I am the proud owner of an M-15 and a retired commercial banker (international and export finance specialist). This discussion, as are most of the M Boat postings, are both useful and , in this case, professionally interesting to me. I have lived in the Cleveland, Ohio area for most of my life and, at times have been a sort of part time, professional booster of the area if it could bring business and jobs to the area. FYI , Cleveland has a strong industrial history and still is a major manufacturing center. Our costs of living however are generally quite low. The Montgomery boats and others had been built on the West Coast. Needless to say, when I compare Real Estate costs in Cleveland to those of the West Coast, I feel like we live in Mexico here on the North Coast. A 60,000 sq. ft. quality industrial building can be had here, in prime suburban locations for well under $2MM, in many cases under $1.5MM. Properties can be leased for around $5.50 sq. ft.. I'm sure if you really look, you can do better. Skilled labor in a variety of industries related to plastics and fibreglass are all around.( i.e. Step Two and Little Tykes are HQ'd in this area.). Just my two cents. Fair Seas Rimas Aukstuolis On Sun, Jul 25, 2021 at 10:11 AM Bob Eeg <montgomeryboats@hotmail.com> wrote:
BINGO….
Sent from my iPad
On Jul 25, 2021, at 7:05 AM, jerry montgomery <jmbn1@outlook.com> wrote:
Another thing is the economics of the operation. For a building large enough to keep all the tooling in and have enough room left to build boats, you need to have enough work going thru the shop to pay the rent. Obviously, if you only build a boat a month, the fixed costs like rent or mortgage payments, cost 4 times per boat as if you were making one a week. If you own the building you still have to value it as how much you could get renting it out. Don McKibbon, the sailmaker we used for years, retired because he got his building payed off and could rent it out for more money than he could make in a shrinking market, and still keep the value of appreciation.
jerry
________________________________ From: Alex Conley <conley.alex@gmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2021 11:10 PM To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats < montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Cc: John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net> Subject: M_Boats: Re: M boats out of production
Also enjoyed your insights! Curious- if a team of 3 takes 80 to 100 hours total per boat (a boat a week), could 1 or 1.5 people do the same (so a boat every two to three weeks for the same overall hours/labor cost split over fewer people) or does a lot of the work require two people working together as a team to do efficiently? And how steep is the learning curve? Just thinking what kind of sales volume it’d take to get going- if a 1.5 person crew could do 2 boats a month, 12 boats would equal a 6 month production run…
On Tue, Jul 20, 2021 at 6:24 PM John Schinnerer via montgomery_boats < montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:
Thanks Jerry, I at least enjoy this behind the scenes first-person story of what it took to produce these boats, and what it might take to make some more of the Sage designs. Impressive that you could crank out an M15 a week and an M17 in two.
Hilarious about the 50 hp motor and still no water skiing... :-/
cheers, John
On 7/20/21 2:18 PM, jerry montgomery wrote: When my shop was in S CA, I had a crew of 7 guys dedicated to the 15, plus about half my time. 4 molders, a gelcoater who also did the mold maintenance and pulling, two assemblers, and I did all the millwork, benchwork, rudders, and rigging. Had a gal to do all the inventory control among other things. Everything was done very efficiently; I bought the acrylic for the windows in 4X8 sheets and spent a day or so making maybe 50 sets of windows. I bought the mast and boom stock directly from the extruder in 1K lb quantities, the plywood for drop hatches and bin covers 5 sheets at a time, etc. That's the way it HAS to be done in order to make money at a reasonable price. The days of making one boat at a time are long gone.
The above would add up to 80 hours per boat. A SageCat would take a little longer, mostly because of the bulbed drop keel. it's got more hardware, but that goes fast, with drill jigs and the right fasteners. keep in mind that most all of the guys had worked for me for several years and were all very good. My standards were high. There was not a job in the shop that I hadn't done myself and I expected them to be as fast as me, and to do essentially perfect work. No reason not to.
After I moved to Sacramento I had only two guys; two that I moved with me to Sacatomatoes from S CA that were great, and paid accordingly. They could make a 15 in 80 hours (one boat a week) or a 17 in two weeks. To do a boat a week, Sal would need two molders and an assembler, and the assembler would also need to do all the mill and bench work. All would need to be skilled people. Not to mention someone to order material and answer the phone. Some of the calls would be lengthy- " I have some questions that maybe you can answer. I have a 1976 Montgomery 17 with a problem. That long thing right next to the edge is getting loose. What should I do? And that wood thing needs to be painted. What kind of paint should I use? Are the sails still under warrantee? I wrote a column for SCA that told of some of the weird phone calls and letters that I'd gotten over the years. The best was "i put a big bracket on my M-17 for a 50 horse motor and it still won't go fast enough to pull a water-skier. You need to get a better design"
I suspect that this more than you wanted to hear, but I get carried away.
jerry
________________________________ From: Alex Conley <conley.alex@gmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2021 12:24 PM To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats < montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Cc: salglesser@aol.com <salglesser@aol.com> Subject: M_Boats: Re: M boats out of production
Intriguing! What kind of sales volume would you need to make it work, and how much of a crew? I imagine short stints w a tiny crew once enough orders are in rather than full time production? Any quess on the pricing that would make it work? Having the knowledge and tooling all already there might just make it feasible!
On Tue, Jul 20, 2021 at 9:10 AM jerry montgomery <jmbn1@outlook.com> wrote:
I've been trying for some time to talk Sal into making a batch of SageCats, which I consider to be the best boat I've ever done, and also the most fun to sail. I'd love one and have a couple of friends who also would. I had the prototype for a few months and did several races with it. it really attracted the attention of the racing crowd because it was so fast for its size for an obvious displacement boat, and so great-looking. I know that there are a bunch of other old farts out there, mostly sailing center boarders, that are attracted by a boat that can be sailed, rigged, and launched singlehanded and still take care of you when it gets nasty.
it's been really hard to make money building boats, for several decades, and Sal has a booming knife business, so can't blame him, but my spies tell me that pretty much all outdoors- oriented businesses are doing well right now but marketing is above my pay grade. When I was making the Montgomery boats, I made more money on the tens and fifteens than all other boats put together. Why? With the tens we finished two boats every day, with fifteens, one boat a day, working 10 hour days. A secret is to make all the boats the same; no options that would slow production. On the 15, we used to have an electrical package, consisting of all the parts, a diagram, and a template for cutting out for the switch panel, all put in a box. Nothing we couldn't just throw in the boat when it was shipped. If we dropped a boat on a given day, that put us a boat behind that could never be recovered. Several thousand dollars in gross profit thrown out the window. The guys knew this and knew their job, and nobody wanted to be the weak link. Worked like a charm. Universal practice in most all manufacturing. We boat builders are not quick learners.
That's how the SageCats would need to be built in order for Sal to make money on them. The fly in the ointment, of course, is the need to sell enough boats to have orders stacked up at all times so we know what we're doing tomorrow.
Anyway, that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
jerry
________________________________ From: sal glesser via montgomery_boats < montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Monday, July 19, 2021 1:49 PM To: montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com < montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com>; montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com < montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Cc: mutcth@yahoo.com <mutcth@yahoo.com>; salglesser@aol.com < salglesser@aol.com> Subject: M_Boats: Re: M boats out of production
It's possible, but not in the immediate future. We're in the process of adding to the Spyderco factory, so all of the Sage stuff will go into storage while construction is going one. We have the molds and we have samples of each model, etc. All of the crew is gone, so we'll need another Dave Scobie and a good glass person to pick it up again. They're a pretty high tech boats, carbon fiber and construction methods. Jerry put all of his design and manufacturing experience in the boats and we sought out the most modern materials and equipment. And guys like Dave Scobie are not easy to find. sal In a message dated 7/19/2021 2:25:14 PM Mountain Standard Time, montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com writes: "There are also 35 - 40 Sage 17's and Sage 15's out there, designed by Jerry Montgomery (who also built the molds) built by Sage Marine, Dave Scobie & crew. more expensive, but very special. Carbon fiber and vacuum drawn resin. sal" Sal, thanks for the approximate production numbers. Is there any chance of Sage resuming production? (I'd like to buy a new Sage 15 or SageCat someday.)
-- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design -------------------------------------------- - Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net - 510.982.1334 http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com