|
The town of Bellport, on the south edge of Long Island, is
separated from the Atlantic Ocean by barrier islands. The
continuous beach creates a shallow bay that is a perfect habitat
for fish, blue crabs, clams and small boats. Al Steiger grew up in
Bellport. His life has always been connected to the water. He had
his first rowboat when he as five. His parents let him go out on
the bay alone when he was eight. There was no minimum age required
for a clamming license, so he started clamming early. As he grew
up 50 cents a bushel for chowders, $3 a bushel for cherrystones
and $7 a bushel for littlenecks gave enterprising young men in
Bellport plenty of money for a $1.50 movie and 35 cent gasoline.
Q: How did you start building boats?
A: As kids we were always on the water. We built clam boats. They
were plywood and we made them in the garage. We always needed
different boats for different purposes. We would saw off two feet
or add four feet. We repaired boats. We bought old boats and fixed
them up. It was constant.
Q: Who was involved? You make it sound like it was the whole
community.
A: It was the whole community. All the kids and the parents. Our
parents had boats like Wheelers, Chris Crafts and Mathews. Owning
a boat in those days meant working on the bay. Ninety percent of
the time you maintained the boats and ten percent of the time you
used them.
Q: How did clamming fit in?
A: All my friends went into clamming. I started as a kid. I
started making clamming equipment, like clam rakes when I was 17
or 18. I sold them to friends because the nearest pace to buy one
was 75 miles away. Then I started repairing boats. Watermen who
didn't want to lose time on the water would borrow my boat while I
fixed their boat. I built some wooden boats out of red and white
cedar planking and some out of plywood.
Q: What were those boats like?
A: They were clamming skiffs, work boats. They were low-freeboard,
flat-bottom, shallow draft open boats. They were stable platforms
to work out of, but the flat-bottoms would pound you to death in
any kind of water. We would lose a lot of work days on the water
because the boats couldn't handle rough seas in windy weather.
Q: How did you get started building fiberglass boats?
A: Plank boats would swell up and not leak, but they were
difficult and time consuming to build. Plywood boats were a lot
easier to build, but they would never swell up, so they always
leaked. So we had to fiberglass them.
Q: Did you just fiberglass the seams?
A: You have to remember we're talking about a work boat here. We
had to work in cold weather and a lot of ice. On planked boats, we
would screw on sacrificial oak to cut ice. On plywood boats we just put on a lot more fiberglass. It got to the
point, when the wood would rot away, we would have the fiberglass
shell of a boat sitting there. We realized that if we molded the
fiberglass, we could make boats without wood.
Q: Was that your discovery?
A: No , it wasn't our discovery. Boston Whaler and Thunderbird
were new at the time. To learn that we could make a fiberglass
boat was a big discovery for us.
Q: Was that when you started making fiberglass boats?
A: Not quite. Mako came out with their center console. And it had
some important advantages over our flat-bottomed boats.
Q: Was Mako a big influence on you?
A: Yes , the first time I rode in a Mako I couldn't believe it. It
was a semi-vee bottom.It went through rough water. I didn't even
get wet. I realized that with a boat like that, clammers could go
out in any weather and never lose a day of work. It was a miracle.
I new I had to do something about it. But to make a vee-bottom in
wood would be very difficult. There would be too many stations and
too much fitting work. It would cost a fortune, and clammers
couldn't afford it. At that time , my clam boat cost $800 and a
Mako cost $5000. $5000 to a clam-digger, at that time, might as
well have been $5 million. I decided to build a rugged, affordable
fiberglass work boat with a vee-bottom.
Q: How did it turn out?
A: It took us 6 to 8 months to build the first mold. It came out
pretty much symmetrical, pretty much true to form. It had a vee-bottom.
You could clam out of it. It could go through rough water. It rode
right in the water and in the wind. It did everything it was
supposed to do. That was about 1975. I sold it right away. The
same boat is still on the bay clamming today.
Q: Would you say you were an over night success?
A: Not quite. I made one or two boats the first year and two or
three the second year. Then word-of-mouth started. The next year I
built 16 or 18...21 footers... all work boats. The first boats
were around $2000 each.
Q: What was the next step that made the business grow?
A: A nearby boat dealer who sold Glastrons and Dixies took a ride
in a Steiger. He couldn't believe how much better it rode than the
boats he was selling. He came to me. We made a deal. I would build
the boats and he would rig them with motors and sell them. He
wanted something else. He was selling a 16 foot aluminum StarCraft
that sold like mad. Some customers wanted a fiberglass boat the
same size. So we made a 16.
Q: Did it sell?
A: It sold very well. So well, we took it to the New York Boat
Show and sold 200 of them.It was a nightmare. I had all my
relatives help build them. At one time, the whole yard was filled
with them. They looked like a huge school of beached whales!
Q: Did business really take off then?
A: Yes, we appointed dealers in Maryland, Maine, New Jersey and
Connecticut. We had the 16 and the 21 footer. They still looked
like backyard clam boats to me. I wanted to build something
better, so we started to make a 19 footer center console. The boat
and motor sold for $6,900 in 1980-81. It was a good boat and it
sold well.
Q: What was the next big step?
A: All the dealers wanted a bigger boat. So we came up with the 25
foot Chesapeake. It took about a year to make the molds and plugs
and everything. It was our first boat really designed, from the
water up, to have a cabin. We figured it would be a success, if we
sold a dozen a year. The problem was, nobody had ever seen a
$15,000 Steiger Craft. Our most expensive boat was six grand.
Still, we were nowhere near the price of Aquasport. Grady White,
Mako or Whaler. We didn't know if we were over our heads. So we
went to The New York Boat Show again.
Q: Was the Chesapeake 25 well received?
A: We wanted to sell a dozen. We sold 40. They didn't buy them at
the boat show. They came to the factory and lined up outside the
front door. In two days, we were sold out for two years. We
couldn't build anymore boats. People came everyday to make sure
nobody jumped ahead of their boat in the production line. All the
customers got to know each other. It was crazy!
Q: But things were going well?
A: Things were going well. All the models were selling. We had a
16, a 19, a 21, and a 25. We went to more boat shows. We did some advertising. The people
who make boats started to realize we were here. I got to know some
real talented people like Lee Wilbur and Eric White, the naval
engineer. These people are really talented boat builders.
Q: Did they influence you?
A: I still had that nagging desire to build a better boat and the
Steiger Craft line needed a 23 footer. So, I got Eric White to
design and build molds for a 23. The quality of his work is
exceptional. He does tooling for Four Winns, Hinckley, for Lee
Wilbur, for Bertram, Viking and Trojan. He's the best.
Q: How successful was the 23?
A: It was an enormous success. It made all our other boats look
bad. So, we had Eric White redesign and build molds for all of our
boats. It cost a lot of money, but it was worth it. My mission is
to build the best boat I know how to build. Technology keeps
changing. The more I learn, the more I want to make the boats
better.
Q: You really started over with all new boats?
A: They were the same models and the same lengths, but they were
new molds and all new boats. And the change over let us do
something really important.
Q: What was that?
A: We developed the one-piece fiberglass grid system. The grid is
hand-laid fiberglass on a mold that is built in a U-shape. It
creates strength the same way a steel I-beam creates strength, by
placing strong flat surfaces perpendicular to each other. This
girder-like grid is fiberglassed into the hull. The hull and the
grid system become one piece. Then the grid system and the spaces
between, not used for storage, are filled with closed-cell foam.
The result is incredible stiffness and strength in the hull. All
the fiberglass is hand-laid through the process. We never use a
chopper gun to shoot fiberglass into voids. We don't even own a
chopper gun. We never have. A chopper gun just doesn't make
fiberglass strong enough.
Q: So how strong do your boats have to be?
A: Our boats are used every day by commercial fishermen carrying
heavy loads. If our boats fail. We've failed him. It's better for
both of us if we build the boat right the first time. He's happy
and I'm happy.
Q: Have you sold boats for other commercial uses?
A: We've sold a lot of boats to municipal police departments, fire
departments, utilities and the Coast Guard. I think we have 15 of
our boats operating right now, year round, in New York City
Harbor...police, Con Ed, Coast Guard.
Q: How are the Steiger Craft boats sold for commercial use
different than those sold for recreational use?
A: They're not different. They're the same boat As a
matter-of-fact, nobody here who builds our boats knows which will
be used commercially and which will be used for recreation. You
won't find that with any other manufacturer.
Q: Other boat builders use plywood stringers and ribs. Why
don't you?
A: It makes no sense to build plywood stringers into fiberglass
hulls. The two materials don't react the same to heat, cold,
stress and moisture. You can't cut plywood to perfectly fit and
evenly support the infinite curves in a hull, so there are always
voids and spaces. All the shocks and vibrations a hull goes
through start to crack the fiberglass where it is not properly
supported. By that time, there's an awful lot of damage done
inside. You can always tell where the plywood stringers are in a
fiberglass boat. That's where all the cracks are. It's more
expensive to build our fiberglass grid system, but it makes a much
better boat.
Q: How much confidence do you have in the boats you build?
A: For a long time, we offered a 10 year commercial warranty on
the boat. That was for commercial guys who go out every day in
every kind of weather. It was for people who beat a boat. It was
really equal to a life-time guarantee for the recreational boater.
Eric White always claimed we were building a life-time
indestructible boat. In '96, when we started putting in the 3/4
inch fiberglass cock-pit floors, the boats really got rugged. I
decided to do something that would tell people how much confidence
I had. We offered the Steiger Craft Life-Time Guarantee. We never
looked back.
Q: Are you trying to build an indestructible boat?
A: We're trying to build a better boat every year. I'm proud when
I see my name on such a good boat. It's a good product and I 'm
going to make it even better. Other companies change their boats
every year. We refine our boats every year. Now they're classic
looking. It's hard to keep them clean and simple. I'm pleased with
how they look, how they perform and how they are constructed. It
took a long time and a lot of work to get them that way.
Q: Has it all been worth it?
A: I love boating, fishing and being on the water. I love boats. I
like dealing with people. You can't talk to Mr. Mako. You can't
talk to Mr. Whaler. But you can come here and talk with Al Steiger....
Yeah, it's been worth it.
|
AL
STEIGER...