Reflections
Thirty years ago coachbuilder Paul Adams fabricated a utilitarian 3.5m aluminium dinghy for a couple of paua divers. That little ugly duckling kickstarted Stabicraft – and more than 11,000 boats now carry the brand.
Stabi’s milestone
Born and bred in Invercargill in 1959, Adams joined H&H Travel Lines as an apprentice coachbuilder after leaving school. Building buses would provide him with all the skills he later needed for crafting aluminium boats. “We built buses from different components – steel, fibreglass, glazing, upholstery, carpets and aluminium, everything we now use in boatbuilding.”
Apprenticeship and the obligatory OE trip ticked off, Adams eventually got a job with a Bluff-based marine engineering company servicing the local commercial fishing fleet.
“I still say that was one of the best jobs I ever had,” he says. “We were given lots of hand-picked oysters.”
In 1986 two paua divers approached Adams asking for an alloy version of their rubber inflatable boat – they’d become tired of constantly repairing it.
At that point the idea was rejected so the divers had another engineering firm weld up a hull. Looking at it, Adams and fellow worker Bruce Dickens thought they could improve it and offered to build a better one.
Named Ally Duck, the 3.5m boat attracted half a dozen further orders and, realising the potential, Adams and Dickens formed Stabicraft Marine in May 1987.
“Initially we copied rubber inflatables with rounded tubes and cones on the transom, but then we started asking ‘why do we need round tubes and cones?’ Once we started understanding what was required for aluminium, we evolved hull shapes to better suit the material.”
Some months into the project Dickens pulled out to purchase his uncle’s tree-topping business, leaving Adams to carry on alone. In those early years Adams did everything including design, cutting, welding, fitting-out, sales and marketing.
“When I started I knew little about running a business, so I spoke with a lot of good business people and read many books to educate myself about it.”
Boat design was another huge learning curve. While Stabicraft boats were practical, few would call the early ones pretty. One of the many light-bulb moments Adams has had over the years occurred early on when a potential customer pulled out of the sale of a 4.5m boat when his wife said, “No way you’re buying that boat, it’s ugly.”
This experience made Adams realise that women have a major say in a boat-buying decision and he needed to make his boats more attractive. But many of his early decisions were based on nothing more than instinct – such as getting into the export market. Within 18 months of founding Stabicraft, Adams was exporting boats into Canada, an opportunity which began after exhibiting them at the Vancouver Boat Show.
Since then Stabicraft has maintained a strong presence on the American continent, especially the Pacific NW and Alaska. One of its biggest customers in Alaska has been Doc Warner’s Alaska Adventures, a tourist-fishing lodge operating a self-drive fleet of 32 Stabicrafts.
“He [Doc Warner] and his wife were emphatic that they did not want conventional boats because some had sunk. They were looking for something absolutely safe and by chance found us.”
Another key market has been Australia, especially government agencies such as Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Police, who’ve found Stabicraft’s seaworthiness, inbuilt buoyancy and tough construction make the boats ideal workhorses.
One of the best decisions Adams made happened in the late 1990s when he brought non-executive directors onto Stabicraft’s board to add guidance, support and skills to the company. One of those, John Wally, had previously worked for Rolls Royce and EMI, and helped Adams and the team transform Stabicraft manufacturing.
Good manufacturing begins with good design. In the early days design was done by eye and the aluminium cut by hand. These days the design team provides sheet nesting for cutting accurately straight from the CAD 3D Design software.
One of the key advantages enjoyed by aluminium boatbuilders is the flexibility to easily change hull shapes or other modifications at any stage during a boat model’s life.
“We make engineering changes on the fly all the time,” says Adams.
Compared to a traditional aluminium monohull, Stabicraft
When I started I knew little about running a business, so I spoke with a lot of good business people and read many books to educate myself about it
boats are more complex to build, which has been reflected in their retail price. Conscious of keeping his prices competitive, Adams has worked hard over the years to make his boats easier to build, while retaining all the features that make a Stabicraft unique, especially its safety.
“Any time you make even a small tweak to a hull, it can change the behaviour of the boat quite dramatically. We understand that really well now.”
Stabicraft has been tweaking its hull shapes for 30 years now, and have it down to a fine art. Nowhere is that more visible than with the pontoon shapes. Initially, these were round, but that shape soon changed to D, which later became flattened on top. Various stepped chines – to aid dryness and better performance – have now evolved into what Stabicraft calls its Arrow Pontoons.
These were developed in 2011 when Stabicraft commissioned two industrial designers to develop a more aesthetic way of shaping the bow sections into the pontoons. This change gave a finer entry and a better ride in a seaway, as well as making the boats more aesthetically pleasing. The new bow shape hasn’t impacted Stabicraft’s renowned ability to handle following seas without broaching.
Another recent change has been the Game Chaser Transom (GCT), which adds additional displacement to the stern to better support the heavier four-stroke outboards.
But rather than simply weld a pod to the transom, Stabicraft faired this addition back into the transom, adding displacement for reversing up when game fishing in a seaway, hence the GC name.
Reflecting on the more than 11,000 boats he’s built since 1987, Adams says the three most popular models have been the open 430, “we sold heaps of those – a fantastic little boat”, the 630, which besides selling well in New Zealand sold well overseas, and the more recent 1550 Fisher.
Of the current line-up, which ranges in length from 4.2m to 8.8m, the most consistent seller is the 1850 Supercab. It was the first model to feature the Arrow Pontoons and GCT.
The trend to hard tops on trailerable boats has been apparent for some years, but due to its massive buoyancy within the gunwales, the Stabicraft hull form is inherently better suited to carry the increased weight of a hard top than some traditional hulls, especially in the smaller sizes.
These days Stabicraft employ six full-time and one parttime designers. Adams is not aware of any other New Zealand boatbuilder having as many designers, so don’t expect the design innovations to stop anytime soon.
“These days it’s all about understanding your customer’s needs and being able to develop something that will meet those needs,” says Adams.
Of course, designing and building boats is one thing. Marketing and selling them is another. In the early export years Stabicraft had international distributors but soon found the Stabicraft-to-dealer, Dealer-to-customer model very successful.
Besides dealers in Australia, New Caledonia, Tahiti and the US, Stabicraft has recently appointed a Scandinavian dealer, who will service the countries in and around the Baltic such as Norway, Sweden and Denmark. In certain markets such as Southland, Stabicraft continues to deal directly with the public.
Looking back on the high and low points of 30 years
boatbuilding, one of the many highlights for Adams was designing and building a one-off 14m tourist boat for Dolphin Encounter, Kaikoura. “That was a really exciting project.” The company achieved the New Zealand Way brand accreditation in 1997.
Another highlight was last year when Stabicraft won the world-renowned Red Dot design award for its 1600 Fisher Carbon model.
Conversely, Adam’s worst times were the five or six years following the GFC. Despite making every possible manufacturing economy, Stabicraft staff had to be made redundant.
“Laying off 15 staff in the wake of the GFC was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do – it was really tough. However, we’ve become better and stronger for it.”
Staff numbers are back up. Stabicraft currently employs 80 people and one of its major strengths is a collaborative management team approach to design, management, building and marketing.
“We’ve got opportunities, places to go and I feel we’ve got the team to take us there.”
Now in his late 50s, Adams has no intention of slowing down.
“I love it. It’s great and it still gets me out of bed in the morning.”
BNZ