Aussie builder puts his racing knowledge into luxury cruisers.
By Doug ThompsonReprinted From Southern Boating
Powerboat racing is one of Bill Barry-Cotter’s great passions, and he’s won seven Australian Class I offshore powerboat championships. The technology he’s utilized and helped develop in the demanding world of offshore racing has helped him to design his Maritimo line of long-range luxury motoryachts, which he founded in 2003 in Queensland, Australia. At displacement hull speeds, Maritimo offshore cruising yachts, which range from 44 to 60 feet, can travel up to 3,000 miles, while at cruising speeds of 28 mph, they can travel from 500 to 1,000 miles without refueling, depending on the model.
That speed and range, along with hull design, rigging and attention to detail, have made Maritimo a brand that is turning heads in the United States market. With nine dealerships in the United States and one in Canada, Maritimo is quickly gaining interest among U.S. buyers.
Southern Boating Contributor Doug Thompson sat down with Bill at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show in October and learned what he had to say about the U.S. market, how he builds his boats, and what other boat builders he admires.
SB: What is Maritimo’s niche in the U.S.?
Bill Barry-Cotter: It’s the same market as in Australia. The average hours a Maritimo owner uses the boat is about the same in the United States; and it’s a very discerning buyer. Our U.S. owners have probably had five or six boats before, and you can’t put anything over on them. They know exactly what they want and what they want to do with their boat.
With Maritimo, what I wanted to do was have a real point of difference between all other brands. It was fairly selfish way to go, building what I wanted to build – a fairly fast long-range cruising boat. There are economical cruisers that are slow and not good sea boats. I wanted Maritimo to be a boat that could cruise at 28 to 30 knots and give you long distances. And we have expanded that over the last five years, from one boat to 19 models.
SB: What carries over from your racing technology?
Bill Barry-Cotter: On the initial M60 Cruising Motoryacht we built, we really went out on a limb to make it lightweight. We put a lot of Kevlar in the hull and that was expensive, but it sure made it fast. (To keep the costs down, we had to make the Kevlar an option.) We focus on weight, and keep as much weight as we can over the center of the boat, which has a dramatic effect on performance. The other thing we learned from racing is that steering is incredibly important. Our steering is very tight and almost all of our boats are one full turn lock-to-lock.
SB: You build a lot of systems in house. How does that help you?
Bill Barry-Cotter: It’s control more than anything else. We know exactly what we are getting. For example, we make our own propellers. Our shafts, rudders, skegs through-hull fittings and now our props are all made at Maritimo. Our propeller designer is Cotty Fay, who was involved with the Zeus Drive and has done a brilliant job with our propellers. We need the control because we are putting in bigger engines and propellers from outside companies are breaking.
SB: Where do you see the boat-buying market going right now?
Bill Barry-Cotter: What seems to be happening is the same customers want smaller or the same size boats, but not necessarily cheaper boats. We are getting people buying a 47-footer that have a 47-footer, but now they want everything in them. It’s not the money that is making them do this; they just want something that is a bit more economical to and easier to handle. They want the creature comforts and we give that to them.
SB: You have a lot of direct interaction with your customers. Why?
Bill Barry-Cotter: That is where you learn. You have a customer that has had five or six boats, and they say they want the galley arranged a certain way, and it doesn’t seem to make sense. But then you do it and … a half a dozen boats later, you copy that galley change and you find out that it’s a good idea. If we were not as close to the customer, we wouldn’t see that.
SB: What design aspects have carried over from powerboat racing?
Bill Barry-Cotter: Building the right systems for quality control. Two hours in a race boat is like two years in a recreational boat. For example, a little thing is how you mount a trim pump. In a race boat, if you mounted a pump like I’ve seen in our competition’s brands, it would smash itself to pieces. We know how people are going to use our boats, probably pretty hard. We don’t want failures, so we use what we learned in racing to build the boats so they won’t break. Racing teaches you very quickly what works and what doesn’t.
SB: What boat builders in the U.S. do you admire?
Bill Barry-Cotter: Bertram and Hatteras were big in my mind and iconic brands, but they are not the same people as they used to be…they are (owned by) corporations. Viking Yacht Company has to be the No. 1 boat builder in the country because it’s still a family business. Building boats is what they have always done, and they do a great job of it.