3RM Ep. 23 - Renaissance Marine Group Factory Chat

Join, host Anthony, and 3 Rivers Marine owner Tim, as we make the journey to the legendary R.M.G factory, in Clarkston, Washington. Learn where Duckworth started, and where its headed, with RMG president Shaun Curtis, and customer service director, Wayne Lewis. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hi, you're listening to the Three Rivers Marine Podcast, a show that brings anglers and mariners down-to-earth advice that helps on and off the water. I'm Anthony Maristi, a fishing rep born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. I'm sitting down with the biggest names in fishing and boating to make your next adventure easier, safer, and more exciting. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Three Rivers Marine Podcast. We are obviously not in our studio back in Woodenville. Tim and I decided uh just the other day to hop on over here to Clarkston, Washington, and we are at the Duckworth Factory Production Facility. And currently we are on top of the break room.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Yeah. Got a great we got a great view of uh production going on behind us. Uh they're polishing boats, they're hanging motors, they're installing. I saw a guy walk by with a toy a little while ago. Um there's a bunch of stuff going on around here.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Oh yeah. It's looking good. Uh and with us, we have some pretty special people to, you know, not only duckworth Renaissance Marine, but like really to the boating industry as a whole. So um, you know, to my right, Sean Curtis, one more down. Uh Wayne, what's your last name? Wayne Lewis. Lewis, that's what I thought. I figured I'd just make it right, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Um and these guys are the ones that you know I work with on a daily basis, getting the product to the store. Um we are a duckworth dealer, as you guys know, but we're more more than that, we're more of a business partner. So we work hand in hand with these guys, uh, my sales team accounting everybody every day to get the product on the floor to to get to everybody.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, Sean, take us away. Introduce yourself, who you are, and then we'll do the same for Wayne.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

Yeah. Um Sean Curtis, uh, the newly minted president and chief operating officer at Renaissance Marine Group here. Been in the position for about a month so far. Yeah. How long you worked here? I've been here for just shy of 16 years. So born and raised right here in the valley. Uh grew up, you know, taking trips on jet boats up the river here, up the Snake River, Hells Canyon. Um, so I've always been uh kind of around the boating uh world, at least in this area here. But uh yeah, uh worked on an engineering degree here locally, and then um here a couple years ago uh got a naval architecture degree. So kind of coming up through the engineering group.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

So, what did you do prior to the month ago when you were took on this new job? What did you do in the company here?

SPEAKER_03 2:29

I I've been um leading the engineering group for about the last seven or eight years here.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

So, like if I had a guy that was buying a boat, like a 30XL, and he was six foot seven, and we needed to adjust some of the interior parts so that he can get his legs under the steering wheel, would that be the email came from you with the CAD drawing? Yeah, yeah. It'd go through Wayne first and then to me, and I'd have to figure out how to make that happen. Yeah, yeah. Instead of cutting you know, six inches out of his shin bones, we would just you know adjust the galley module or something to make it work. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

We're just like telling people the duck once in a while, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:01

And they don't do that for everybody, just so you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah, you have to be special. You have to you have to have the last name quantz or something like that to make it happen.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Well, I'm not 6'7, I'm actually two inches shorter than I was at my peak, so I don't know if compression's getting me.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Yeah, well, we can we can adjust different dimensions. Yeah, there you go. Uh and then Wayne. Wayne?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah. Um my name's uh Wayne Lewis, customer service manager here at Renaissance. Um I've been at the company for 24 years, same as Sean, born and raised here in the valley. Always had some interest in boating with the with the rivers we have here and uh try to get out, do some fishing, not as much as I would like, but as much as I can. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Well, nobody goes fishing as much as they'd like to. I mean, it's just impossible, you know. Yeah, even the weather gets in the way eventually. Yeah. So just on a backstory, you know, Wayne and I have been uh working together on the phone for as long as I can remember. Firm up boat orders, working on production schedule, solving the world's problems from you know Seattle area all the way over here to Clarkston. You know, Clarkston from Seattle is I always say as far away as you can get without leaving the state. Right. We are right on the border of Idaho. So yeah, it's just right down here in the corner. So beautiful area. We stayed here yesterday, had a nice drive down yesterday, and yeah, love the hospitality. And again, thanks everybody for letting us come down here and disrupt your group.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Um we appreciate you being here. Yeah. Yeah. No, you know, it means a lot to obviously both of us to be here and see how things are made. And you know, part of what we're doing is we want to bring, you know, not only existing Renaissance Marine customers, but you know, future ones a little bit closer to the brand, you know, and it's hard to get closer than the final assembly, you know, buffing wheel facility, right, is before they go out the door, you know. So really, I want to try and spend a lot, most of our time just kind of leaning on you guys from you know, stories of where you came from. You know, 24 and 16 years at a company is long enough to you know have definitely accumulated some stories and some history.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

So that's greater than a lot of marriages. Um most of them, I think, statistically. Yeah. So yeah. Uh well, you know, just on a short, you know, we did a walkthrough this morning, and you know, they've changed some things up here since I was last here. Um, from the cutting tables to the organization to the carts, the parts, the I mean, everything just seems like as it comes off the cart and goes onto the jig, it just fits. There's no swinging of 25-pound sledgehammers trying to make stuff fit. Everything fits and everybody's working as a team. Um, there's there's north of a hundred people working here, and they're all craftsmen. I mean, these are all handmade boats that you can just tell the attention to detail, and you know, again, that just shows not everybody's gonna get to walk through this factory. I'm pretty fortunate that I've been here a couple times, and I've been in my career through most of the boat manufacturers in the country's facilities, and I still think this is the cleanest one, you know. Um I haven't seen a metal shaving on the floor yet, so the same.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yeah, it's it's pretty impressive, you know. And um Sean, obviously, like this this building here, you know, I I learned this is kind of your baby. Yeah, you know, you you turned this from a a seed storage facility into a boat building facility, and yeah, you know, unless you told somebody what it was used for before, you'd never know it. Like it this is a this is a boat shop.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

There's hundreds of boats that come out of this facility every single year. So when we got here earlier today, you won't be able to see, but there's a boat below me here that was like being polished, and now it's on a trailer, it's completely rigged, there's an engine on it, and I'm assuming a forklift's gonna come grab it and drag it outside and move it to shipping here pretty soon. I don't know where it's going.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

They're just pumping oil in it a minute ago.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Yeah, so I mean there's guys are moving and shaking. There's no there's not a lost breath going on here. And everybody's got a smile on their face. I just I like the atmosphere, I like the the culture. Um, you know, there's signage all over the building, you know, supporting unity and teamwork, and there's grease boards with notes, and guys are writing friendly messages on there, and it's just kind of fun to be around. So yeah, yeah, it's kind of funny.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

We still can consider this the new facility, the new building, right? Um, and we actually we've been in here for 10 years this uh this last memorial weekend when we moved in 10 years ago. So um, but yeah, it did. It started out as a as a blank uh grass seed storage facility. They were, I think, baggins grass seed here. Yeah. Um and so one of the really nice things about that was it was a blank slate, really. I mean, completely open facility. Uh and and we spent a lot of time um figuring out how the flow of the shop needed to be to get the best efficiency out of things, right? And so we didn't want things backing up ever. It's always moving in one direction. Um, and so I was fortunate enough to be uh heavily involved in the the design and and the construction of the of this new facility. Yeah, it's an awesome project.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

I mean, a giant 40-foot paint booth, I mean like everything is just sterile, clean. It's it's really, really nice. And I think Anthony took a picture, maybe he'll bleep it in here. But you know, when they put all the overhead cranes and everything in, all the employees at the time signed one of the beams, and it's like one of the maybe it's in that first start of the corner. I don't know if that was the first beam or whatever, but you know, some good memories there of the you know, the the founders of the new facility here. Now I was at the other facility, it was a couple miles from here, um, and it was nice also and had some more primitive equipment. Um but this is all state of the art. I don't think that I mean the investment here is huge and it shows in the boats and the fit and finish. And I still tell my customers that I still believe that there's 20% more man hours that goes into a duckworth boat. Yeah, you know, it's nothing is machine done, it's all hand done.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

So yeah, yeah. You made the count the comment about being hand built. Um we try to incorporate as much uh new technology into these things, especially the construction, you know, CNC equipment, router tables, press breaks, that, but um, but at the end of the day, they are hand-built, right? Um with love and care by people who care about what they're doing, I think it shows and the quality and everything that our boats.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm always surprised too to see you know as many uh I'm just I'm just such a boat nerd, you know, look and see what people have and what they're selling and whatever else, you know, and the amount is still like 1993 duckworth inboard, you know, you see somebody selling and it's like still in really good shape, you know. I mean, in Wayne, you've been here for 24 years, you've seen how things have changed and everything like that.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Well, there's one of those boats parked like halfway down the road past Starbuck on the side of the road. There's like a green one I saw coming in.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

That's what they called the old red dot. Did you did you sell that boat? No, I didn't sell that boat.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

It was like from the 90s or something.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

You know, yeah, that's that's back when Ernie Duckworth used to build boats in his shop. And uh Red Dot became a name when uh when somebody came in seeing all the the patterns he was building had red dots on each of the patterns, so he wouldn't use those pieces to build a a boat. Oh gotcha patterns, so those are the we still get phone calls today from people with those older boats wanting to know if we have records on them, wanting to know and and we do have some records that go back that far that we can look up, but there's not a lot of information to tell tell those customers.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Yeah, yeah, kind of kind of like the old car factions where you're like, well, it got built this year. Um and you called about it.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah, but we do have we do have quite a few employees here that's been here a long time, so I can walk out and ask questions and and just by their tribal knowledge, we can answer those questions.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Yeah, so so through communication and you know, boat shows and traveling here before, you know, I've met a lot of people that work here. Um I was reintroduced to somebody today. Help me, I forgot his name. Dale Dale. Yeah. And he he's probably one of the oldest employees. He's he's one of them, probably I think the oldest at this point. Yeah, he's in the CNC room, right? Right, yeah. Yeah, and his number of years served here. I think he said 38. 38 years. This morning. Yeah. Okay. That's older than you. So yeah. Like, like by by a bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

And we have several of those. I mean, there's still a couple out in the shop. I mean, you know, me being here for 16 years, I still feel like one of the new guys uh in my position.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

And you know, um, one of the things that I've always enjoyed about this company is that as busy as they are with production, keeping up with production, they've never stopped innovating. Okay, so we saw a couple things that are in production right now coming out for 2027 model year. I saw a couple boats stamped 2027 that are early in production here. But you know, they'll never stop innovating. And so they'll, regardless of how busy you are, they're always going to have a team working on the next thing. You know, we saw some you know, Burnwin mounts that are becoming more prevalent. Uh factory install. And so when we factory install them, they cut the hold before we paint it. So we have a corrosion barrier. I mean, we have you know lots of those things, and you know, the way that the cable routing is now done and some of the gunnels. Um for being useful, you know. It's a nice they have a 3D printer and they're printing all these plastic parts, which I don't know what they are, and then the guy snaps it into a piece of a gunnel. I'm like, wow. Yeah, but the rigging guy's an hour. Instead of feeding the wire through, you can just release it, slide it in, and clip it back up. So, I mean, there's some pretty darn cool stuff that's uh coming down the pipeline for this next year. Um, we were earlier in discussions about uh a new boat model. I don't know if you guys have talked about it yet. We probably shouldn't, but uh I'm pretty excited about it. I'm hoping to get one. Um as some of you guys know that uh Mike sold my boat a couple months ago, so I don't have a saltwater boat I'm borrowing right now. So we've got to stay tuned for that one. I'm not gonna be ready to get that one. Not not quite ready for that one, but uh I think everybody's gonna be pretty excited.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Um yeah, that'll be a cool line addition. And you know, one of the things that struck me as soon as you know I started walking through the doors, you know, I've been I've been to some other big facilities in my time uh selling fishing tackle, you know, big production facilities and been all over the place. And a lot of them are you know uh company policies on the wall, like you know, wear your hard hat, wear your safety glasses, you know, HRs this way, look out kind of a vibe. You know, and like photography. You know, yeah, and you know, you guys you you have a you know, you have some of your like, hey, walkways to help, you know, hey, walk this way because there's a crane moving a you know two-ton chunk of aluminum lookout kind of stuff, right? But like in general, you guys have you know your mission statement and your corporate beliefs, and they're not, you know, make renaissance more money. Yeah. Right? It's you know, mission, build the number one customer sought after boat. Yep. Right? You know, strategy, make this a good environment to work, provide good customer service, make sure that we're building stuff that the market's asking for, not that we think is nice. You know, innovate with your manufacturing, you know, um, value the community, you know, uh which you do, you have like community support stuff all over the place of what you're doing just here in the valley, you know, and then be safe, be honest, work together, and you know, wow factor, right? Like when that leaves, you know, you want when he's at the gas dock to be like, dude, nice boat. Yep. You know, and like that's that's the type of messaging that you get throughout this building, and I think that's unique in amongst itself. Hopefully it comes out in the product, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, and it's probably always been that way. You know, I mean, Wayne, you you came from the old facility and stuff like that. I mean, you were telling us like you're you know, you're cutting stuff by hand, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

I I tell you, we we've seen a lot come, I mean, exactly. I mean, everything was cut by hand, putting a piece of metal on sawhorses, drawn out with a straight edge and sharpie. I mean, uh nothing was the same thing. I think they call that cutting it green, right? That's pretty green. We didn't we didn't have SOLIDWORKS, we didn't have everything noted in our community. I mean, if if you wanted to see something that somebody did, you'd have to go to their toolbox and open a spiral notebook and check their notes, you know. So we've come a long way in the last few years.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

I saw some stuff today I can't reveal, but like the metal that gets cut in pieces and it fits all perfectly together. There's some proprietary things that that just make the boat perfect and it fits. And I haven't seen any ratchet straps holding bows together so they can tap it. Yeah, there's nothing. I don't see any pry bars pulling on metal so it's tensioned. I mean, everything is just precise, it fits together. Um, I'm very proud that we get to sell this product because it's you know it's a good product for our customer, and you know, we've all spent, I'm not we all I have spent a lot of time, you know, one dedicating, you know, my time to this brand, selling this brand, helping customers out, and it's something I can be proud to sell.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

So I'd say it's pretty easy to get up in the morning and come to work.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

I think we're all pretty proud of our product that we put out the door.

SPEAKER_03 16:17

Yeah. Yeah, we try to kind of maybe fit into a little bit of a niche here where um we we kind of came from the custom boat building background, right? I think Duckworth was originally a custom boat. You come in, tell us what you want, and we'll build it for you prior to prior to my time here. What we kind of morphed into is um trying to be a little bit more high production, get more boats out. Um so kind of the way we've we've uh tackled that, both of those, is to offer a pretty extensive option list to where you can custom build a boat, essentially, you know. Um but but we can do it in such a way that we can build them at a high production.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

And the other thing too is you know, I work every day on the configurators when somebody comes in and wants to sit down special order a boat, and you know, once we start with the standard features list, you know, the boat has everything on there you need, right? I mean it's got all the cool stuff on there already, but there is an extensive list if you wanted to go crazy. Like, you know, I we sell a couple of them, but you know, I mean, heated seats for your boat. I mean, come on, I guess it's we're used to it now because all our cars have it, but I mean, lucky to have a bucket to sit on when I was a kid, you know. That was like uh we can get a heated suspension seat.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

So we uh we tend to make sure there's several of us from the office that make it to the boat shows because that's where we gather a lot of information of what our customers want. We compile a list, we sit back after the boat show sit back, okay. So for next year, we've heard this several times, we should be thinking about doing it. We got we've got something I want to show you, you know, when we're down here we've been asked for several times and uh we've nailed it, I think. So oh yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

I mean, you know, and for me, like one of those kind of things that jumps right at you for that is the the kind of explosion of the the foul mount trolling mode. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

You know, like that was such a conundrum when we had sort of tried to figure out how to get Paul to backwards engineer a mount on a boat taking a big thing on it, you know, torch and cutting the rails off the front of a brand new Pac Pro and welding a plate and blowing up the paint and have to take it to the paint shop, you know, to make it fit.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Yeah, you know, and like we can look down here and it's like, oh yeah, you can just get that. Yeah, they're they just offer it.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

So the pad and the bow rails are already adjusted and there's battery trays to you know support a couple lithium batteries, and you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

So it doesn't take you guys long with some you know, a little bit of customer feedback to just kind of put that you know custom boat flare onto yeah, you can we just we know how to do that for you. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

Yep, you know, we're we're always listening, just like we said.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Trying to hear what we need to do next. Sometimes me being in customer service, I have to do a lot of making around here. But we get her done.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Yeah. Um, you know, Sean, Sean, walk us through you know building a boat facility. I think that's kind of like it's it's not just so so they power.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Um but everything I think is as modern as it can be. I've seen that they've added some new equipment. Um it doesn't look very inexpensive either.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Um you know, even though we've been here 10 years, we haven't really changed anything. I mean we've moved a couple of stations here and there, but the but the from start to finish, we haven't we haven't moved welding to this end and rigging to that end. I mean everything's still the same as it was ten years ago.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

Yeah, I mean you're thinking of everything from uh we use a lot of lean manufacturing uh techniques, you know, paying attention to flow, less movement in people and product, you know. Yeah, the L and I guys like that, you know. Yeah. Um you know, you're you're trying to factor in expansion possibilities in the future, not only in uh capacity, like how many boats we can build in a year, but the size of the boats because they keep getting bigger and bigger. Keep getting bigger. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Um, I helped you out with a plan to make the paint booth another five feet big earlier today. We can just kick that door out a little bit. You know, we got the beam good. We're good there. We just need it a little bit longer.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Well, even when we're sitting right now doing this, we even talked about use utilizing above the break room for things too. Yeah. And now here we are, we are now.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

Yeah. Podcasting. Yeah, we double or tripled our floor space, I think, uh coming to this facility.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

So yeah, nice. I think Anthony keeps asking this question because he wants you to reveal some of the you know production secrets, you know, that we're looking at right now. But I don't think Sean's gonna go ahead and do that today about the way that their material gets moved from A to B and boats get put together from you know one strip of aluminum up to a pilot house being gently set on it.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

And yeah, I mean we can we can talk about some of it, you know. It's like it when you order a boat, you know, it's it's not like it just kind of goes and sits as a piece of paper somewhere, you know. It's like it goes in, like it's a whole CNC shop that that kind of configures your boat, right? And it's like, hey, you guys might have built hundreds of pack pros by now, but you haven't built, you know, uh Mike's Pac Pro. Yeah. You know, like it's okay, hey, we need to make sure that this works right the way he wants the rails. You he's gonna do a bow mount. He wants three lithium batteries on the front, you know. So you gotta make sure that so it's it goes in, you get that job number, and it kind of gets designed on the on the CAD machine. Make sure that all your parts are in order and everything that you have is settled, and then it goes into production, right? And you know, you guys have a really tremendous ability to keep track of your parts, so that way there's not that uh oh hey, did we did we put that check valve in for that through hole? Uh probably. I don't know. I walked by down there and everything is.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

With the shelf and they says, Yeah, you just ring the bell and ask for a part and it comes out. I never saw anybody. I don't know if they got a robot back there or what.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Yeah, no, there's a couple people back there getting parts, you know, because I mean it's like there's that, you know, it's it's awesome to see that all the way through. There's this accountability to, you know, the customer in terms of consistency, making sure that you know everything is installed properly because of that kind of custom nature, right? You know, you you can go and see Tim and and pretty much dream up about any duckworth you want, and more factories.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

The more buttons you push, the more expensive it is. So yeah, you know, you don't like I said, you know, the boats are also well equipped, you know, with their standard features. I mean, there's really not much you need to add unless you have some stuff that you want.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

So it's just amazing to see it go through and then it goes through, and you get your pieces, and then they get built, they get assembled in the way that you know you guys see as the most uh you know highest quality and most efficient way to construct them. Um, you know, which seems to make you know, it makes a lot of sense how you put everything together and it works its way through that factory, and everybody kind of has their their role. And the team of welders are pretty impressive. You know, you have because when you're, you know, I mean, just thinking about the little bit of welding that I know how to do, you know, you have a big long piece, it's gonna move, and you know, all that, especially aluminum with how much it likes to, you know, send heat everywhere. It's amazing how well you guys have that welding team. If they're working on, you know, any portion of that boat, it's just ready to go.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

Everything pops in and Tim Tim made the comment, there are craftsmen out here, right? I mean, like there's we do we do our best uh from an engineering standpoint to tell them, you know, do this this way, and then this is step two, and this is step three. But we really rely on these guys and their wealth knowledge and craftsmanship to really put these things together and make them the way they are.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

And the other thing that I like too is you know, you you guys provide an opportunity to to come over here in the valley and and make a home and make a career here. You know, like we walked in, you showed us some cool machines and a and an enormous press break. Um, you know, what giant thing, it's unbelievable. That's what you bend the metal with like like massive piece of machinery.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

Um and then you're talking about in in the valley coming down here to the city.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Yeah, well, then the next stand is there's a group of people, and they're like, oh yeah, this is you know, like we have we have our master welders teaching some people.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

We have a welding school going on on the one end of the facility there, and there must have been three quarters of a dozen guys and they're learning how to weld. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

We try to promote from within as much as we can here. Um give people an opportunity to get the foot in the door. Um we'll teach them whatever we need to here to get them going, you know. Uh smaller community, we're probably Lewis and Clarkson combined, we're probably in the 50,000 people range, I would I'm gonna guess. But um, so yeah, we're we're we're definitely trying to give people opportunities as much as we can.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

And you know, I don't think there's too much stuff that you guys do here that you you you get from someplace else. You order your material. I mean, I'm looking over the side. There's there's a craftsman building canvas. Um he's over there polishing the icing glass, getting ready to roll it up and put it in the bag. I mean, like, like with a real sewing machine with like their real hands doing this. This is not like a third-party, like every glass part. I mean, they're upholstering their own, you know, suspension seats, you know. I mean, they're doing it all here.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

So a glass cutter over here cutting. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:33

I didn't know if I could talk about that as a proprietary. But I mean, they're all their flat glasses, rubber trimmed, is all cut here on site. Um, just from whatever the specific glass is, I don't know, but it's all, you know, there's a craftsman glass guy, you know. I mean, where do you find that guy? You know, I mean, I didn't see a glass training thing. I mean, he's a professional, you know. Yeah, I mean, he's over there just just building it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

So it's one of the comments anytime you do a tour through here. Um, it's it's always interesting to hear as you get that comment like, oh, you actually like build the boat, build the boat, right? Um, everything starts out as either in a extrusion or a flat sheet on one end of the shop and it comes out a painted completed boat on the other. And so I think that's pretty eye-opening. It's kind of a fun thing to say.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Well, all the way down to the dandy outside overhead crane system you have now for loading boats onto trucks and stuff. Like, I'd like to have that. You know, I mean, maybe someday.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

We've only had that two or three years, and I'd say that makes my life.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Well, just the safety aspect, and you know, yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool for sure. You know, I mean, so what can you give us about you know where you guys are and where you like to kind of keep pushing the envelope in terms of you know bringing that mission to fruition?

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Mirgo? Yeah. Um, new guy in charge, which is 30 days on the job, put him on the spot.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

No, um I was in his office. He does have a nice office. He kicked he kicked the other guy out, moved him out to an outbuilding or something. So he's yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

No, we're trying to, you know, keep doing like we have in the past, pushy envelope on innovation here. Um, you know, but we want to stick with him on mid here. We build uh great aluminum fishing boats, and so that's that's kind of our target, right? So um keep our ears to the ground, listening to what people are wanting or needing in their boats. Um and and like you said, you know, our mission is to is to keep innovating, it's to you know, keep moving forward. So that's that's really our goal. And and uh yeah, just build a real high quality boat. That's that that's probably one of the biggest things is uh we want to be known for, we want to have that reputation is that when you buy a duck worth, you know that you're gonna be safe in it, you know that it's gonna last forever. Um you know we offer a lifetime hole warranty on them for a reason because we stand behind them and believe in them.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Yeah, following our customers' needs, you know. Clear back in the day we built jet boats. That's all we built with jet boats and inboard jetboats. Inboard jet boats, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Yeah, some big Ford 402 and a Hamilton pump on it, and off you go.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Things change. I mean I you know, me being here for so long, I've watched it change and we we built jet boats and outboard boats, and next next thing you know, we're building offshore fishing boats and and uh and some capable boats that actually do the job in some pretty extreme conditions I've been in them.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Um you know, and from manufacturer to dealership, you know, I've dealt with a lot of boat brands, you know. Not a very good salesman, but for some reason some people sometimes have bought boats from me. Um the one thing with the Duckworth boat, and I always look at them in the owner's packet when they get delivered off the truck, it's got the paperwork we got assigned, you know, you've got to write them a check or whatever. And you know, inside there there's you remember those things where you write on the white page and it transfers through to the pink page, and then there's the yellow page below. Like they still have the checklist, yeah, right? And like their delivery guy, when it before it leaves, he goes through there and he marks off, yeah, the horn works, yeah, the windshield wipers work, you know, he goes off, it does an inspection, and so I mean that's that guy's signing off on behalf of the whole factory. That when that boat starts as a sheet of aluminum, wiggles back and forth and from one edge to the other to out the door, that guy's signing off that you guys have done a good job with this boat and everything works. Then then back, yeah. So, I mean the boat's been water tested, it's been debugged, it's you know, there's no anomalies. And so, you know, from a retail standpoint, I know that if that sheet's in there and the customer's buying a boat and we're doing a delivery and you know, sharing some of this information, it's you know, somebody built this thing with pride and had ownership in the company and you know, really enjoyed doing what they were doing. So yeah, it's family, family brand. Yeah, you know. I mean I've had brands of boats where you pull the shrink wrap off and there's no seats in there, you know, like hey, what's going on here?

unknown 30:17

You know?

SPEAKER_02 30:18

I missed the email they were out of seats and they were shipping them on a UPS truck with a $20 Amazon gift card for our troubles, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

So it's uh Yeah, yeah. No, I mean family, family brand, and you know, I certainly that resonates with me. Yeah, I'm I take close friends and family fishing like kind of as a as a part of my career. You know, and so I I I can't have a doubt leaving the dock that I'm in something not right. You know, and like that's that's a huge reason for having a duckworth is seeing and then you know even coming through and seeing how they get put together and seeing the pride that goes into it and how many uh you know redundant checks, not because you don't trust each other, but because you know you want to try and hold everybody to uh accountable to the level of of quality that you all believe in. You know? Um and that's really, really important as someone who's you know gonna buy a boat. You know, there's a lot to it.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

I think Duckworth's got a uh the name's held in high regard here, accompanying locally too, right? So um everybody behind us working, um they're all local people. Um we got a uh kind of a tagline of sorts uh that's um family owned, locally made. So to us that means uh we are family owned. You know, we are owned by the uh by the Boltons, so not you know traded on the market or anything like that. We're family owned.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

Um sorry, first I got distracted. That guy's installing one of those really cool drum winches on the front of an offshore over there.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

He's just lifting it on there. Sorry. Yeah. Uh and then locally made, meaning not necessarily geographically locally made. Um to us that means is it's made by uh family people, by uh people who use boats, people that have grown up here on the river that fish, that you know, um use the boats. So it's kind of made they're they're made by fishermen for fishermen kind of a thing, right? So that's how what that really means to us. I think I again I think that shows in the the layout, the quality, everything about boats. It does.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

And and you know, and the future stuff that you guys have and the the you know way that you're carrying on a lot of that legacy, right? It's you know, you've learned from every single boat. You learn from that red dot that you know you're you're selling on a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

I mean like you know, it's learn from our customers.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

Yeah, from the customers. Yeah. So I remember 2000. We we don't I don't remember what year I started selling duckworks, but it was let's just say 2011 or 2012. Your dealer guide, when you'd order an offshore, it was it was complicated. You'd get three sizes, four sizes to choose from. You would get um three cabin lengths, you would get, I believe, up to 13 different interior layouts to actually put a boat together. Yeah. Um I remember that pain, can't you? And so we're in like, I'm gonna get a 116.3 and I want to substitute the 24-inch bench seat with the rigging platform. And is there room for you to put you know a shoe rack there for me? Well, draw me a picture of the shoe rack and we'll build it, you know. So I mean, but but we're to the point now where we've just taken the average, and you know, now in you know the 26 and 28, which is you know the eight and a half wide boat, you know, we have a 116-inch cabin, which is just perfect. There's plenty of back deck space. It's got plenty of room for everybody inside, and the the layout is just perfect for what the Northwest needs, you know. So, you know, you guys have come a long way and you've been able to, I think, you know, improve along the way of all these layouts and just make each one more streamlined and and more user-friendly because you know, you really didn't need that 24-inch bench seat, nor did you need the rigging platform or the shoe holder. You know, what you needed was a fold-down dinette, somebody could take a nap on, you need a couple suspension seats and a galley and a toilet. Let's go fishing, you know, let's make it simple. Well, that's another thing, too. There used to be about 95 different colors to choose from. I think we're down to the primaries plus two. So yeah, you can have any color you want as long as it's black.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yeah. Yeah. All right. No, there's lots of choices. You're still swimming and things that you can do to your boat. There's no doubt about that. But yeah, I mean making it attainable and approachable is is important too, you know.

SPEAKER_03 34:44

Yeah. Simple to get through. And there was a period of time there where the option list was too big. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

And so you gotta remember too that all the boats that come out of here, you know, the Weltcraft also, I mean, they're all built on a reverse chime platform. And I I just I just would not ever buy a boat without a reverse chime. I just wouldn't do it. If we look at every single fiberglass boat in the industry that's been built for a hundred years, they'll have a reverse chime. It is expensive to build. Engineering-wise, it's a nightmare. I mean, you know that. You know, you change the degree of the bottom by two degrees on a new model, now you need a different dimension sheet for the bottom to fit into the extrusion. I mean, it's a big deal. And a lot of companies don't do it, but I mean, I just the way the boat lands, it turns, it gets up on plane faster, it's got a platform, it's smooth. I mean, that's the core of this boat. And I mean, we sell another brand for that same reason at our store, you know, the North River boats, they all have a reverse chine. It's a necessity. So, you know, you guys haven't deviated from that where you could have made a less expensive boat. Somebody would have made more money, it wouldn't have been us, I'm sure. But you know, um, but you haven't deviated from that and you haven't skimped on anything along the way. So we appreciate having that product in the store, and you know, and it just comes from you know solid management and a solid group of people that you know figured out how to build something that we believe is the best in the industry.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

So I think that solid ride helps.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Yeah, absolutely. I mean I get all sorts of comments, you know, in my in my boat from someone that comes from a either different aluminum to come fishing with me or you know, some different styles of fiberglass boats, you know, they're always surprised that wow, we're all on the deck and uh you know we're not really you know rolling side to side. You know, it's most clear when we're bottom fishing, you know, because a lot of the times when you're in 550 feet of water, you don't really want to drop the pick. So you're like, yeah, all right, well, we're just gonna drift over this. And you know, sometimes the boat, the way the current's working and the way the swell and wind are pushing you, it's not, you know, you're not perfect, right? You're sideways or whatever. And that boat, even in a pretty good, you know, roll, really doesn't get too side to side. And that's that that reverse chime in the way that you design and engineer that hole to keep you that way. You know, it's intentional, right? It's not a very tender boat. At the same time, you know, you're running back in, you can drop those trim tabs and roll on, you know.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Yeah, so the other thing I noticed in this building here, and I'm just gonna do a little off-shoot here, that you guys actually have like an HVAC system in here. So it gets hot in the dice. So you have like air conditioning for your employees to work in a a good environment and like heat in the winter time.

SPEAKER_03 37:28

Sure, try to, yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

I mean it's it's down to like, you know, Wayne was walking us through and he's like, yeah, we keep, you know, like there's piles of aluminum, right? And you know, there's a lot of space in the parking lot that would probably be you know fine storage for the aluminum, you know. And he's like, no, we keep it all inside so that way it doesn't get you know weathered. Yeah. It's like that kind of level of attention to detail.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

I I was at a boat manufacturer in Oregon one time, I won't say who it was, but they didn't have any heat. And in the summertime they'd have to start at 3 a.m. and close or air conditioning. Summertime they'd start at 3 a.m. and close at 2 o'clock, and then in the wintertime everybody bundled up. I think the only person that had a heater was the canvas lady, and they had a little space heater for her. So this is premium working conditions, and you guys got an amazing facility here.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

I mean, John buzzed out some words of wisdom as the the new head honcho. Yeah, what you got.

SPEAKER_03 38:23

Yeah, um excited for my new opportunity here personally, here, but uh really hoping to you know continue forward growing the company as much as I can, put my uh fingerprints on it a little bit here. But um, we got an amazing team here that works here. Um everybody's you know trying to do the best we can. We're all down-to-earth people. Uh, one of the I think the good qualities about us is when you call us up, um, you're probably gonna get Wayne.

SPEAKER_02 38:50

Uh but if you call and Wayne answers the phone, he shared with me today you guys have a new phone system, he doesn't know how to transfer a call. So he just takes a message and walks it to the next desk. So don't call me and don't call him during lunch. Yeah, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:04

No, we're personal people, we're trying to do the best thing we can here, and uh we're just gonna continue that forward, I think.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

Yeah. Well, I again I appreciate the you know the hospitality you guys have given us here the last 16 or 17 hours we've been here, and uh um uh you guys are doing an amazing job, and I appreciate the relationship.

SPEAKER_03 39:22

So yeah, us too appreciate you guys here.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Yeah, definitely looking forward to closing out 2026 on a good note. Looking forward to 2027. Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Like I said, I already saw a 2027 serial number tagged, I think, early in production. Um yeah, and I think Anthony and I we're gonna pack up, we're gonna head back to Woodenville and get back to work. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

So yeah, and we'll uh you know, I'm gonna come back. They don't know it yet, but I think once we're once we're ready to uh you know talk about that that 2027 model lineup, I think I want to come back and we'll we'll we'll run through that as its own episode and you know Sean's Wayne.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

There were some heavy discussions about this new boat that's coming out, Sean and I had earlier today. So uh him and I are gonna be working a little bit more on that over the next few weeks before it's released and before they print the dealer guy. Um so I don't know. Yeah, it has to do with the name. We'll we'll work on it. It just has to do with the name. I'm just saying it right now. I'm not a fan.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

So I'll let you work on him on that.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

I'm gonna order, I'm gonna order mine with no graphics. We'll see how it goes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

So yeah, we'll be back. We'll have more uh in that, and you know, we'll figure out some more content videos and stuff, the factory and things like that. So be on the lookout. Awesome. Thanks for listening. We'll see you guys next week. Awesome. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Three Reverse Marine podcast. We would like to give a special thanks to our sponsors, Endrun Tackle, make your own bite window. Fisherman's gold products. Everything we make, we fish ourselves. And Duckworth Boats, legendary adventure.