Catalina 22, hull #1, sails
in the One of a Kind Regatta
on Lake Michigan in 1970.
The crew, from left: Rod
Mortenson, Beattie Purcell,
Lee Buffum, and Herbie
Mortenson.
|
Catalina Yachts: One big family
by Steve Mitchell
You may not be able to win the
war, but you can win occasional
battles. Regardless of the odds, you
must fight! Now's the time to meet
your opponent.
Call the Woodland Hills headquarters
of Catalina Yachts in California,
and one thing strikes you right away
about the choices the telephone
answering system offers you. One
option is for Frank Butler. That's
rare access in today's hectic
business world, but it shows what
makes Catalina unique - the constant
guiding hand of Frank Butler, who
founded the company in 1970.
The stories are legendary among
Catalina owners. Call the factory
about a warranty item, and chances
are you'll end up speaking with
Frank himself. Why such access?
"I've always been that accessible,"
he says. "It's the only way to be in
this business." Catalina is the
largest sailboat manufacturer in the
United States. That means Frank
Butler has a lot of customers to
keep happy, something he obviously
relishes.
Born in California in 1928, Frank
joined the Navy and attended college
before beginning his working life in
the engineering field. "I was hired
as an engineer in a government
facility, and they found out I had
lied about having five years'
experience. They called me in
several months later when they found
out, and I admitted it was true. I
then told them either they could
fire me or give me a raise. I got
the raise."He continues, "I've
always had a love for engineering,
and drawing came very easily to me.
Working with my hands always came
more easily to me than schoolwork."
Frank went on to start Wesco Tool,
his own machine shop, and became a
supplier of component parts for the
aircraft industry. "I did a lot of
work with that industry," he says.
"I'd often go to plants and work
with the engineers, help them with
designs, or help with engineering
problems when they asked me to."
Late start
By the late 1950s Frank was
sailing dinghies for relaxation. "I
was 30 before I really took up
sailing," he says. While it was a
late start in life compared to most
boatbuilders, it opened up a chapter
in what was to become Frank Butler's
life's work.
Eventually, he wanted something
larger than a dinghy so his growing
family could enjoy sailing together.
Says Frank, "The first boat I bought
[for the family] was a Victory 21."
But his first boatbuying experience
wasn't a good one. The builder was
strapped for cash, and when Frank
arrived to pick up his boat on the
appointed day, neither the boat nor
the owner was to be found. He
quickly assessed the situation and
basically began to build the boat
himself with help from some of the
builder's employees, all but
commandeering the plant until he
finished it.
What made him think he could build a
boat? "I never even thought about
it," he responds. "It was either
that or lose my money." Despite that
initial experience, Frank made a
loan to the builder. When the
builder couldn't pay back the loan,
he offered Frank some tooling and
materials to build other boats,
which Frank accepted. He had the
boatbuilding bug and couldn't resist
the challenge. He founded a company
he called Wesco Marine in 1961 and
began building small sailboats. He
later changed the name to Coronado
Yachts. He still owned Wesco Tool as
well.
One of the first people he hired in
1962 for his fledgling boatbuilding
company was an Irishman named
Beattie Purcell. "I met Beattie
through a mutual friend," Frank
says. "He had the sailing
experience, and I had the
manufacturing experience. He and I
worked well together. But in those
days we all did everything -
manufacturing, sales, marketing. It
didn't matter."
Catalina's Three Musketeers:
Sharon Day, Gerry Douglas,
and Frank Butler.
|
Tremendous growth
"I happened to be in Canada at the
time. I came down and started
working for Frank at Wesco Marine
long before there even was a
Catalina Yachts," Beattie recalls.
"I started off building small boats
with the fiberglass, and then I got
into rigging. We were building a
14-footer and a 21-footer. We
started off pretty small but grew
tremendously. Fiberglass was in its
infancy and just took off. We
definitely started at the right
time. I also started sailing in
different regattas for Frank to
promote the boats, which worked out
well." In line with the notion that
everyone did everything, Beattie
also designed the letterhead for the
stationery and the exterior sign on
the building.
"Frank also had Wesco Tool at the
same time," Beattie continues. "We
started in Burbank, but we got
bigger and had to move to another
location. Frank was a busy man
running both businesses. But he has
great insight, and he listens to
people."
The first notable boat design was
the Coronado 25 in 1964. States
Frank, "I designed it, and a fellow
helped me with the tooling for it.
The Coronado 25 was the first boat
to have a full pan liner in the
hull. Before that, manufacturers
built components and dropped them
into the hull, like a wood-shop
approach. It was expensive and more
time-consuming.
"I got the idea for the pan liner
from Lockheed and how they built
planes. I saw lead molds at Lockheed
for airplane parts and thought, Why
not apply that to building boats?"
Frank remembers.
They fired him
In a move typical of other early
sailboat manufacturers, Frank sold
Coronado to the Whittaker
Corporation in 1968. The business
relationship lasted one year. He
says, "I didn't agree with the
corporate strategy of running a boat
manufacturing facility. I wrote them
a letter about some things I didn't
agree with, and they called me in
and fired me. But that was all over
long ago. I was right, as it turns
out. We're all good friends now."
As part of the separation agreement
with Whittaker, Frank had a
non-competition contract for two
years and couldn't build boats,
except for the smaller ones for
which Whittaker hadn't bought the
rights. He took a trip to Europe and
also built a marina in Oxnard,
Calif., that Beattie ran for him for
a while. They continued to build the
smaller boats, such as the Coronado
15, the Omega, the Super Satellite,
and the Drifter. "We wanted to
change the name of [the Coronado 15]
to make it obvious the boat wasn't
built by Coronado Yachts," says
Beattie, "but couldn't because the
class association wouldn't let us.
Frank always liked the names of
islands - Catalina, Coronado, Capri.
We had thought of the name Catalina
and liked it. That sort of clicked."
Beattie moved back home to Ireland
for a while, but his boatbuilding
days weren't over. He remembers, "I
was in Ireland, and Frank called me
to say that he was forming Catalina
Yachts." That one phone call is all
it took for Beattie to return to
work for Frank. "One of my first
jobs for Catalina was to fly to
Hawaii. Some people there were
having trouble with the rigging for
their Coronado 15s, and I was able
to help them out."
The Catalina 22, the first
boat introduced by the
company, in 1970.
|
Most popular
"I had started building boats in
1961," Frank says of founding a new
company, "so I had eight or nine
years of experience at it by then.
Things were much easier than in
1961."
His first design in 1970 was the
Catalina 22, the boat he had wanted
Whittaker to build. The C-22 turned
out to be one of the most popular
sailboats of all time, with 15,500
built. He also came out right away
with the Catalina 27, another
popular cruiser. The Catalina 30
followed in 1976.
According to Beattie, "The C-22 just
took off. We couldn't build them
fast enough." Beattie has the
distinction of being the first
person to sail both the C-22 and the
C-27.
In the early boats, Frank used what
is called the shoebox design to join
the hull and deck. In this
construction technique, the outer
lip of the deck fits over the lip of
the hull like the top fits on a
shoebox. "I felt the shoebox design
was more rigid, and it's basically
leakproof. It's a very good way to
build boats. We might have a problem
in one out of a thousand boats with
a hull leak, and even then it's
usually something else leaking."
With such a high demand for his
boats, Frank had to expand his
manufacturing capability. An East
Coast plant made sense because of
the high cost of shipping boats to
the East Coast from California.
States Beattie, "Frank sent me east
to look for another plant. The
shipping costs were killing us. I
found a small fiberglass plant in
South Carolina that had closed, so
we bought it and started building
C-22s there. Then we began building
C-27s there as well." The year was
1973.
Almost threw him out
Beattie credits a fellow named
Wilbur Pokras with much of
Catalina's marketing success in the
east. "Wilbur was our representative
for setting up dealers on the East
Coast, " he says. "He did a great
job for us."
Wayne Miskiewicz, now general
manager of Maryland Marina, in
Baltimore, remembers Wilbur very
well. "Wilbur was the East Coast rep
for Catalina and set us up as a
dealer in 1970 or so. He showed up trailering a C-22 he had put in the
Annapolis show, and he wanted us to
buy it. We almost didn't become a
dealer. I almost threw him out of
the office at first. But we wound up
buying the show model and becoming a
dealer. Selling the C-22 was
amazing. They all but flew out the
door."
He continues, "Frank Butler is the
Henry Ford of the boating industry
in a sense. He's very serious about
offering a good boat at a good
price. Since he was the warranty
coordinator, he could spot trends
with problems and fix them right
away. He's very hands-on, maybe too
much so at times. Frank took [the
warranty coordinator role] on as a
method of quality control, and was
effective in that way. Frank is
quite an interesting guy. He had no
one to answer to but himself." By
1977 even the South Carolina plant
was too small to handle the East
Coast demand for Catalina Sailboats.
"One day Frank called me," says
Beattie, "to go to Fort Walton
Beach, Florida, to look at property
for a larger plant. It all worked
out, so we moved the plant from
South Carolina to Florida, where we
could build even bigger boats."
 Unprecedented
demand
Wayne says about those days in
the sailboat market, "Catalina had
trouble meeting production demands,
and the dealers were put on a quota
system. People were
so happy with their boats that they
came back and bought their second,
third, and even fourth boats from
us. The company just grew so rapidly
it was amazing in those days. Until
we had the huge downturn in the
market, used boats often cost more
than new ones. Used boats were
appreciating throughout the entire
product line because demand was so
high for new ones."
He continues, "One good thing about
Catalina is that it doesn't change
designs every year. They would come
out with a good design and hold onto
it. Hunter was our biggest
competitor in those days, but it
changed models every couple of
years. Catalina had a chance to work
out production problems with a long
run, but not Hunter."
Seven years later, the company
needed an even larger plant on the
East Coast. In 1984, Frank purchased
Morgan Yachts, based in Largo,
Florida. Beattie helped move the
Florida plant to Largo. "We were
growing so fast," Beattie remembers,
"and Morgan Yachts was all but down
the tubes. It was a great chance to
buy a bigger plant at a good price
and to get the Morgan name." Among
other large boats, the Largo plant
turned out 50-footers for the
Moorings charter group. Today it
produces C-47s in shifts that run
six days a week.
Beattie retired from Catalina Yachts
in 1994 after spending more than 30
years working for Frank Butler. "I
enjoyed it. Frank was a good guy to
work for. We used to race against
one another in Satellites and had a
great time doing it. It was good fun
starting up a company like that,
it's interesting all the things you
have to do. Frank knows the way to
go. He always has. He has great
instincts."
Advertising change
For many years, Catalina was the
largest sailboat manufacturer that
did no national advertising, a
terrific economic advantage compared
to its competitors in an industry
where spending 6 to 10 percent of
the retail price of a new boat on
advertising and marketing is not
uncommon. Given a changing and much
tighter market, Frank had to change
to keep Catalina's name in the
forefront of the industry. "When we
went from medium-sized boats to
larger ones, I thought I needed to
advertise. It was better for the
product and better for the consumer
to know more about our products. It
was something I felt I had to do."
The late 1980s saw a tremendous
depression in the boat market caused
by an economic recession and by the
10-percent luxury tax the federal
government placed on new boats
costing more than $100,000. Because
few of its models exceeded that
cost, Catalina was not affected that
much by the luxury tax. But the
economic recession that saw so many
boatbuilders go out of business made
for hard times at Catalina as well.
How did the company survive when so
many others didn't? "I'm somewhat
conservative, " Frank says. "I knew
that what goes up must come down. I
tried to be prepared as best I
could. It was tough, no doubt about
it. We just got through it."
At Maryland Marina, Wayne Miskiewicz
saw the downturn coming. "We stopped
selling new boats in 1988," he says.
"It was just a business decision we
made. We still sell used boats
today, but not new ones. But if we
were to decide to sell new boats
again, it would be Catalinas.
They're the best product for the
money today."
The Catalina 27, the second
boat, introduced in 1971.
|
Weathered recession
One can make the argument that
Catalina's product line, and
philosophy of providing "the most
value for the dollar in the
industry," as Frank puts it, made
the difference in weathering the
recession that drove other sailboat
manufacturers out of business. Many
manufacturers had the bottom drop
out of their sales volume; but
Catalina's business, while also
falling off, didn't drop
precipitously. The factories stayed
busy, and Catalina did not lay off
one worker during that time.
According to Sharon Day, Catalina's
national and international sales
manager, "We had to tighten our
belts, but when we were making money
we were able to put some of it away
for times like that. With the slow
market we were able to increase our
inventories of boats so we were
ready when the market rebounded."
Will Keene, president of Edson
International, seconds the notion
about Butler's instincts. Says
Keene, "He has the uncanny ability
to know the real value of something.
He's as honest as the day is long, a
guy who speaks his mind. You know
where you stand with him every
minute of every day. But he also has
quite a sense of humor. He's a great
kidder, and you don't always know
when he's joking. For example, one
time he said to me that he was going
to put all my competitors' gear on
his boats. I nearly had a heart
attack before he told me he was
joking."
One of Will's first sales trips for
Edson around 1980 was to visit Frank
in California. "I was scared,
absolutely petrified of meeting him.
He's a big, gruff guy on the
outside, especially if you're a
vendor. I was this kid taking over
the business from my father and had
a lot to prove. Frank suggested a
change in a piece of gear, and I
took the suggestion back to my boss,
who also doubled as my father. He
said, 'We just invested a lot of
money in that design. Make him like
it.' Well, I lost Frank's business
on that one."
Team approach
Will continues, "We ended up
building a mock-up of the C-30
cockpit and shipping it to
California so Frank and Gerry
Douglas could see how it all would
work together. Our competitor also
had trouble delivering on time, so
we soon had their account back. It
took us 18 months and a lot of hard
work, but we did it."
Will enjoys working with Catalina
because of the team approach Frank
uses. "He will call me up and say,
'We have a problem,' and ask, 'How
can we solve it?' " Will says. "He
works with you. He's always very
even, whether it's our problem or
his, or a combination. We're small
potatoes compared to the size of
Catalina Yachts, and Frank knows we
have limitations, but he expects us
to deliver, too. Even if we make
some dumb mistakes, which we have,
Frank and I will talk about it, and
then he'll say, 'OK, let's get going
here.' He's great to work with."
Will considers Frank to be a mentor,
in addition to being a customer.
"Frank told me once that when sons
got into the family business, the
business usually failed." Will took
the words of advice to heart, as
something to work on. "I'm still in
the process of proving him wrong on
that one," he says. "But I probably
won't be able to do that until the
day I retire."
To what does Will attribute the
success of Catalina Yachts, besides
the obvious presence of Frank
Butler? He responds, "The boats are
a reflection of the people behind
them. Frank's employees are the best
and are very loyal to him and the
company. They make good, honest,
affordable boats - good sailers with
smart layouts. Just look at the
number of people who got into this
sport because of Frank's affordable
boats."
Largest manufacturer
Frank is quick to point out that
sales manager Sharon Day and Gerry
Douglas, head of engineering and
design, are a big part of the
success of Catalina Yachts. They
really have had more to do with the
success we've had than anyone else."
Both Day and Douglas now are
corporate officers and part owners
of the company.
Sharon has been with Catalina for 26
years. "We're the largest sailboat
manufacturer in the United States,
but we aren't run by a large
corporation. So we can keep closer
tabs on our customers, to make sure
they like our products. I think the
boat owners like sharing the
company's success because they like
being part of the Catalina family.
And family is the backbone of our
company. Everyone who buys a boat is
a part of our family. We especially
treat our dealers that way. Lots of
them have been with us since Day
One, and we appreciate that. They
are our front line with our
customers, after all."
Sharon continues, "Going to a boat
show, we not only sell boats, but we
also get to see and talk to our
customers. Many of them we see at
the shows every year." The
face-to-face meetings with customers
provide valuable feedback for their
likes and dislikes, which leads
directly to improvements in the
product line.
What's it like working for Frank
Butler? "He sets the pace for us,"
she says, "and that's non-stop.
Frank keeps things moving. He's
perpetual motion, and has a
tremendous amount of energy. It's an
entirely different feel in the
office when he's there compared to
when he's not. He's a fantastic man
to work for. His heart is in the
right place."
Lots of overlap
Sharon describes Frank, Gerry
Douglas, and herself as the Three
Musketeers. "We have tremendous
rapport together. It's a good
mixture. Even though we all have our
own roles, there's lots of overlap
in what we do, and lots of lunchtime
meetings. Sometimes things may get
heated, but by the end of lunch
we're all back on good terms, and
all three of us are heading down the
same path."
From his perspective, Gerry sees two
big advantages of Catalina's boats:
they can be fixed, and parts are
readily available. "Our boats are
100 percent rebuildable, depending
upon severe damage, of course," he
states. "And parts are available
from the factory for all our boats
no matter how old. This makes older
Catalinas excellent project boats
for people looking for a good boat
to rebuild."
He points out that "we put the decks
on much earlier in the manufacturing
process than other builders. This is
a big advantage to our customers
because it means everything inside
the boat came through the main
hatch. There are no captive tanks or
bulkheads. The customer can take out
everything in the boat with hand
tools. Catalina is unique in that
respect. Most builders put the deck
on much later in the process."
He continues, "Our hull liners are
designed to distribute loads.
Bulkheads don't bear chainplate
loads, for example. Those loads pass
on to the liner. That's important to
know because so many of our owners
have modified their boats
extensively. Our owners tend to be
hands-on people. It's easy to
replace things, and you seldom have
to cut anything to get a part out."
Rare features
According to Gerry, another
Catalina strong point is its
customer-service department. "We
have good people owners can talk to
about technical issues. That,
combined with the availability of
parts, is rare in this industry. It
makes buying older Catalinas easier.
Our boats are good for extended
cruising because they have a solid
foundation of good, laminated parts.
"Our boats are excellent choices for
rebuilding because they are
relatively heavy for their length.
We still use heavy, hand-laminated,
solid glass hulls. We're probably
the only builder who fi bs on
displacement on the light side. This
philosophy of durable, rebuildable
boats is designed in. It's not by
accident," he says.
The Catalina 30, the third
boat, introduced in 1976.
|
Loyal owners
Should Catalina owners want
resources for projects, all they
have to do is turn to Mainsheet, a
quarterly magazine published by Jim
Holder in Midlothian, Virginia.
"Frank and I have been good friends
since 1970," Jim says. "He asked me
to put this magazine together 17
years ago to pull all the
newsletters of the various
associations into one magazine. I'm
the editor and publisher, and Frank
is listed as the managing editor. We
receive quite a bit of technical
assistance from the factory,
primarily from Gerry Douglas, who
reviews all the material for
technical accuracy. Frank is the
only manufacturer who does this sort
of thing. It's a unique magazine in
more ways than one."
Continues Jim, "The magazine is
basically written by the owners.
They send in all the articles for
their projects and such to editors
for each association. Those editors
send the articles to us to help keep
things organized. So it's really
written by the owners for the
owners. It glues all the association
members together. The magazine helps
people improve and enjoy their boats
- to have fun. That's the object of
the magazine, and of Catalina Yachts
as well."
He concludes, "Frank has always
pushed Catalina Yachts as a family.
Mainsheet is one vehicle to keep the
family together through
communication. People who own
Catalinas are very loyal, and most
of them move up to another Catalina.
They also know that Frank is really
good about warranty work and that he
doesn't want anything happening to
his boats he doesn't know about.
It's Frank's one-on-one attitude
that makes the family aspect
happen."
What is Frank Butler's favorite
design, of the many he has built? "I
have seven children. That question
is like asking me which is my
favorite child. I can't say. Anyone
who ever asks me that question never
gets an answer from me. My boats are
like my children. One might be for
the ocean, another one for near
shore or for racing. I love them
all.
"The C-22 and C-30 were both
extremely well received. We also
have sold a lot of 27s. The 36 just
passed 2,000 built earlier this
year. We're selling a lot of 42s and
larger boats. For example, right now
we're building 47s at the rate of
three a month."
There's no doubt that, as Beattie
Purcell puts it, "The C-22 was the
boat that really put us in the
market in a big way. We were
building five of them a day in
California in the early days. Used
ones were going for more than a new
one because people couldn't get new
ones fast enough." Concludes
Beattie, "The 22 is a good sailing
boat, stable, family oriented."
Frank continues, "You should always
try to upgrade your product line.
You always need to have something
more to offer in a new boat.
Otherwise people will just buy used
ones."
Good relations
When asked if he sees Hunter and
Beneteau as his biggest competitors,
Frank responds, "Yes they are, but
really I think all [sailboat
manufacturers] are my competitors. I
love competition, I really do.
You've got to know your competition.
I check them out all the time, not
just at boat shows. I have good
relations with our competitors. We
all get along fine."
To this day, Catalina designs all of
its boats in-house and has its own
engineering department. Two notable
exceptions are the C-27 and C-30.
"An outside person designed the
hulls for those, and I did the
interiors and the decks, " says
Frank. "I try to do what our
customers need or want. We try to
work around that concept.
There's no one better than your
customers to help you constantly
change and improve. Our dealers also
are very important to us. We get
lots of input from them. And we are
always working on new designs."
Today Catalina Yachts employs more
than 700 people building boats in
three locations, two in California
and one in Florida. It has about
500,000 square feet of manufacturing
space. The line includes Catalina,
Capri, and Morgan sailboats,
Nacraand Prindle catamarans, and a
34-foot powerboat sold as the
Islander 34. "We purchased that mold
when Pearson went out of business,"
says Frank. "It's the only powerboat
Catalina currently makes."
Capri sailboats are the
performance-oriented daysailers
developed in the Capri Sailboat
Division. Current models range from
8 feet to 25 feet. "Capri is our
small-boat division under Catalina
as the main structure," Frank says.
He notes that several Capri models
have very active class associations
around the country.
Bright future
What does the future hold for
Frank Butler and Catalina Yachts?
When asked how long he expects to
run the company, he says, "I enjoy
it so much. It's really in the hands
of the good Lord. That's one
question I can't give you an honest
answer on."
According to Frank, Gerry Douglas
and Sharon Day most likely would
supply the continuity to keep
Catalina Yachts going as it always
has, providing "a lot of boat for
the money," as most sailors put it.
Certainly Catalina Yachts has a
bright future given the thousands of
loyal customers sailing its products
around the world. The international
class associations for the C-22,
C-25, C-27 and C-30 are among the
largest sailboat groups in the
world. Log on to the Internet, and
Catalina sites are among the most
numerous and busiest to be found. As
Max Unger, the treasurer of the
International Catalina 30
Association, puts it, "The success
of these independent associations
emphasizes not only the great number
of boats built, but also the family
atmosphere created by the owners
that keeps us sailing together."
The word "family" probably best
describes Catalina Yachts these
days. It's a family comprised of
many loyal employees and thousands
of loyal customers. And the
undeniable head is Frank Butler. He
wouldn't have it any other way.
When not working at his job for
the federal government or
singlehanding his 1989 Pearson 27 in
the Annapolis, Md., area, Steve is a
part-time freelance writer. He
writes for a variety of business and
boating publications.
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