My father always told me, “Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it!”
Fifty years of experience have proven dad profound. As a boy I was gifted with travel all over the San Juan Islands - experiences that I'll never forget and were filled with life lessons. With Thanksgiving behind us, indeed, I am reminded how blessed we are – family, food, energy, and in the Pacific Northwest bountiful beauty that spans thousands of miles of coastline.
But as I look towards the Christmas season it’s hard to escape the pervasive commercialism that now surrounds us all. The television is largely one giant commercial, “vacations” are nerve racking freedom insulting experiences to over-hyped commercial locations designed to plunge you and your family into fantasy and into debt.
The choice is yours to make on behalf of your family. Your children and grandchildren can grow up bathing in commercialism, or they can experience the richness of expanding their reality horizons.
Here’s a thoughtful suggestion. How about doing something different this holiday season by giving five weeks a year on the waters of the Puget Sound experiencing nature in all her glorious reality? Eagles, whales, endless forests, parks, marinas, coastal communities, fine dining, and fishing for salmon, halibut, and crab… all this awaits as you explore the sheltered waters of Washington, British Columbia, and even Southeast Alaska.
And the healthful experience of a lifetime comes at a price that is less than a typical family Disney World vacation. Endless credit and central bankers not required.
Gateway currently has new and pre-owned shares available. Check out our one year old 2011 Aspen C90, the perfect vessel to smartly save even more while giving THE gift of memories and experiences that your family will share for generations.
Save 30% over new with a pre-owned share: 2011 Aspen C90
All of Gateway’s prices have now been updated for 2012: New share 2012 pricing.
Cost comparisons have also been updated, the cost to own in the Gateway program is unbeatable: Ownership Cost Comparisons.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The Wake of Captain Kirk
Waves are cast
Diverge, and settle like the wake
Following that tried & true trawler of a man
Neighbors knew as Captain Kirk
Those gentle waves
Ripple throughout time
Perpetuated by the souls he reached
Children, grandchildren
Generations forevermore
Ripples reflected that trawler trails
Family loved as Captain Kirk
Forty-two years of union
Stable and upright was the hull
Leaving Strong companions to trawler on
Community, too, will miss
The Captain’s starboard list
Tugged all the better by his journey
Energy has no regret
The Captain’s waves are cast
Harmonic ripples will come back
From the man admired as Captain Kirk
**Kirk Strong was my next door neighbor, recently taken from his wife of 42 years, his family, and friends, by a drunken driver. Kirk was a mentor who shared with me his wisdom from years of owning and operating a trawler. Condolences to his wife, Trish, and their entire family.
Diverge, and settle like the wake
Following that tried & true trawler of a man
Neighbors knew as Captain Kirk
Those gentle waves
Ripple throughout time
Perpetuated by the souls he reached
Children, grandchildren
Generations forevermore
Ripples reflected that trawler trails
Family loved as Captain Kirk
Forty-two years of union
Stable and upright was the hull
Leaving Strong companions to trawler on
Community, too, will miss
The Captain’s starboard list
Tugged all the better by his journey
Energy has no regret
The Captain’s waves are cast
Harmonic ripples will come back
From the man admired as Captain Kirk
**Kirk Strong was my next door neighbor, recently taken from his wife of 42 years, his family, and friends, by a drunken driver. Kirk was a mentor who shared with me his wisdom from years of owning and operating a trawler. Condolences to his wife, Trish, and their entire family.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Progress Requires Smashing False Assumptions…
“Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”
-Mohandas Gandhi
Hang on – we’re about to embark on a strange, yet fascinating, journey across the fields of physics, economics, and then boating! Yes boating. What on Earth do these things have in common? They all must operate within the one true physical reality that is our universe, and progress in all these fields is held back by hanging onto false assumptions.
Splash! Goes the casting off of beliefs that are not true!
SMASHING PHYSIC’S FALSE ASSUMPTIONS…
The world is flat, remember, and so exploring across the horizon carries the risk of falling off the edge. And we’re at the center of the universe, why just look at the stars and planets that obviously revolve around me!
The world is flat, remember, and so exploring across the horizon carries the risk of falling off the edge. And we’re at the center of the universe, why just look at the stars and planets that obviously revolve around me!
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| Galileo Galilei |
Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in the year 1600 for smashing that self-centered assumption. In the mid 1600s, following the Roman Inquisition, Galileo was famously jailed and held under house arrest for his heliocentric beliefs.
Now those are some serious barriers to the progression of knowledge!
At the dawn of the twentieth century, the consensus was that man could never break the speed of sound. It was considered a physical impossibility. Then on October 14th, 1947, Chuck Yeager broke it, smashing that false assumption. Today the speed of sound is routinely exceeded in flight; even I have done it and can tell you that were it not for my airspeed indicator would not have perceived the difference.
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| Chuck Yeager |
In the year 1905, a 26 year old named Albert Einstein postulated in his paper on Special Relativity that E=MC², and that nothing with mass can attain or surpass the speed of light (186,282 miles per second – 11.2 billion MPH). This past week scientists at CERN made the claim that neutrinos measured in Italy, which are extremely small but do have mass, repeatedly exceeded lightspeed by their measurements!
Cautiously, they spent the last two years ensuring that they are measuring correctly, that they have accounted for all factors such as the rotation of the planet, and yet they are confident they have a margin of error that is less than 8 inches measured over a course longer than 400 miles!
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| CERN Neutrino course |
Of course their experiment needs to be reproduced and confirmed elsewhere, and in the mean time mainstream scientists are cautious. Several have gone so far as to insinuate that it is blasphemous to think that Einstein could be even partially wrong! The claim has been openly criticized by many, including Dr John Costella, an Australian-based physicist, who accused the researchers of making an "embarrassing gaffe" in their calculations; "Any physicist worth even a fraction of their weight in neutrinos will be shaking their head, knowing intuitively that the OPERA result is simply wrong," he wrote in a paper published online.
…Just like people intuitively used to think that the speed of sound could not be exceeded. The result goes against what he “knows” to be true, and thus his mind is closed to other possibilities.
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| Albert Einstein |
This is the progression of science if one looks back in time. Newton, for example, was right in his descriptions of orbital mechanics and laws of motion, but only to a point – they were incomplete. And every experiment over the past century, until now, has proven that Einstein was right with his explosive equation Energy equals Mass times lightspeed squared (E=MC²).
While looking at the negative implications of that simple equation, it is easy to forget that what’s true on one side of the equation is also true on the other. On one side is Energy – but on the other is Matter (in motion). Catch that? Energy = Matter. Equations are interchangeable across that equals sign, and therefore Matter = Energy.
Let that sink in, it is profound and far more important than the way we usually think about that equation. Energy therefore, has to be everywhere; it is the basis of every thing. Energy is the very fabric of rocks, of space, of time, of you.
Every day you witness and participate in matter turning into energy – fuel is burned in your car’s engine. Food you consume is matter turning into energy within your body. The burning logs in your fireplace are matter releasing their energy. This is entropy in motion, you can see it. It is the principal of entropy that underlies the completely accepted as fact Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states in many ways that over time organized systems tend to wash out and will become unorganized.
While we can back up the Second Law with experiment after experiment, we fail to adequately address the fact that our physical universe in fact does exist, is organized, contains extreme temperature variations, and especially that Energy not only equals mass, but that some of that mass has the ability to reason and even has consciousness – life! Even the former tree that is burning in your fireplace (entropy) at one time was nothing but soil and water with the seed that passed on the information to make matter (a tree) grow from the energy within the soil and water (an organized system). Does not life, then, fly in the face of the second law of thermodynamics? Or is it just also incomplete in its description? Perhaps it is correct, except when information/ instructions are given that create the organization of matter from energy?
Question? If man can give the instructions to turn energy into matter, or even more profound, if man can give instructions to organic matter to assemble into another previously nonexistent life form, does that make man a god (to that life form)? Did you know that this has already been done by Craig Venter?
I like to think that I don’t have to have a label on everything, some things are simply not knowable, at least during my life time they are not. By not placing a label on the big questions, we keep our minds open to at least examine the possibilities. Once convinced that something is a particular way, then we begin to move down a path that may, or may not, be correct.
Stephen Hawking, for example, makes the assertion right in the beginning of his book A Brief History of Time, that time before the “Big Bang” is “irrelevant.”
Wow, that’s a major league assumption! One that can hold back the progression of knowledge because it leads to a circular argument, and that excludes other possibilities.
The term “Big Bang, conjures up that supposed tiny, but spectacularly dense, spot of matter. According to Hawking, and others who now firmly believe in that theory, we’re supposed to believe that because all matter was perfectly still in a tiny dense spec that time did therefore not matter or even exist prior to the spontaneous explosion that expanded matter which created what we now think of as “space.”
Okay. Then what surrounded that infinitesimally heavy spec of matter before it exploded? And in what space did it expand into to create our new space? And why, exactly, if the matter was perfectly still did it spontaneously explode?
That’s quite the yarn if you really apply a little common sense. You know, I don’t pretend to have the answers to those questions, but I know that assumptions are being made at the expense of what is probably true. Heck, science still can’t tell you how water is formed or how it got on this planet to begin with. And I can’t help but think about E=MC², and that everything is comprised of, and surrounded in, a field of energy. I’m thinking there’s a lot more going on within that energy field than we can even imagine at this juncture in history.
E=MC² not only unlocked the atom (along with its negative connotations), but it is profound in describing the physical universe which places real limits upon human engineered enterprises – like economics. Economics, and “money,” while human constructs, must still operate inside of the real physical world. Should it conflict with the real physical world, guess which one wins? False beliefs are not a cool thing to hang onto.
SMASHING ECONOMIC FALSE ASSUMPTIONS…
People are self-interest driven creatures, just like all creatures on the planet are. Ultimately we are in a struggle for survival with and against the physical forces which we struggle to understand. Those who understand them best are most likely to succeed, while those who don’t go the way of the dinosaur. Some of us realize that to survive into perpetuity, we must learn how to live in harmony with nature – sometimes, though, our self-interest begins to think of the short run while ignoring the long run, and that’s when we get into trouble.
Most people don’t give the importance of sound economics the proper credence to the way in which humanity progresses. Behind all the important events of history is found important economic turning points – we are at such a point in history now.
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| Nikolai Kondratiev |
Unlike physics, we still imprison people for economic heresy. Back in 1930 Nikolai Kondratiev was imprisoned in Russia for his large cycle beliefs (Kondratiev wave, aka K-Winter), and later was retried on his “crimes” and then executed by firing squad! He simply observed the same cycles later refined by Martin Armstrong who was just recently released from prison after 11 years, one of the longest people ever imprisoned for “contempt of court.” He was tortured in prison and allowed to be beaten nearly to death by placing a homicidal inmate in his cell, then refusing to stop the beating until the guards thought he was dead. That happened right here in modern day America – and there is no doubt that he was held to silence his beliefs as his ideology represented a threat to the powers that control the production of money and markets.
Now those are some serious barriers to the progression of knowledge!
We are all living a big lie, economically, and have done so our entire lives not knowing what exists outside of the box presented to us. In the year 1913 the “Federal Reserve Act” gave the power to control the production of money to the “Federal Reserve Banks” which are not Federal, they possess no reserves, and they are not even a bank. What they are is private corporations owned by private banks, who in turn are owned by private individuals.
This is not only an outright lie in name, but it is clearly a conflict of self-interest. Giving a few private individuals the right to control the production of money inevitably leads to them producing money and using it to buy the political system they desire – one that benefits them. Their benefit is at the expense of others, the further away from the production of money you are, the more it damages you.
There is a natural way of being in regards to money – money is simply an agreed medium of exchange. Its production should never benefit individuals, it absolutely can be created and controlled in such a way that its production benefits everyone equally. There is no need, for example, for a nation to have a national debt. A sovereign nation can simply produce money and spend it into existence instead of borrowing it into being as we do now. Take a look at the money in your wallet, you see that it says “Federal Reserve Note” on top. The term ‘note’ means debt. That debt carries interest paid mostly to the private banks who hold the majority of our nation’s debt.
That debt is their power base. They wield their power to control the government, to control the markets, to control the media, to control our defense industry, to control the medical industry, the nuclear industry, our higher institutions of learning, etc. The production of money is all about control – those who produce it are in control, those who do not are not. If you covet a truly representative government, one that represents YOU, then you must work to return the money creation power to the people as is meant to be the case and as has been the case before in this nation.
So, we’ve been living a central banking lie that has placed us all into a false paradigm – a box with walls that are false. Within that box is found impossible math. There is simply no way that incomes can ever come close to servicing all the debt, and that has led to Macroeconomic Debt Saturation which I can prove has occurred in about five different ways.
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| Diminishing Productivity of Debt |
Once debt saturation occurs, then “stimulating” the economy with more debt money only works to drag the economy down and to create higher unemployment. This build up of debt must be cleared in order for the economy to create real productive growth. Unfortunately the math of debt has gone exponential – yet another fact that is ignored leading to still more false beliefs.
But the debt cannot be cleared when the political system is controlled by those who produce the debt and got us into this situation to begin with. And this highlights the fact that allowing private individuals to control the production of money goes against the very nature of nature. Math is a part of nature after all, it just is, and there are limits imposed by it.
The impossible math that has taken root around the world is entangling all who get near it. Below is a video called Battling Bad Science by Ben Goldacre who describes many of the ridiculous false beliefs that get propagated in the health industry by the media which is driven by special interest groups’ self-interest:
This same type of twisted self-interest is happening all over the fields of medicine, food production, what we formerly thought of as free markets, the military industrial complex, and really all facets of modern day life. We are living in a central banker backed special interest box.
This box is not good for society. It creates all sorts of false economic beliefs. It is much closer to voodoo than it is to science, because keeping humanity in the dark is profitable to those controlling the population.
There are no solutions to the impossible math that work as long as we continue to live inside of their false box. Tear down the walls to their box, however, and true solutions are immediately clear. Just such a solution can be found within the framework of Freedom’s Vision.
So you see, economics is rooted in and intertwined with science, there is a natural order to the universe with real boundaries that cannot be exceeded.
The proper foundation to a well functioning economy is found in a rule of law that keeps itself well-centered within the natural limits imposed on it. From that proper rule of law the next step is to form a monetary system that benefits everyone equally. Then you can begin to develop human and natural resources to create jobs, wealth, and prosperity.
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That wealth pyramid exists within and is surrounded by nature. But before a proper rule of law is established, empathy and communication must exist! Any and all relationships exist because people first communicate with one another, and because all parties involved feel that being in the relationship is beneficial (there’s that self-interest again)! It’s like a good marriage – when you’re in one you know it. You recognize that you are better off as a team, not just an individual, and like all good things it is self-perpetuating when both parties feel good about themselves and their relationship(s). But when you’re in a bad relationship you riot – and just look at the world today.
Right now people are not feeling good about their relationship with their money, they are finally beginning to get focused on the root of the money problem – WHO it is that controls its production (central banks). This is why we are seeing the current set of “Occupy Wall Street” riots – note that each set of riots is getting closer to the root of who controls the production of money.
And so the money and political environment is about to change, but unless we smash a few false assumptions what we wind up with may not be a whole lot better than what we have now.
SMASHING THE BOATING INDUSTRY’S FALSE ASSUMPTIONS…
All industries must operate within the confines of both the physical world, and the economic world that mankind has created. All industries have their false beliefs, and the boating world is no different – I recently wrote about one when discussing Two Engines or One…
Being a life-long boater and economic writer, naturally I realize that the boating industry is in poor economic condition. However, until starting Gateway Yachts and participating in boat shows, I did not fully realize just how anchored the industry is.
My observation is that there are far fewer boats in the shows to go along with fewer attendees. After discussions with those inside the industry, it is clear to me that the boating industry is still living inside of a bubble that is very similar to the housing bubble – with all the same mistakes and more. Boats have become massively expensive on the back of the overall credit bubble. Today boats are financed for far too long of a timeframe, up to 20 years! People simply don’t own boats that long, nor do they hold up their serviceable condition that long without large investments in keeping them that way. Interest rates too, are artificially low – thus people who really can’t afford them own them.
Since the banks “securitize” the debt created from boat loans, they no longer have a vested interest in assuring that the boat remains “above water.” The result, then, is that most boat purchases immediately go underwater because the financial institutions require too little money down and finance them for far too long a term. In fact, most boat owners who have purchased in recent years are now underwater on their loans, meaning that they owe the bank more than they can sell their boat for – same thing that happened with houses.
And just like the housing industry, the boat industry has seen people simply walk away from their boats and their loans. Now even the boat “short sale” is becoming vogue but requires the bank to play along, taking the commensurate write-off. And just like the housing industry, inventories of used boats are high while sales of new boats are stagnant. This is a very slow and painful process, one that promises to keep the industry anchored for years to come.
While I’ve enjoyed boating for a large portion of my lifetime as an industry outsider, it is a different view when looking at the industry with fresh insider eyes.
As I gaze down the rows of stainless towers, flags astern, flybridges up high, antennae, and other expensive appendages piled high, I see a lot of very large, very heavy, and very fuel inefficient boats. Money pits and maintenance nightmares lined up at the docks with their brokers and listings in tow, I can’t help but see dinosaurs sinking deeper into the tar pits of time.
The docks are largely empty, brokers excluded. The economist in me recognizes that there is a part of the economic upheaval that is good. It has a cleansing action that removes the weak and infirm, thus giving rise to another cycle of innovation and less bureaucratic, more nimble companies.
But wait, look over yonder! Behold the light and the pocket of people on the docks! There, behind the one with moniker ASPEN on her transom, people are flocking and squawking like gulls over a school of herring. What I see there is electric – remember, matter = energy. Rows of empty docks, and yet look over there!
What I see over there is innovation rising from the depths of a sunken industry. Innovation that considers both the physical reality that is our universe AND the economic reality in which we all live. You see, Larry had a better idea.
Aspen Founder and boat designer, Larry Graf, owned Glacier Bay Power Catamaran Company for more than two decades, selling more than 3,000 boats before leaving to found Aspen. He knew that a catamaran’s twin hulls were inherently more stable and much more efficient than the typical V-hull, but he also saw the reality of high fuel and operating costs. Typically a power catamaran requires two engines to remain symmetrical; it took Larry’s artistic eye to innovate through the symmetrical realm into the efficiencies possible with just a single engine powering a two hull design.
To accomplish this, Larry developed a proa hull, which means that one of the two hulls is larger than the other. In this case, the starboard hull is 35% larger than port! The single engine is located in the larger starboard hull – normally this arrangement would produce a constant left turning tendency due to the asymmetric thrust, but that was mitigated via a slight curve, like an airplane’s wing, built into the boat’s hull. The result, after painstaking testing, is an international patent on the technology and a boat that goes straight as an arrow while burning far less fuel than any other boat with a similar displacement. An Aspen is an artistic act of balance, form, and function that equals efficiency.
The hull of the Aspen is a displacement hull, meaning that it does not plane up on top of the water, it cuts through it like a knife, and thus it does not pound on top of the waves, its’ ride is smooth and stable while it slices through the waves. In doing so it produces almost no wake, an indication of just how little drag is present.
We’re talking about a boat that is extraordinarily safe, stable, comfortable, and yet for a nearly 10,000 pound boat burns only a little more than four gallons per hour at a normal cruise speed of about 17 mph. And if you pull it back to trawler speeds, less than about 9 mph, you will sip a miserly 1.2 gallons per hour! Do the math, you are going places in a boat while talking fuel burns measured in miles per gallon, while most of the dinosaurs are measuring their fuel burns in gallons per mile!
And the Aspen is loaded with good engineering, quality hardware, and many other innovative features such as solar panels capable of powering much of the boat’s electrical needs. When you see a product that blends with the physical world, efficiently, you know it – it has the same ring of truth behind it as does the term debt saturation.
Those who know me or have followed my writing for any length of time know that I simply do not say or get involved in things that I don’t believe in, so please don’t just take my word for it, view other testimonials, and see for yourself how the Aspen glides through the water.
I sincerely believe in this design and I believe in Larry. I can’t say enough good about them, that is why I chose the boat for Gateway’s Fractional Ownership Program – it is simply the future of boating. Aspen is currently building the 28’ C90 Aspen, and has plans to build fantastic 36’ C110 and 54’ C150 versions of this boat, and I can’t personally wait to see them on the water.
Of course building new boats is very expensive. Larry takes the extra step to turn his drawings into a mockup, and then invites potential customers to tour the mockup and provide feedback. This is invaluable in developing a product that people actually want. Investment money is needed for these larger vessels, again Larry has done this many times before and knows how to produce returns that are as exciting as his machines (like 50% returns on investment). If you’re interested in backing a real product, an innovative product made here in America, you can contact me and I’ll put you in touch.
While his product is terrific and almost anyone can actually afford to operate it, he still must buy his parts, products, and labor from the central banker bubblishish world, and that means the boat is not inexpensive to acquire – none are. And this is where my own creative mind works in concert with Larry’s by blending in the fractional ownership concept.
 
And that is how we blend the topics of boating and economics into the physical world.
My cast off to humanity? Be aware that you, everyone, and everything else are all a part of the same field of energy that permeates and surrounds us all. Each one of your actions casts waves into that field of energy - we are all a part of the same fabric – the waves you cast are the information/ instructions of the future. The waves you cast will ripple throughout time. And so when you cast out assumptions, make sure they’re good ones like Larry’s!
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Monday, September 19, 2011
Show Report – Seattle Boats Afloat…
Great first show for Gateway Yachts! Thank you to all in the industry who encouraged and nurtured us, and also thanks to the overwhelming majority of people who “get” the concept, “get” the numbers, and understand that our program produces a better ownership experience.
Set up for the show began on Monday, for our first show booth we think it looks pretty good!
Our booth was right down from the Aspen C90 on the water so we were able to connect people to the actual boat – that was very helpful and productive for everyone.
Tuesday night was VIP Night, and the show reports that there were 200 more invitees this year than last. A good start, but most of these people already owned their own boats – still we received a lot of interest.
Wednesday and Thursday were a little slow, but talking to regulars that was normal for those days. Interestingly, this provided a clear snapshot of where the hot spots in the show were. It was obvious that Gateway was relatively busy and so was the Aspen boat. Every glance down the docks one could see very few people… except there were almost always people looking at the Aspen – the energy level around that boat was different all show, it stood out.
It was during this relative quiet that I had several very experienced boat industry executives come straight out and say, “Gateway and Aspen are the future of the industry.”
Wow! That’s quite the acknowledgement and welcome for a new company, but in our minds it solidifies our model and the relationships we have formed with quality and innovative manufacturers.
Friday through the weekend was extremely busy, as the show produced a ton of local media coverage. Attendance was reported to be up substantially over last year and the activity was pretty much non-stop.
We generated a copious number of good contacts, including several in the media who are helping Gateway gain traction with the public. Nor’westing Magazine, in particular, wrote a brilliant article on Gateway that will make a terrific marketing piece, AND they are publishing the recent Gateway Yacht Talk article “Two Engines or One.”
More publicity is likely as we follow up with other media. We will be promoting the teaming up of local manufacturers and this fractional program as an innovative alliance to combat and smooth rough economic seas – after all, those who innovate survive, while those who stagnate… well, let’s just say there were a lot of very heavy boats at the show with two very heavy, inefficient, and fuel hungry engines (and not a lot of people surrounding them, imagine that)!
We are working with at least a dozen seriously interested parties in the Aspen and I’m sure will convert at least a few of them into Gateway customers. We also received significant interest in the larger Nordic Tugs, but Gateway’s first sale actually came in a fully optioned and outfitted Hewescraft Pacific Explorer. What's interesting about this Hewescraft sale is that it is an industry insider who is purchasing it for his own business use! He saw the concept and came back the next day realizing that instead of forking over more than $140k for his own machine that a fractional share would more than suffice and save him more than $100,000 in the process! Now that is how the numbers work, and why we believe that Gateway is the future of the industry.
On top of that, we were just about to pull the plug on the Sportsman's Show this January as we don’t yet have the personnel to man two booths because the big Seattle Boat Show is on the same weekend. But this very experienced professional right away also agreed to help Gateway market the fishing versions at the Sportsman’s Show they were already committed to attending! This is an important win as the Washington Sportsman's show is a big show with more than 44,000 in attendance last year. This will ensure our exposure there and probably fill out the first Hewescraft boat.
The traction is beginning to take hold. We now look forward to the Anacortes show at the end of this month, and then the big Seattle Show this January will kick off the next boating season.
The Manufacturers are raising prices for next year, Aspen has already raised theirs, and thus Gateway must do likewise prior to the next show. As affordable as they are, some of Gateway’s prices are going to have to rise as much as 10% to keep pace.
Again, it was a terrific first show, thank you to everyone who was so kind and helpful. Special thanks to the Aspen team, great people, innovative, the FUTURE of boating. Thanks to AZRainman for the endless hours developing our website and creating all of our world class graphics! Also thank you to Chuck and Jim of Nor’westing Magazine for the great exposure and nurturing, as well as to Bell Design and all our booth-mates who were also most supportive!
Set up for the show began on Monday, for our first show booth we think it looks pretty good!Our booth was right down from the Aspen C90 on the water so we were able to connect people to the actual boat – that was very helpful and productive for everyone.
Tuesday night was VIP Night, and the show reports that there were 200 more invitees this year than last. A good start, but most of these people already owned their own boats – still we received a lot of interest.
Wednesday and Thursday were a little slow, but talking to regulars that was normal for those days. Interestingly, this provided a clear snapshot of where the hot spots in the show were. It was obvious that Gateway was relatively busy and so was the Aspen boat. Every glance down the docks one could see very few people… except there were almost always people looking at the Aspen – the energy level around that boat was different all show, it stood out.
It was during this relative quiet that I had several very experienced boat industry executives come straight out and say, “Gateway and Aspen are the future of the industry.”
Wow! That’s quite the acknowledgement and welcome for a new company, but in our minds it solidifies our model and the relationships we have formed with quality and innovative manufacturers.
Friday through the weekend was extremely busy, as the show produced a ton of local media coverage. Attendance was reported to be up substantially over last year and the activity was pretty much non-stop.
We generated a copious number of good contacts, including several in the media who are helping Gateway gain traction with the public. Nor’westing Magazine, in particular, wrote a brilliant article on Gateway that will make a terrific marketing piece, AND they are publishing the recent Gateway Yacht Talk article “Two Engines or One.”
More publicity is likely as we follow up with other media. We will be promoting the teaming up of local manufacturers and this fractional program as an innovative alliance to combat and smooth rough economic seas – after all, those who innovate survive, while those who stagnate… well, let’s just say there were a lot of very heavy boats at the show with two very heavy, inefficient, and fuel hungry engines (and not a lot of people surrounding them, imagine that)!
We are working with at least a dozen seriously interested parties in the Aspen and I’m sure will convert at least a few of them into Gateway customers. We also received significant interest in the larger Nordic Tugs, but Gateway’s first sale actually came in a fully optioned and outfitted Hewescraft Pacific Explorer. What's interesting about this Hewescraft sale is that it is an industry insider who is purchasing it for his own business use! He saw the concept and came back the next day realizing that instead of forking over more than $140k for his own machine that a fractional share would more than suffice and save him more than $100,000 in the process! Now that is how the numbers work, and why we believe that Gateway is the future of the industry.
On top of that, we were just about to pull the plug on the Sportsman's Show this January as we don’t yet have the personnel to man two booths because the big Seattle Boat Show is on the same weekend. But this very experienced professional right away also agreed to help Gateway market the fishing versions at the Sportsman’s Show they were already committed to attending! This is an important win as the Washington Sportsman's show is a big show with more than 44,000 in attendance last year. This will ensure our exposure there and probably fill out the first Hewescraft boat.
The traction is beginning to take hold. We now look forward to the Anacortes show at the end of this month, and then the big Seattle Show this January will kick off the next boating season.
The Manufacturers are raising prices for next year, Aspen has already raised theirs, and thus Gateway must do likewise prior to the next show. As affordable as they are, some of Gateway’s prices are going to have to rise as much as 10% to keep pace.
Again, it was a terrific first show, thank you to everyone who was so kind and helpful. Special thanks to the Aspen team, great people, innovative, the FUTURE of boating. Thanks to AZRainman for the endless hours developing our website and creating all of our world class graphics! Also thank you to Chuck and Jim of Nor’westing Magazine for the great exposure and nurturing, as well as to Bell Design and all our booth-mates who were also most supportive!
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Seattle Boats Afloat Show This Week!
Come visit us at our booth just past the main entrance on the left. We'll be there hosting during the VIP evening Tuesday night, and all through the week until Sunday evening. If you would like to attend either the VIP evening or the regular show, please drop us a line and we'll forward some tickets. Look forward to seeing you there!
Brokers are welcome too! Come on by and let's meet...
Downtown parking lots:
1. 2200 Westlake Ave–Whole Foods Market
2. 2210 7th Avenue
3. 2101 7th Avenue
4. 2029 7th Avenue
5. 2200 6th Avenue
6. 2010 5th Avenue
Recommended parking garages:
7. Pacific Place (Sixth Avenue and Pine Street)
8. Westlake Center (400 Pine Street)
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Two Engines or One…
Two heads are definately better than one... but does that apply to engines?
Heavily engaged in conversation with a person of “old-school” mindset regarding the count of engines, it occurred to me that there are many misperceptions still around and little can be found on the advantages/ disadvantages of having more or less engines. My background in both the aviation and marine worlds gives me some insight that may help educate and settle the debate.
Obviously having an engine running in the aviation world is even more important than with boats. When an engine fails on a boat at least you are still floating, and unless in extreme circumstance will have time to evaluate or remedy the situation, and probably have the time to call for help. All Gateway Yachts have “Vessel Assist” insurance, by the way, so if you happen to be dead in the water get on channel 16 and call them – do this FIRST before you get into serious troubleshooting as you can always call back and cancel the call.
The Wright Brothers flew with a single engine, but didn’t get far at first. As aviation progressed so did engine technology and that really is what enabled huge strides. Think about how far aviation went in just 100 years, flying has become completely routine and is the safest form of transportation there is. It’s simply amazing and largely on the back of better and more reliable engines.
Early reciprocating engines were heavy, complex, and prone to failure. As airframes grew in size, manufacturers had to add more of those heavy and complex engines. Large airplanes that flew overwater eventually had 4 or even 6 or 8 engines! But as jet engine technology progressed, the power to weight ratio steadily increased as did reliability and economy. Many of the first large jet passenger airplanes had 4 engines and that was the standard for several decades.
In 1985 Boeing began pushing what is called ETOPS (Extended-Range Twin-Engine Operations) that allowed their two engine jet aircraft to fly longer legs over open water (the longest uninterrupted over water leg on the planet is from the U.S. mainland to Hawaii). The FAA approached this very slowly and conservatively as the thinking was that two engines was much less safe than four… but today statistics PROVE the opposite! There is simply no denying that air travel is far safer today than it had been, there are a lot of reasons for it, but FEWER engines is one big counter-intuitive reason why.
Part of the reason is inherent in design. A four or three engine airplane is designed to maintain a specified climb ability with the loss of a single engine – that climb is very shallow, but is required to be positive. That is how the engineers size the engines they put on the plane – just powerful enough to produce that climb rate. Anytime you wish an airplane to climb, you must produce MORE thrust than is required for level flight. In a four engine airplane, then, you basically have a little bit more than 25% excess thrust with all engines operating.
In a two engine airplane, it still must maintain that rate of climb with the loss of one engine, obviously on the one remaining engine. The two engine plane with an engine out lost 50% of its thrust and is still climbing, whereas the four engine plane with a single engine out only lost 25% of its thrust to maintain that climb rate. This means that when all engines are operating, which is almost always, the two engine airplane is the better performing airplane! It climbs faster and higher which provides more safety margin in normal operations than does the four or three engine airplane.
That’s just one part of the safety equation, however. Another is that simple logic tells you that when you have 50% fewer engines then your odds of losing an engine go down by 50%! But wait, that’s not exactly true! In fact, a two engine airplane has even better odds in its favor than that… there are two reasons for that. The first is half the engines also means less complexity in most other systems – less complexity means lower odds of problems which equals higher safety. The second reason is that because the two engine plane has bigger engines and more excess thrust, then under normal conditions those engines are working LESS hard to accomplish the same performance – in other words, they are not pushed to their limits as often, thus lower odds of failure.
And if you do have a failure, then the get home engine(s) are probably working their very hardest to do so – thus the risk of another failure is much higher. The pilot is also now distracted, thus opening the door to other risks. Is it not best to avoid a problem in the first place? Yes, and statistics prove that in spades, not even close.
Counter-intuitive isn’t it?
And not only are fewer engines safer, but they are far more efficient as well. Less systems complexity means less weight, fewer engines means less weight, and fewer engines also means less drag by far.
I can hear the old school power yacht and fishing crowd yelling, “But we’re talking one engine versus two, the loss of your ONLY engine leaves you with nothing!”
True… Well, not exactly nothing, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
In the boating world two engines has one definite advantage over one, and that is slow speed maneuverability. No denying that. However, most modern single engine yachts are equipped with bow and/or stern thrusters that completely negate that benefit. Manufacturers are installing them on smaller and smaller boats, and those thrusters are more usable and reliable than ever. Thrusters are extremely easy to use, simply move a joystick to the side and the boat moves sideways – so easy any novice can pick it up with almost no training, something that cannot be said of operating two engines using asymmetric thrust to maneuver in tight places!
As far as the advantage of two engines over one goes, that’s about as far as sound logic will take you (in most pleasure boat circumstances).
Most of the other advantages described above are still true when comparing two to one engines and they are also true in boats as well as airplanes. One engine producing the same horsepower is lighter than two. One engine requires less complex systems and is therefore less prone to breakdown and therefore weighs even less. One engine normally operates at a reduced power setting relative to its twin equals, thus placing less strain on that engine. One engine produces far less drag underwater than two. One engine burns less fuel, thus you have to carry less fuel, again carrying less weight.
A one engine yacht is simply far more efficient, it costs less, and the odds of having a problem in the first place are greater than 50% less than with two.
Of course any good pilot, be it in the air or on the water, will want to come up with worse-case scenarios and then give themself a problem… Loss of an engine inside of the Puget Sound, for example is mostly a no brainer – the RISK to your boat and to your personal health and family’s health are pretty miniscule. Only in extreme weather or operating in extreme tides very close to shore would you be vulnerable, and then you should be asking yourself why you are there in the first place? In fact, I can make the case that when you factor in other systems that you and your family are almost always safer on the single engine boat versus the twin. I say that because not only do I factor in lower odds of having an engine problem in the first place, but I also factor in less complex systems and the distractions of the much higher twin-engine odds of having a problem in the first place.
While we’re worse-casing one over the other, imagine the much larger engine compartment with two sets of fuel lines instead of one. Two generators and all the necessary electrical components versus two. Which has the lowest odds of fire? Uh huh. And which is worse, no power in a boat or fire? Uh huh, how’s that old school philosophy feeling right about now?
There’s that troublesome ring-of-truth, macho two-engine man!
I mentioned that just because you are without your main engine, you are not necessarily helpless. Again, in a populated area like the Puget Sound, the radio is your friend and help will not be very far away. But you may also have other options, like some boats allow you to mount your kicker in order to allow you to limp into safe harbor. Most yachts have skiffs with engines that could also be launched to help keep a boat off the rocks until help arrives. You would be surprised at how little thrust is required to move even a fairly large boat.
In fact, most large open-water global expedition yachts today are powered by a single engine! And some have designed pretty ingenious backups. One method is to have the means to mechanically neutralize the propeller shaft and then power it either with an electric motor or with a hydraulic motor. Those motors are then powered by the ship’s generators.
Take Northern Marine’s larger yachts as an example. They have a single engine and up to three gen sets. In the event of main power failure, the gen sets are capable of running a hydraulic motor that can power the main shaft to produce about 4 knots of forward only speed. Of course that backup doesn’t protect you in the event of a shaft, propeller, or rudder problem, but those problems are rare, especially in well-designed boats that adequately protect those components.
Today’s modern diesel engines are extremely reliable and very efficient. Even the modern gasoline outboard has come a long, long way from the engine powering the Wright Flyer! This brings into question how to equip different types of boats. Much debate, for example, went into whether Gateway Yachts should power the Pacific Explorer with one engine or two.
From a marketing standpoint it is easy to say, “Look at those two shiny engines, safe and reliable!”
But I’ve seen the data, both for safety and for efficiency. When it comes to efficiency a Hewescraft Pacific Explorer equipped with two 150 h.p. motors burns far more fuel, weighs more, and goes slower at top speed than the same boat with a single 300 h.p. motor! In fact, the two engine version is nearly 200 lbs heavier, that is the equivalent load of another fisherman standing on the transom! And two outdrives in the water with the commensurate drag is a large reason it burns more fuel as well – both mechanical and form drag are in play. And in the case of the fishing boat, the addition of a kicker is sufficient back-up for every possibility one can think of. Oh, and operating one engine with a kicker instead of trolling on a big engine is far less expensive as well – not to mention that the purchase price of the single with the kicker is way less initially as well!
So, what’s not to like? I’ve lived a great portion of my 50 years in the air and on the water, I’ll take the single engine and will be comfortable with my family by my side any day! The more engine mentality was forgivable with fuel at 50 cents a gallon, but not at $4 or more.
Heavily engaged in conversation with a person of “old-school” mindset regarding the count of engines, it occurred to me that there are many misperceptions still around and little can be found on the advantages/ disadvantages of having more or less engines. My background in both the aviation and marine worlds gives me some insight that may help educate and settle the debate.
Obviously having an engine running in the aviation world is even more important than with boats. When an engine fails on a boat at least you are still floating, and unless in extreme circumstance will have time to evaluate or remedy the situation, and probably have the time to call for help. All Gateway Yachts have “Vessel Assist” insurance, by the way, so if you happen to be dead in the water get on channel 16 and call them – do this FIRST before you get into serious troubleshooting as you can always call back and cancel the call.
The Wright Brothers flew with a single engine, but didn’t get far at first. As aviation progressed so did engine technology and that really is what enabled huge strides. Think about how far aviation went in just 100 years, flying has become completely routine and is the safest form of transportation there is. It’s simply amazing and largely on the back of better and more reliable engines.
Early reciprocating engines were heavy, complex, and prone to failure. As airframes grew in size, manufacturers had to add more of those heavy and complex engines. Large airplanes that flew overwater eventually had 4 or even 6 or 8 engines! But as jet engine technology progressed, the power to weight ratio steadily increased as did reliability and economy. Many of the first large jet passenger airplanes had 4 engines and that was the standard for several decades.
In 1985 Boeing began pushing what is called ETOPS (Extended-Range Twin-Engine Operations) that allowed their two engine jet aircraft to fly longer legs over open water (the longest uninterrupted over water leg on the planet is from the U.S. mainland to Hawaii). The FAA approached this very slowly and conservatively as the thinking was that two engines was much less safe than four… but today statistics PROVE the opposite! There is simply no denying that air travel is far safer today than it had been, there are a lot of reasons for it, but FEWER engines is one big counter-intuitive reason why.
Part of the reason is inherent in design. A four or three engine airplane is designed to maintain a specified climb ability with the loss of a single engine – that climb is very shallow, but is required to be positive. That is how the engineers size the engines they put on the plane – just powerful enough to produce that climb rate. Anytime you wish an airplane to climb, you must produce MORE thrust than is required for level flight. In a four engine airplane, then, you basically have a little bit more than 25% excess thrust with all engines operating.
In a two engine airplane, it still must maintain that rate of climb with the loss of one engine, obviously on the one remaining engine. The two engine plane with an engine out lost 50% of its thrust and is still climbing, whereas the four engine plane with a single engine out only lost 25% of its thrust to maintain that climb rate. This means that when all engines are operating, which is almost always, the two engine airplane is the better performing airplane! It climbs faster and higher which provides more safety margin in normal operations than does the four or three engine airplane.
That’s just one part of the safety equation, however. Another is that simple logic tells you that when you have 50% fewer engines then your odds of losing an engine go down by 50%! But wait, that’s not exactly true! In fact, a two engine airplane has even better odds in its favor than that… there are two reasons for that. The first is half the engines also means less complexity in most other systems – less complexity means lower odds of problems which equals higher safety. The second reason is that because the two engine plane has bigger engines and more excess thrust, then under normal conditions those engines are working LESS hard to accomplish the same performance – in other words, they are not pushed to their limits as often, thus lower odds of failure.
And if you do have a failure, then the get home engine(s) are probably working their very hardest to do so – thus the risk of another failure is much higher. The pilot is also now distracted, thus opening the door to other risks. Is it not best to avoid a problem in the first place? Yes, and statistics prove that in spades, not even close.
Counter-intuitive isn’t it?
And not only are fewer engines safer, but they are far more efficient as well. Less systems complexity means less weight, fewer engines means less weight, and fewer engines also means less drag by far.
I can hear the old school power yacht and fishing crowd yelling, “But we’re talking one engine versus two, the loss of your ONLY engine leaves you with nothing!”
True… Well, not exactly nothing, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
In the boating world two engines has one definite advantage over one, and that is slow speed maneuverability. No denying that. However, most modern single engine yachts are equipped with bow and/or stern thrusters that completely negate that benefit. Manufacturers are installing them on smaller and smaller boats, and those thrusters are more usable and reliable than ever. Thrusters are extremely easy to use, simply move a joystick to the side and the boat moves sideways – so easy any novice can pick it up with almost no training, something that cannot be said of operating two engines using asymmetric thrust to maneuver in tight places!
As far as the advantage of two engines over one goes, that’s about as far as sound logic will take you (in most pleasure boat circumstances).
Most of the other advantages described above are still true when comparing two to one engines and they are also true in boats as well as airplanes. One engine producing the same horsepower is lighter than two. One engine requires less complex systems and is therefore less prone to breakdown and therefore weighs even less. One engine normally operates at a reduced power setting relative to its twin equals, thus placing less strain on that engine. One engine produces far less drag underwater than two. One engine burns less fuel, thus you have to carry less fuel, again carrying less weight.
A one engine yacht is simply far more efficient, it costs less, and the odds of having a problem in the first place are greater than 50% less than with two.
Of course any good pilot, be it in the air or on the water, will want to come up with worse-case scenarios and then give themself a problem… Loss of an engine inside of the Puget Sound, for example is mostly a no brainer – the RISK to your boat and to your personal health and family’s health are pretty miniscule. Only in extreme weather or operating in extreme tides very close to shore would you be vulnerable, and then you should be asking yourself why you are there in the first place? In fact, I can make the case that when you factor in other systems that you and your family are almost always safer on the single engine boat versus the twin. I say that because not only do I factor in lower odds of having an engine problem in the first place, but I also factor in less complex systems and the distractions of the much higher twin-engine odds of having a problem in the first place.
While we’re worse-casing one over the other, imagine the much larger engine compartment with two sets of fuel lines instead of one. Two generators and all the necessary electrical components versus two. Which has the lowest odds of fire? Uh huh. And which is worse, no power in a boat or fire? Uh huh, how’s that old school philosophy feeling right about now?
There’s that troublesome ring-of-truth, macho two-engine man!
I mentioned that just because you are without your main engine, you are not necessarily helpless. Again, in a populated area like the Puget Sound, the radio is your friend and help will not be very far away. But you may also have other options, like some boats allow you to mount your kicker in order to allow you to limp into safe harbor. Most yachts have skiffs with engines that could also be launched to help keep a boat off the rocks until help arrives. You would be surprised at how little thrust is required to move even a fairly large boat.
In fact, most large open-water global expedition yachts today are powered by a single engine! And some have designed pretty ingenious backups. One method is to have the means to mechanically neutralize the propeller shaft and then power it either with an electric motor or with a hydraulic motor. Those motors are then powered by the ship’s generators.
Take Northern Marine’s larger yachts as an example. They have a single engine and up to three gen sets. In the event of main power failure, the gen sets are capable of running a hydraulic motor that can power the main shaft to produce about 4 knots of forward only speed. Of course that backup doesn’t protect you in the event of a shaft, propeller, or rudder problem, but those problems are rare, especially in well-designed boats that adequately protect those components.
Today’s modern diesel engines are extremely reliable and very efficient. Even the modern gasoline outboard has come a long, long way from the engine powering the Wright Flyer! This brings into question how to equip different types of boats. Much debate, for example, went into whether Gateway Yachts should power the Pacific Explorer with one engine or two.
From a marketing standpoint it is easy to say, “Look at those two shiny engines, safe and reliable!”
But I’ve seen the data, both for safety and for efficiency. When it comes to efficiency a Hewescraft Pacific Explorer equipped with two 150 h.p. motors burns far more fuel, weighs more, and goes slower at top speed than the same boat with a single 300 h.p. motor! In fact, the two engine version is nearly 200 lbs heavier, that is the equivalent load of another fisherman standing on the transom! And two outdrives in the water with the commensurate drag is a large reason it burns more fuel as well – both mechanical and form drag are in play. And in the case of the fishing boat, the addition of a kicker is sufficient back-up for every possibility one can think of. Oh, and operating one engine with a kicker instead of trolling on a big engine is far less expensive as well – not to mention that the purchase price of the single with the kicker is way less initially as well!
So, what’s not to like? I’ve lived a great portion of my 50 years in the air and on the water, I’ll take the single engine and will be comfortable with my family by my side any day! The more engine mentality was forgivable with fuel at 50 cents a gallon, but not at $4 or more.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Ouch! Yet another reason that Gateway Provides a Better Ownership Experience…
Yesterday I was walking my dog, Apollo, past the public launch at Washington Park when I heard the awful shaking and skidding of someone attempting to back their trailer down the launch with locked trailer brakes!
Down on the dock I could see his very nice, and also very expensive, aluminum fishing boat.
I offered to help and to even call a mechanic friend, but he said his buddy told him his brakes were rusted together and that getting the weight of the boat onto the trailer would allow the tires enough traction to break the rust free and to spin freely once again…
Any guesses how that turned out?
Well, actually better than I expected. After walking the rest of the 1.8 mile loop, I saw that indeed he had his boat on the trailer, but that he was on his cell phone with a not-so-happy expression. I asked him how it went and his reply was that the wheels were free, but that now he needed four new trailer tires! Ouch.
A couple of lessons to be learned here – first, he launched into salt water and left his trailer for six days without rinsing off the salt first. Second, he didn’t own in the Gateway program where launching and recovery are a thing of the past… oh, and far less expensive to boot!
I told him not to be offended, keep cool, and politely handed him my card – “Take four tires, read it in the morning, and call me…”
He smiled, and I bet that I hear from him – if not today, then maybe when he forgets to bring up his drive unit when pulling out next time. Hey, there are those who have, those who will, and those who boat the right way - Gateway! ;-)
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Upcoming Events...
Look for us at the Anacortes Arts Festival this weekend, August 5,6, & 7! We’ll have a new Aspen C90 in front of the office at 1004 12th street – that’s the corner of 12th and commercial in Anacortes, WA. - See you there!
Additionally, we’ll have an Aspen on the water at the Lake Union Boats Afloat show, September 14 – 18th! Come visit us at our booth and learn about Gateway’s exciting new Joint Ownership Program!
Additionally, we’ll have an Aspen on the water at the Lake Union Boats Afloat show, September 14 – 18th! Come visit us at our booth and learn about Gateway’s exciting new Joint Ownership Program!
Welcome to Gateway Yacht Talk!
This blog will be just one tool Gateway uses to update customers and others about our activities, about educational & training information, and it will serve as one place to communicate among our community.
Gateway Yachts is our way of producing something real and using our economic reality in a positive manner. Life is short, and we don’t intend to spend the rest of it focused solely on the negative economic reality. We want to do something we enjoy, and we’ve found a way to do that and make it work despite that reality, but without the help of traditional banking.
Gateway Yachts is a Fractional Ownership Program along the lines of Netjets. Customers buy fractions in 1/8 increments, each 1/8 share brings with it 5 weeks (35 days) of advanced schedule use and unlimited open time use.
You can read all about how this works by following the Gateway Yachts link and reading about “Gateway Fractional Ownership.” You can also read about our background and the history of fractional ownership on the “About Us” pages.
Fractional ownership is huge in the corporate aviation world. In just two decades it went from zero to today more than 50% of all corporate jets are sold into joint ownership programs. In the mid 1980s I was working on developing an aviation fractional ownership program when a Goldman Sachs executive, Richard Santulli, bought the world’s largest aircraft charter company, Executive Jet Aviation, renamed it “Netjets,” and implemented a fractional ownership plan almost identical to the one I was writing my Master’s Research Paper on. Warren Buffett, a former critic of corporate aviation, bought the company and Berkshire owns it today.
The Netjets concept was groundbreaking in the same way that Southwest airlines was. The premise is that you take highly underutilized expensive assets and you utilize them more! Both of these companies created a market that did not previously exist by making their respective segment of air travel affordable to more people. Today all kinds of people own fractions of corporate jets who would have never been able to afford them on their own.
In the yachting world, there have been some half-hearted attempts, but sadly it has never been done properly, although there are a couple of successful programs in Europe. In the United States there are small companies who do this, but again it has not been done correctly. The common errors are to use unreliable old, heavy, fuel inefficient yachts that get run into the ground and then the customer base becomes unhappy, or some moneyed individual will try to start a program for his millionaire buddies using some mega-yacht and he may sell one boat if he’s lucky.
No, the formula that works is to use all new equipment, use it as heavily as you can, but then retire it quickly and rotate the old equipment out of the program. But the equipment needs to be economical to operate to really hold down costs, and they need to target the area just below the solo yacht buyer where there is no market that currently exists.
A lot of people look at the marina and see only an expensive dream. Most won’t even enter the marina as they know that dream is out of reach. Not anymore. In fact, the Gateway program has lowered costs so far that you can spend a week yachting in the Northwest surrounded by nature, and spend less than one-third the amount of a week long vacation to Disney World! Fuel included.
For those who understand our economic impossible math, we have turned that equation upside down, spelling out exactly how the math works to make yachting affordable for a way larger segment of the population - Ownership Method Comparison. Check out the 10 year total cost of owning all by yourself versus the cost of owning inside of the Gateway Fractional Program.
We now have agreements with two manufactures, one builds the world’s most fuel efficient yacht – period, and he holds patents on the design. We’re talking real jobs and a real product, and the best part is that no commercial banker is involved!
How do we do that? These manufacturers are either self-funded or they use private investment capital to build their boats. And to make my program even more affordable, we have also created a second company called Gateway Yacht Capital (GYC). This is key to the program, a piece that no other fractional yacht company has.
The purpose of GYC is to take in private investment money to finance customer shares. This is done very conservatively so that the yacht is never “under water.” The investor receives a rate of return that far exceeds what they can typically get elsewhere, and their investment is fully collateralized by the vessel itself which is always in Gateway’s possession. To read about how this works, please follow this link to GYC Investors.
An investment in GYC is real, backed by something real, that created real jobs here in America, and in the most environmentally friendly way possible - Green and Built in America. Giving the bankers the old Heave Ho? Priceless.
In addition to the conservative investment opportunity, Gateway is open to more speculative partners in Gateway Yachts, LLC itself. For more information, please contact us by following the contact link on the Gateway site.
Gateway Yachts – Adventure Yachting Excellence at a Fraction of the Price.
Nate Martin - Founder
*Special thanks to AZRainman who did the code work and produces the world’s most beautiful graphics! He normally does not do commercial work as he possesses a good moral compass, thus I consider myself lucky that he and others have helped make this vision a reality.
Gateway Yachts is our way of producing something real and using our economic reality in a positive manner. Life is short, and we don’t intend to spend the rest of it focused solely on the negative economic reality. We want to do something we enjoy, and we’ve found a way to do that and make it work despite that reality, but without the help of traditional banking.
Gateway Yachts is a Fractional Ownership Program along the lines of Netjets. Customers buy fractions in 1/8 increments, each 1/8 share brings with it 5 weeks (35 days) of advanced schedule use and unlimited open time use.
You can read all about how this works by following the Gateway Yachts link and reading about “Gateway Fractional Ownership.” You can also read about our background and the history of fractional ownership on the “About Us” pages.
Fractional ownership is huge in the corporate aviation world. In just two decades it went from zero to today more than 50% of all corporate jets are sold into joint ownership programs. In the mid 1980s I was working on developing an aviation fractional ownership program when a Goldman Sachs executive, Richard Santulli, bought the world’s largest aircraft charter company, Executive Jet Aviation, renamed it “Netjets,” and implemented a fractional ownership plan almost identical to the one I was writing my Master’s Research Paper on. Warren Buffett, a former critic of corporate aviation, bought the company and Berkshire owns it today.
The Netjets concept was groundbreaking in the same way that Southwest airlines was. The premise is that you take highly underutilized expensive assets and you utilize them more! Both of these companies created a market that did not previously exist by making their respective segment of air travel affordable to more people. Today all kinds of people own fractions of corporate jets who would have never been able to afford them on their own.
In the yachting world, there have been some half-hearted attempts, but sadly it has never been done properly, although there are a couple of successful programs in Europe. In the United States there are small companies who do this, but again it has not been done correctly. The common errors are to use unreliable old, heavy, fuel inefficient yachts that get run into the ground and then the customer base becomes unhappy, or some moneyed individual will try to start a program for his millionaire buddies using some mega-yacht and he may sell one boat if he’s lucky.
No, the formula that works is to use all new equipment, use it as heavily as you can, but then retire it quickly and rotate the old equipment out of the program. But the equipment needs to be economical to operate to really hold down costs, and they need to target the area just below the solo yacht buyer where there is no market that currently exists.
A lot of people look at the marina and see only an expensive dream. Most won’t even enter the marina as they know that dream is out of reach. Not anymore. In fact, the Gateway program has lowered costs so far that you can spend a week yachting in the Northwest surrounded by nature, and spend less than one-third the amount of a week long vacation to Disney World! Fuel included.
For those who understand our economic impossible math, we have turned that equation upside down, spelling out exactly how the math works to make yachting affordable for a way larger segment of the population - Ownership Method Comparison. Check out the 10 year total cost of owning all by yourself versus the cost of owning inside of the Gateway Fractional Program.
We now have agreements with two manufactures, one builds the world’s most fuel efficient yacht – period, and he holds patents on the design. We’re talking real jobs and a real product, and the best part is that no commercial banker is involved!
How do we do that? These manufacturers are either self-funded or they use private investment capital to build their boats. And to make my program even more affordable, we have also created a second company called Gateway Yacht Capital (GYC). This is key to the program, a piece that no other fractional yacht company has.
The purpose of GYC is to take in private investment money to finance customer shares. This is done very conservatively so that the yacht is never “under water.” The investor receives a rate of return that far exceeds what they can typically get elsewhere, and their investment is fully collateralized by the vessel itself which is always in Gateway’s possession. To read about how this works, please follow this link to GYC Investors.
An investment in GYC is real, backed by something real, that created real jobs here in America, and in the most environmentally friendly way possible - Green and Built in America. Giving the bankers the old Heave Ho? Priceless.
In addition to the conservative investment opportunity, Gateway is open to more speculative partners in Gateway Yachts, LLC itself. For more information, please contact us by following the contact link on the Gateway site.
Gateway Yachts – Adventure Yachting Excellence at a Fraction of the Price.
Nate Martin - Founder
*Special thanks to AZRainman who did the code work and produces the world’s most beautiful graphics! He normally does not do commercial work as he possesses a good moral compass, thus I consider myself lucky that he and others have helped make this vision a reality.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
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