Aspen Newsletter - January 12, 2009
Hello all, sorry for the delay in updating you on Aspen's progress. It's been very busy as always. A small team doing great things wears many hats. Here's a run-down on the last 3 month's activities.
October
Review business plan in consideration of business environment and how well the 26’ scale model of the 39' runs. We decide to enter the 26’ market. There will be three models, a basic open fishing boat (F80) (8 meters) with lots of deck space and a very low entry price point expected to sell at shows for$69,900. A launch (L80) set up as a day cruiser with a head and oodles of seating swim platform lots of creature comforts, $94,000 at the shows. Last, but not least, a (C80) which is a cruising model with a huge amount of room and accommodations including a master stateroom with head, galley w/ ¼ berth under, dinette w/seating for 4 and a partially covered aft cockpit, show price is expected to be $135,000 with most all the goodies.
Completed hull fine tuning for severe seas, balanced helm to neutral point, tracking is now exceptional in all weather on all points of sail.
Completed a helicopter photo shoot for use in new brochure. Also, shot video footage for a DVD to play at shows.
Land for new development facility is cleared, leveled, 300 ft of 6-8’ tall bulkheads built.
November
Press demo days, introduced the boat to 7 major magazines, Power and Motoryachts, PassageMaker, PowerCruising, Yachting, NorthWest Yachting, Northwesting, The Herald, and Professional Boat Builder. They all were absolutely amazed.
Design deck for open boats and begin design work on the cruising model.
Tooling on the open boat deck (F80 and C80) started November 1st and the plug was delivered to Nordic Tugs late December (just after the snow storm, in 10 degree weather). They have since built the mold and are preparing to make the parts under contract to Aspen. This is a very positive development, Nordic recently expanded significantly and with the changes in the economy have a good deal of capacity available.
They have been building exceptionally high quality Tugs for 30 years, we are delighted to have teamed up with them. We are still studying the possibility, but Nordic may have the capacity to build Aspens larger boats as well. For now, they can build all the 26's we will need.
Deck Plug a few days in
The 3 new models C80 F80 L80
December
Begin discussions with Power Cat Marine (PCM) based in Ft Lauderdale. They are looking for design assistance in the development of a 50 and 58 ft power cat line. They visited and become very interested in Aspen and the possibility of marketing the product on the east coast. We are also beginning to explore the possibility of a joint venture that uses common modular tooling to build Aspen 48s x 17.5 wide and PCM 50s x 24’ wide. Our engineering team is 3D modeling this, currently. It has many benefits in efficiency, tooling costs and time to market.
Investor funding for the 26’ models comes in and is committed, basic business plan completed that includes the 26’ers.
Tooling on the deck plug progresses.
Full scale mockup of the 26’ cruising boat to be used at the Seattle show is designed. After the show, it becomes the plug for the C80 salon liner parts. Mock ups have proven to be very effective in sharing the concepts of a new model to prospects in my experience.
Last engineering hurdles put up by county for our new development building are identified and work begins to wrap up permit process.
At Nordic Deck Mold F80 and L80 in detailing and polish stage
January.......so far
Deck mold is completed and first parts are being built.
C80 Cruising mock-up design completed.
Materials for L80 show boat are put on order.
New brochure artwork is completed along with a group of descriptive drawing that share Aspens engineering concepts in layman’s terms. The old brochure was weak in this area. We plan to have a new one completed prior to the shows, complete with running shots of the proto type and detailed performance information.
26 hull was de-rigged in preparation for new deck and build out as a L80 (launch), hull detailed to a smooth polished glass finish, head compartment under construction, console and small parts plugs built and delivered to Nordic for mold construction.
January 8th after 16 months of non-stop effort the new development facility’s permit is FINALLY issued! Construction to begin on 19th.
Preparations for Seattle show January 22-Feb 1st and Miami Feb 12-16th are underway. Booth design, banners, price lists, pre-show mailings and a DVD to show performance.
So we’ve been having fun, lots done -- lots yet to do.
See you at the show.
All The Best Larry G.