I. Way back in 2004 or 2005 Vicem flew me to Istanbul to ask me just one question: What should the goal of our first advertising campaign be? I said “Just teach people how to pronounce the name!”
Now, I am pleased to say, we have gone from about zero name recognition to the point where Yachting Magazine just announced that our about-to-splash 100 Cruiser was one of their top five articles for the month of August!
It’s like anything in life, or like building a school in Haiti: If you think about the magnitude of it all, you figure why bother? But if keep your head down, work hard as you can every day, somehow magical things just happen. What a great ride!
You can read about the ranking and the boat at:
http://recp.mkt32.net/servlet/MailView?m=4966590&r=NDczMzY4OTQzMQS2&j=MTgzODczMjU5S0&mt=1
II. This week I received the latest construction pix of our Mega series (32M, 35M and 46M). It is shocking to me how quickly they are coming together. All three are spec boats (Oh, the things you can do with deep pockets!).
Here is the 32M:
32M
32M
And the 35M:
35M
35M
And the 46M (My favorite. Check out that massive stern thruster):
46M
46M
46M
III. I’m out of the country next week, but you can reach me if you try hard enough. Here’s something to help you get over my absense – The hurricane brought me home to NY for a few days, where I was able to pick up a little on my somewhat neglected novel, Ambush Alley. Here’s a new section for you, one of many about boats, and Haiti:
A few hours later they weighed anchor and sailed west. Reggie sat in the bow, reading his bible. At fifteen minute intervals Tommy would scan the empty shoreline with his binoculars.
“What are you looking for?” asked Reggie.
“A mountain of conch.”
Reggie looked at him quizzically, and then resumed reading.
Two hours later Tommy sounded a satisfied grunt. He tacked the boat and headed in towards shore. Ahead of them was a long narrow dock, empty of boats or people. And on the shore next to it was a large pile of discarded and sun-bleached conch shells, maybe fifteen feet high. They tied up at the dock.
“Now what?” asked Reggie.
“Now we wait. In the Caribbean, where there is conch, there is a dock. And where there is a dock, there is a panga.”
Just after lunchtime they heard the spit and sputter of a weak outboard engine. A long and thin wooden boat headed in towards them, and Tommy was pleased to see that like every working panga he’d ever seen, it was painted brightly in orange, green, and yellow. A teenager was in the bow, and an old man was in the stern, by the outboard. Between them was a small pile of colorful conch shells.
“And where there is a panga, there is a Captain? ” asked Reggie.
Tommy stepped out of the sailboat and helped tie up the fishing boat. Reggie followed, and then translated Tommy’s proposition into Creole. The Captain looked at the sailboat carefully, and then at Tommy. He didn’t smile, but he did nod his head. Tommy took twenty hundred dollar bills out of the backpack. He gave five to the Captain. The next fifteen he ripped in half. He gave the Captain the left side of the bills, and he put the right sides in his back pocket with a bit of drama.
“Reggie, tell him I will be back in ten days. If the boat is still here, untouched, he gets the other halves.”
“Haitians live on two dollars a day. You just bought ten years.”
“I only need ten days. If its longer than that, the boat is his.”
That”s all for now. See ya at the boat shows.
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