Since you last took a look at the World Cat 320EC, we have made exciting changes that will be introduced at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show this week!

The same great 320EC 32-foot hull with its 10’6″ beam now has a completely new cabin interior fabric selection that complements the wooden cabinetry for a real “big boat” feel. That big boat look extends into the cockpit with an entirely new hardtop system complete with built-in speakers, spreader lights and even a sunroof that opens and closes for ventilation. Access to the hardtop is now via two integrated ladders on the foredeck to increase side deck access to the bow.

The bridge deck cushion systems have all been redesigned with the star being the new helm chair that makes driving the 320EC feel like piloting the Starship Enterprise! The captain’s chair features a flip up bolster and adjusts up and down, fore and aft and even the back position tilts for perfect support for long trips offshore.

We have redesigned the helm instrument panel too. Two 12-inch screens and an autopilot fit comfortably so you can scroll through all your instrumentation directly below your line of sight. The engine controls are more ergonomically placed, so altogether with your new helm seat, instrument space and the sunroof open with breezes blowing, you’re ready to go somewhere every time you jump on the 320EC.

So, what are you waiting for? Jump on a plane or in your car and visit us at the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show. It starts this Thursday, October 27th and ends on Monday the 31st. If you want to come and see the new 320EC, the tickets are on us. See you there!

p.s. For more photos click here.

p.s. For 320EC specs visit our website at www.worldcat.com/320EC.

For us, our customers are our best salespeople, so we do our best to keep them happy. We’re not perfect by any means but we try hard and we’re committed to their satisfaction. This commitment has led to a passionate customer base that is our greatest accomplishment as a company.

Because we have such a loyal customer base, we decided long ago to capitalize on this strength to have a unique marketing strategy. What is it? Basically, we believe we should take care of customers so they’ll tell more boaters about us. This “marketing plan” has worked in the past, so we’ll be using it for the foreseeable future.

When Starbucks was in their earliest stages of growth, they made a strategic decision to not advertise…instead, they chose to provide great benefits to their employees. According to stories told about the early days, the founder had to trump his own board to keep the employee benefits, and he was willing to give up advertising to do so. To the founder, great employees were more important than great advertising. Starbucks only started advertising in 2000. Think about it: you probably knew about the company before then, didn’t you? If so, you have their dedicated employees and customers to thank, because they’re the ones who spread the word-of-mouth about the company.

I feel PowerCat Group is in that same growth phase, and that’s formed some of my own thoughts on advertising and marketing strategies, especially when it comes to boating magazines.

I have a lot of friends at boating magazines and the work they do and the service they provide customers is amazing. I learn a ton about fishing and boating from reading these magazines.

However, my belief is that PowerCat Group can’t do it all and expect to maintain the high level of quality and customer care that we’re known for. A big part of running a business is making decisions about how your company uses resources. Therefore, PowerCat Group’s decision has been to sacrifice our advertising budget in favor of doing everything we can to keep our customers satisfied.

The way I see it, we have a choice: we could either give the money to a magazine—where our small ads would get lost among the bigger, splashier, ads from the big boat companies—or we could spend the money on an event for our customers or assist dealers with providing better service. They’re both forms of marketing, but taking care of the customer is more effective, more direct, and just plain more fun. 


You see, at The PowerCat Group, we prefer to focus on our current customers, not our future customers. We know that our current customers are our best salesmen. No advertising budget, no matter how large, could ever match an energetic customer base that tells everyone they know all about how much they love their power catamaran. So instead of advertising, we’ve dedicated ourselves to making the best possible boats on the water and supporting the people who drive them.


At The PowerCat Group, we talk a lot about how we take care of our customers. And it’s true, we’ve dedicated ourselves to providing the best possible boating experience for our customers. But today I’d like to talk about how we take care of another important member of the PowerCat Group family: our dealers.

In a way, though, these two are inherently related. You see, our dealers are the first and best line of contact between The PowerCat Group and our customers, and we know that if we take care of our dealers they’ll help us take care of our customers.

For example, profitable dealers have much better service records than others. A company that is financially successful is much more likely to give our customers the care and attention that they deserve. We want all of our dealers to be profitable, and this is a big reason why: so they can give back to our customers.

How are we helping our dealers? One of the biggest ways we help is by going out of our way to provide them with the real support other boat companies can’t offer. We stay in constant contact with our dealers and their sales staffs to make sure they have what they need, when they need it.

Another way we help is by openly giving our dealers the information they need to turn their product. A dealer’s success is turning their product.  If they turn their product every 6 months then they will be profitable…without a doubt.

For example, we give our dealers open access to every unsold boat at every dealer in the United States. The most obvious advantage of this is if they have a customer looking for a blue boat with Yamahas, for example, they can search the network and call the stocking dealer. But this open access also allows dealers who are ordering boats to know what their neighbors have and adjust their orders accordingly. If a neighbor has the model they want in blue, then maybe they’ll order the same model in white and perhaps with a different engine brand.

We also provide access to every unsold boat in production as well. If a customer needs a boat quickly, their dealer has access to what’s in production so they can swap with a boat in production and get the customer boating faster.

This sort of open communication between dealers is just one of the ways The PowerCat Group  is reinventing the boating industry. In my next post I’ll talk about another area in which we’re doing things our own way: marketing. Talk to you then.

Welcome to Charting The Course, a blog where I’ll be taking you behind the scenes to talk about some of the management and business philosophies of The PowerCat Group . I thought I’d start this series with an entry telling you a little bit about myself, why I’m in the boating industry, and why I think The PowerCat Group is the right place for me.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been really interested in manufacturing. In school my teacher would show the class films of how things were made, and I was always fascinated by the way all these little parts would come together to make a useful product. One thing I love about being president of The PowerCat Group is that I get to do the same thing: I’m involved in creating every aspect of a consumer product, from design to creation to market.

But why the boating industry, and why catamarans? Well, the boating industry is an interesting place. For one thing, it’s extremely fragmented: it’s comprised of around 300 boat builders making about a hundred boats a year, or 30,000 boats. In fact, the top five players in the saltwater outboard category make up around 30% of the market.

Another reason I was interested in boating is that, despite its size, it can be really insular. Very few people come into the industry from outside. Now, sometimes that can be good, but in industries like this that thrive on innovation, it can be stifling to new ideas. So one big attraction for me was to be involved in an industry where I could bring new ideas and innovative techniques from modern industries.

I was drawn to the power catamaran niche for a few reasons. One is that there were few competitors–of the 300 boat builders I mentioned up above, only five of them make cats–and none of them were doing a very good job of telling boaters about the great benefits of the ride.

But the main reason I wanted to become involved with power catamarans was simple: I truly believed in the product. It seemed to me then–as it still does today!–that cats have such a defined advantage over monohulls. They have what Warren Buffet calls a “defensible product difference.” And the difference, the smoothness of the ride, not only makes the product superior but actually enriches others’ lives. (Do you know how many people have told me they were gonna quit boating until they discovered how smooth a catamaran is?)

That’s how I became involved with power catamarans and why I founded The PowerCat Group, which is the most exciting company in the boating industry. We’re bringing modern manufacturing techniques, innovative management systems, and customer-based marketing to the world of boating. Other companies may copy our designs, but no one can copy the history, experience, and passion that The PowerCat Group has.

One example of the new ideas we’re introducing is the way we partner with our vendors and dealers. We’ve committed ourselves to truly open communications between vendors and dealers, allowing everyone to work together seamlessly and provide better service to our customers. I’ll talk about this a bit more in my next blog.

Yes, The PowerCat Group is just a small company in a big industry. And, yes, we’re part of a small niche within that industry. But we have a saying here: “It’s better to be great than big.” I truly believe we’ll succeed in the end by being better run and committed to quality and improvement. We might be outnumbered, but we’re smarter, more modern, and more committed than any other boating company.