In The Beginning

The adventure started when I retired from my airline job in 1996.  The house was too big for the two of us and so we sold and moved aboard our Krogen Manatee. Originally it was supposed to be for the summer but we really enjoyed the live-a-board life and 5 years later we were still on the boat. One day Teddi finally announced that we needed more space. Her choices were a house and the boat, a condo, and the boat, or a bigger boat. The choice for me was easy “a bigger boat”. But Teddi had her requirements; a kitchen, not a galley, a full-sized bathtub, a full-sized washer/dryer, a king-sized bed, and a fireplace. These were the things that she missed from our house. We joke that my requirements were minimal, a helicopter pad and a good fishing dinghy. So in the year 2000, we headed to the Miami boat show to find our dream boat.

The show was fun but it was hot that year and we did not see a boat that met our requirements. Teddi commented that the new boats looked like bars of soap – white on the outside and cream on the inside. But just as we were about to leave Jay Benford mentioned that the new 60’ Florida Bay Coaster had just arrived from the yard in Guatemala and that he could take us to a nearby marina for a look.  Teddi admitted later that she mostly agreed to go so that we could get out of the Miami heat and the crowds at the show. The visit went well and to my surprise, Teddi fell in love with the Coaster concept.  Her comment was that she gets a house and I get a boat.  But this new boat’s floor plan was not quite what we wanted so we decided to design and build our own boat.  Jay was commissioned to start design work and the process began.

After several months of collaboration with Jay, we finished the preliminary design for our dream boat.  Now the hunt for a builder began.  We sent our plans to several well-known steel boat builders in the US and they all said they would love to build our boat but that they were booked up for several years – same for the Canadian yards.  Jay had mentioned that an English client was having a boat built in New Zealand and that the quality of the work was superb.  The timing was fortuitous since we had planned to be in Australia on vacation so we extended the vacation by a few days and met with the people at Johnson Yachts.  We liked what we saw and as a bonus, a marine architect and former associate of Jay Benford named David de Villiers had set up shop outside of Auckland and agreed to take our preliminary plans and develop the working drawings. This arrangement worked well as Jay and David were able to consult and coordinate the design details throughout the entire project. So a contract was signed with Johnson Yachts and the journey began.  New Zealand is a small country and chandlery is less available than in the US so Teddi and I bought most of the boat’s components in the US and shipped them to New Zealand in two 40’ containers.  In addition to the marine gear we also shipped a hot tub, a two-ton crane, and a VW Golf so that the lifting system could be built and tested on-site.

The relationship with the builder became a collaboration between Johnson Yachts and my company Bay Point Marine. The end product speaks volumes as to the incredible workmanship available in New Zealand. We extend our most heartfelt thanks to all of the great shipwrights who worked tirelessly to construct the boat. We launched on October 31, 2006, and christened the boat Teddi Bear in honor of my wife who agreed to move to New Zealand and worked for over 3 years on the project.  She designed almost the entire interior and worked endlessly with our staff.   For our Halloween launch Teddi dressed as Glinda the good witch of the North.  You will recall that Glinda showed up at the end of the Wizard of Oz, made everything right, and everyone got to go home.  The boat was shipped to British Columbia on Dockwise Transport where we completed the commissioning in early 2007.