put into another mold to ensure that the shape doesn’t vary, as the other systems are put into place. For a 30- to 40-foot powerboat, the list of systems is impressive-and complicated. The engine must be installed; for the Tiara 3100, buyers have a choice of five engines.
Other systems include exhaust, water (boats of this size typically have pressurized hot and cold running water), steering, air conditioning, a generator, electricity and plumbing. All are installed by hand.
The hull and deck are worked on separately. Besides mechanical systems, workers install trim, accessories, electronics, bow rails and appliances (even boats in the mid-20-foot range will likely have at least a stove, if not an oven; larger boats frequently even have microwaves).
Most boats are ordered with arches; radar is attached to the arch, but it’s also there for looks, Cunningham said. Occasionally a buyer who plans ocean cruising wants a salt-water purifier, he said.
On some production lines, large pieces of furniture are installed before the deck is put on. Larger boats also tend to have carpeting, which must be laid at this point.
Just as pieces of fiberglass are laid out in order on carts, all the pieces in this process-wooden trim, screws, etc.-are set up on carts in the order they’ll be needed, Slikkers said.
“The two parts are worked on separately until they reach a point where you can’t do anything more without them being joined,” Slikkers said. “I can have a crew working on the deck and a crew working on the hull, and neither one is getting in the other’s way.”
The deck is brought to the hull on a crane. The pieces are joined with an adhesive sealant, a row of stainless steel fasteners, another layer of sealant, a rub-rail to protect the boat if it bumps against a dock or other object, and another row of fasteners. The joint then is finished with a decorative covering.
The deck-hull joining system is another step that may vary from builder to builder. Sealants are strong enough that some builders don’t use screws.
The last step of the assembly line is a water-filled pit. Here engines can be started to make sure they run properly.
The amount of time a boat will spend on the assembly line varies with its size and complexity; the more systems, such as air conditioning, the longer the process. Slikkers said the Tiara 3100 spends 1 1/2 to 2 weeks at this point.
But the inside of that new boat is filled with boxes of loose items-anchors, life jackets, a bell and other items that aren’t fastened to the boat. It’s up to the owner to unpack these boxes and decide where everything should go.
For the biggest of Tiara’s boats, the 4300, the process takes about 12 weeks; the result is a boat with a $472,600 base price. Base price of the Tiara 3600 is $218,000 and for the Tiara 3100 open-style, $126,180.
Or more than enough to buy a house.
But, as the folks at Tiara and other manufacturers are quick to note, you can’t take your house from the dock and get away from it all.
