Aluminum? It's crap. Tinny, loud, thin-skinned, rivety. Not proper boats for saltwater. Maybe they're alright for light-duty use on a lake but saltwater? Never. Nope. Not me. That was my opinion of aluminum boats and may still be your opinion. What changed mine? Let's see.... I grew up on the waters of Maine. We have baby pictures of me in diapers traversing Casco Bay to our summer home on Birch Island in a 15' wooden skiff. I ran the launch at our family's marina starting with rowing people to their boats when I was about 6 then graduating to a lapstrake skiff with an trusty Evinrude 6 hp shortly thereafter. My step-father was the Captain of a research boat for the Maine Department of Marine Resources. I was immersed in boats and surrounded by incredibly knowledgeable and capable seamen. I knew boats. As a young man I joined the Marines and shortly after leaving the service took a job with National Fisherman magazine - an old, salty Maine business filled with boats and boat history. Fiberglass downeast lobster boats, fiberglass Chesapeake Bay deadrises even a spattering of wooden boats filled the magazines pages. Boat were fiberglass. Sure some old boats were still wood and some bigger commercial boats were steel but boats from 20'-50' were fiberglass. Period. End of story. Nothing to think about here. Move along. Well....... About a year after I was hired by National Fisherman they sent me to work the Gulf Coast with an office in Louisiana. Hmmmmmm. Do you know what? There were probably 30 shipyards down there building large commercial boats out of aluminum. Huh? What? Aluminum? Saltwater boats? Really? I didn't know that. Companies like Breaux Brothers and Swiftships were building 150' crew boats and supply boats for the offshore oil industry out of aluminum. Yup aluminum. 150 footers! 175 footers! These things were out in the Gulf during hurricanes, carry huge loads, went fast! Okay, maybe I was wrong about aluminum - I thought. I guess its also a big boat material. Huh. Learn something new everyday. Although this was new information to me it meant nothing to me and my boating needs. I'll never need a 175' welded aluminum offshore supply vessel with (4)12 cylinder diesel engines producing 1350hp each - never. Well, next National Fisherman sent me to work in their Seattle office. Big, comfy office overlooking fishermen's terminal with all of those steel crab boats you see on "Deadliest Catch" and a fleet of fiberglass and wooden trollers and some seine boats lining the docks outside my window. It was 1995. It was my job to get out and see all of the different west coast businesses selling stuff to the commercial marine market - Grundens, Simrad, Furuno as well as the boatbuilders..... Guess what? These people in the Pacific Northwest were building "skiffs" as they called them out of that same thick aluminum that I had seen made into small ships along the Gulf coast! (at this point imagine the clouds clearing from the sky, long sun rays extending to the horizon, harp music....) Holy shit! (please excuse the language but I was a Marine) What are these things? Words like "brick shithouse" "bullet-proof" and "indestructible" filled my mind. And then a question that was destined to change my life... Why don't we have boats made like these on the East Coast? We're tough on boats. We beat on our boats. We have rocks. We pull traps up the sides.., Again, Why don't we have these boats? Well this idea rattled around my brain as I saw more of these small boat aluminum boatbuilders. Over and over again...Why? Now let me be clear. These were workboats. Nothing fancy. Nothing beautiful. But rock solid. I became friends with a builder named Dan King who was president and owner of one of these small boat boat companies which he called "Pacific Skiffs". Now Dan had been a custom aluminum boatbuilder building everything from an 17' tiller skiff to a 45' commercial crab boat starting in 1979. Along the way he had the idea to "production" build 20' and 22' "skiffs" for the Alaska market. He standardized the design and building of these boats and had a thriving business selling these open (very simple) boats. They had no cleats, no running lights, no electrical system, a very small 23 gallon fuel tank but they were extraordinarily tough and they were extremely well-built. The welding was beautiful and the attention to detail was superb. Now these boats were not something that most of us on the East Coast would want. They were all but flat-bottomed. They had either no console (tiller) or a very small (22"x11") console all the way in the back starboard corner of the boat. They were just big sleds. Could carry a huge load, run with small power and take the beating only an Alaskan native could dole out. After a year in Seattle I was recalled to my home state of Maine but the impression those tough, welded aluminum boats made would still not leave my mind. Dan and I continued to be friends and I asked him whether or not he wanted me to find an east coast outlet for his boats. He said "Sure!". So I went to some of the boat dealers that I knew and grew up with and suggested that they should sell some of these welded aluminum skiffs that I had found out about while working in Seattle. The reaction was less than enthusiastic. "Aluminum? In saltwater?? No thanks.." "Thing will corrode like an alka-seltzer" "Aluminum is for lakes!" Their minds were exactly where my mind was when I initially left the east coast. At this point Dan (who is one of the all-time great guys, quiet, self-assured, competent) says.... "Well why don't I send you a boat and see if you can sell it?" "Sure" I say.. So Dan sends a 22' flat-bottomed "Pacific Skiff" to me here in Maine. I stick it on the front lawn with a hand-painted "For Sale" sign and advertise it in our local free classified book. This was the start of Black Lab Marine! That boat is pictured above. The buyer, John Jordan, was a young lobsterman out of Chebeague Island here in Maine. He took off the little console in the back and made that beautiful house and trap deck that are on the boat. Fished 600 traps out of that little thing. Kind of looks like a Regulator, doesn't it? Hull sold for $10,000! Now at this point I'm thinking commercial - lobstermen, scallopers, clammers that sort of buyer. So I signed up for space at the FishExpo show which was then in Boston - all commercial guys... The reaction to the boat was both good and bad. They, like I, immediately saw how tough this stuff was - this is no riveted lake boat. They appreciated the quality of the welding. But commercial guys here in the east don't really fish out of small open boats like many do in Alaska and, further, if they did they wanted no part of a flat-bottomed boat with no protection. Hmmmm.... Now growing up what I always wanted (dreamed of and lusted after, really) was a 19' Mako with a 115hp Johnson outboard. We didn't have much money and being on the water meant work, not pleasure, in our family. But it occurred to me that if you could build a 19' Mako out of this welded aluminum stuff I'd found then you might have something. Certainly a boat that I would want. So I asked Dan at Pacific if they could build a 19', 14 degree deadrise boat. Again, Dan, being a great guy, said "Sure" what the heck. So the first V19 was made. Still no cleats. Still no running lights. Still no electrical system. No windshield. Console was 22"x11" and way far back (you could sit on the transom). No cushions. No seats. I put a used 115 hp Johnson engine on it that I paid $800 for and I had my welded aluminum 19' Mako! That boat was absolutely great! I Looooooved the thing. The engine died one morning when I was about to give a demo ride to 6 officers from the Maine Warden Service so I put a new 150hp 2-stroke Yamaha on the darn thing. 61 mph - a rocketship. I was known throughout the bay as I flew from spot to spot chasing stripers... I still miss that boat today. We'd just invented the welded aluminum center console! From these beginnings I started to refine the products. I would ask Dan for a bigger console, more amidships. Dan would build it. I would ask for a Lexan windshield. Dan would build it. I would ask for running lights. Dan would add them. We've continually added, refined, improved the boats and now produce and sell boats with as much functionality as any fiberglass boat. Along the way I became aware of an Australian publication called "Plate Alloy Boats of Australia" and learned that in that great land they make a distinction between "tinnies" which are the sheet metal, riveted boats and "plateys" as they called boats made from aluminum plate (greater than 3/16"). One of the problems I faced in introducing this new material to a skeptical east coast market was the complete and utter perception of "aluminum" as a cheap, light-duty, inferior boatbuilding material. I decided to use this 2 word combination "Plate Alloy" here in the US to differentiate plate boats from sheet metal boats. No longer were we aluminum boats we were now plate alloy boats. Over time the market has pretty well accepted the phraseology but has mostly now reduced it to "Alloy" boats. Before doing this a Google search on alloy or plate boats only returned New Zealand or Australian hits - I'm proud that we've created this category's name! So here we sit some 12 year later. We've sold about 400 boats and continue to grow. The boats are a far, far, cry from those humble beginnings pictured above. A recent delivery had satellite TV! I'm proud that in creating Black Lab Marine and, with Dan, the boats, we have started something new and special. There was no east coast market (of any real size)for small welded aluminum (now plate alloy) boats. There were no "real" center console plate alloy boats. There are now hundreds of them. Finally, while its been rewarding starting something like this and seeing it grow and prosper the best part about this has nothing to do with boats, fish or metal. It's our customers. Almost without exception they are an amazing group of people. They come to shows, call, write, send pictures, visit. They are good boat owners and better friends. I appreciate all of you. So the answer to the question I asked myself all those years ago... "Why don't we have welded aluminum boats on the east coast?" We do.... Thank you, Jay Perrotta President Black Lab Marine, Inc. 72 Lafayette Street Yarmouth, Maine, USA 04096 Email: info@blacklabmarine.com Phone: 207-400-7404