Pacific Asian Enterprises offers 11 models of Nordhavn boats, ranging from 40 to 86 feet, and from $600,000 to just under $7 million.

Premier Business Partners:

Village Marine

Boats are often a symbol of status and wealth, but these days, the biggest and fastest model may not always be the best choice, particularly if the owner is a public figure. Jim Leishman, co-founder and vice president of Pacific Asian Enterprises, a boat and yacht manufacturer, says the green movement has created unexpected benefits for the company’s Nordhavn vessels, which are designed for efficiency.

Leishman and President Dan Streech founded the company in 1973 in Dana Point, Calif., after meeting and working together at a local yacht dealership. In its first decade in business, the company manufactured a line of Mason brand sailboats before switching its focus to long-range cruising yachts. It currently has 11 models of Nordhavn boats, ranging from 40 to 86 feet, and from $600,000 to just under $7 million.

Long-range cruising boats require efficiency, Leishman says, so Nordhavn boats use significantly less fuel than most other yachts, and that has become an important selling point. “If you were running for public office and in the public spotlight and you had a 75-foot fishing boat that burned thousands of gallons of fuel, that could be bad for your image,” he says. Nordhavn boats burn only 300 gallons of fuel for the average long-range trip. “They’re not high speed, but to get the efficiency, you have to slow the boat down,” he adds.

Customer demands are higher today than they were even five years ago, Streech says. “We are held to much higher standards in terms of engineering support, design and quality – much higher than in the past,” he says. With price tags as high as $7 million, the company can’t get away with limited warranties, at least for the first five years of use, Leishman says. If something goes wrong during that time, the company needs to make good on it to maintain relationships and its reputation.
 
Changing Tide
An unsettled U.S. economy has made for a precarious time in the boat industry, Streech says. Nordhavn has seen some reduction in orders of smaller boats, but a general increase on orders of larger boats. While the company expects its number of units sold to decline in 2008, it expects a 10 percent increase in gross revenues. With $75 million in sales for 2007, the company has seen 15 to 20 percent growth over the last five years, he says.

“We’re in a bit of a good spot in that our business has ramped up significantly in the European and Australian markets, so despite the fact that we have weakening dollars, the Euro is strong and the Australian and Canadian dollars are strong,” Streech says. “The net result has been a positive one for us. We sell in dollars worldwide, so the weakening dollar helps us in sales.”

He says the Nordhavn brand has become “synonymous with quality and good engineering,” and while the company plans to continue production of the Nordhavn line, it will also begin manufacturing motorsailers and long-range sport fishing boats again in 2008. It is also developing a 75-foot long-range sport fishing boat that will be introduced next summer.

Headquartered in Dana Point, the company operates branch offices in Seattle; Portsmouth, R.I.; Stuart, Fla.; and Hamble, England. It also has two manufacturing plants in Asia. “We’re a bit unique because we sell all of our products direct – we have no dealerships,” Leishman says. “When a customer buys a Nordhavn, they’re buying from Nordhavn employees. It enables us to control the process and provide better service and better value. There are not as many mouths to feed as with traditional yacht sales with dealers.”