Sam Teel has a lot of energy. In addition to chairing the Marine Transportation department at Maine Maritime Academy (MMA) since 1992 he has been a visiting professor at the Turkish Maritime Academy and at a maritime component to one of the colleges within Dokuz Eylul University in Izmir, Turkey; and he has started two companies: Ocean Air Systems and Castine Boat Company.
He met his Turkish business partner, Ufuk Yercan, a mechanical engineer with his own engineering firm, when Yercan’s wife spent a year in Castine, teaching via a faculty exchange program at MMA. The two men became friends, and when Teel next visited Turkey he and Yercan drove around the Izmir region, which is on the Mediterranean ten-hours south of Istanbul, looking for likely prospects to import to the U.S.
Boat shops kept catching their eyes. He and Yercan liked the quality of the boats they saw and eventually found an existing 22-footer with a Turkish name that they thought they could market in America as a weekender. They branded it the Coastal Cruiser 22. Although the Turkish boatbuilder can still sell the vessel under its Turkish name, by branding the boat under their company’s name, Teel and Yercan have exclusive rights to sell this model in the U.S.
The Coastal Cruiser 22 has a certain charm. It doesn’t have that standard, mass-produced look. As Teel likes to say, “It’s not a Chlorox bottle.” In a way, it’s rather like the Castine Class sailboats in that neither vessel is built for speed, but both are seaworthy and will bring you home. Unlike the wooden Castine Class, though, the fiberglass Coastal Cruiser 22 is easy to maintain. The cockpit is large and the cabin is roomy with what is referred to as “seated headroom.” You can’t walk around, but once you’re seated, you’ll be fine. Two adults can sleep comfortably overnight and it accommodates four adults for a day cruise.
“This boat is a `go-slow’ boat as opposed to a `go-fast’ boat,” said Teel. “Go slow and enjoy the day.”
With the reliable and fuel-efficient Yanmar diesel engine’s 27-horsepower displacement hull, the boat reaches hull speed, or as fast as it’s going to go, very easily. Its maximum speed is about eight knots. It uses less than one gallon of fuel per hour at cruising speed.
Turkey’s lower labor costs make the boat affordable. At just under $33,000, it costs about one-third less than most boats in its category.
Yercan, who lives within five miles of the Turkish shipyard, oversees the building of the vessels. Teel handles marketing, sales, taxes, banking, shipping, and works with the firm’s lawyer. Teel’s wife, Katrin, is the accountant.
In order to, as Teel said, “prime the pump,” he and Yercan decided to sell their first two boats at cost. In the spring of 2002, Teel said, “Two boat brokers agreed to put up the money [for one boat each] sight unseen — I showed them pictures and made lots of promises: they would make a substantial profit, and I would make none. We had to get the boats in here so people could see them.”
The process of shipping boats from Turkey to the U.S. filled Teel with trepidation. It started with a wire transfer from a U.S. bank to a Turkish one. “The first time I sent those thousands of dollars to the Neverland of foreign banking, I was nervous,” he admitted.
Building time is ten weeks and freight time from Turkey to Maine is four more weeks.
Shipping two vessels at a time helps keep down expenses — each container costs $5,700 — but fitting two boats in one container makes for a tight squeeze. “We can barely get two boats in the container and get the door closed,” Teel said. He described a shipping container as being 40 feet long, by 8 feet wide by 8 feet high and said, “It’s like the back part of a semi trailer truck with the wheels and chassis removed.” He called the placing and securing of the boats within the container creative and said it leaves very little room for a man of his height and girth, which might best be described as generous, to fit inside.
“Surprisingly,” he said, “there have been no problems with bringing in this container from Turkey.” He called the process smooth and timely and said U.S. Customs has been easy to work with.
The first boats arrived in March of 2002, and, Teel said, “We sold them within six weeks.” Since then, they’ve sold eight altogether, including one via the Internet.
The Coastal Cruiser 22 will be on view at the John Jay Marine, Inc. booth at the upcoming Maine Boatbuilders Show.
“We’re pretty satisfied,” said Teel of the Coastal Cruiser 22, “though we’re always making small changes based on customer feedback.” He said he and Yercan planned to build and sell a simple, understandable, basic boat (it doesn’t come with a head) and thinks they’ve achieved their goal. “If a customer wants to put in a radio,” he said, “we say, `you do it, but we can advise.’ We’re not retiring on this business, but it’s interesting.”
For more information, call 207-326-9096, visit the website at www.castineboat.com, or e-mail Teel at steel@midmaine.com.