COVER STORY
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TCBusiness.com
Some of the yachts that will come to Fort
Pierce could fit into a James Bond movie.
Beard said Derecktor Fort Pierce will
have about 30 to 40 full-time workers by
May 2022 and perhaps as many as 150 in
five years. Even more will be subcontractor
tradespeople and craftspeople working on
the yachts. Derecktor will seek to expand
its network of subcontractors to include
those from the Treasure Coast.
Derecktor will be able to host eight big
boats at the shipyard at a time, but Beard
explained that work will begin slowly and
there will be fewer jobs in initial months.
Once the shipyard can handle eight boats,
there will be up to 280 people working on
them, in addition to Derecktor’s workers,
Beard said.
CONTENDER ON THE WAY
Contender is a high-end boat maker of
center-console fishing crafts. In late January,
it closed a deal for land and a former
packing house off Midway Road near I-95
and Florida’s Turnpike, according to a news
release from the Realtor handling the sale,
SLC Commercial.
Work is underway to convert the
34-year-old former Packers of Indian River
building into a factory for the boats that
often sell for more than $1 million, even
on the used market. The company would
not comment on its plans to expand production
from its base in Homestead, but a
source familiar with Contender’s plans said
eventually 160 to 180 full-time workers will
be hired to work in the 98,067-square-foot
plant that is on 33 acres. The source did
not know when Contender would begin
building boats in St. Lucie County.
Beard of Derecktor Fort Pierce said
there is a strengthening synergy on
the Treasure Coast that “creates a Blue
Economy” for the area.
Dave East, who founded Eastward Boats
in Fort Pierce three years ago, explained
that “a crowd attracts a crowd,” meaning
that once a critical mass of marine manufacturers
is achieved it will foster more
expansion, including for suppliers and
other ancillary businesses.
The main attraction to the Treasure
Coast for boat builders, East said, is its
trained workforce, the way that engineers
and craftsmen who know cars are centered
around Detroit.
Eastward Boats, which makes catamaran
style hulled fishing boats using a design
that evolved for the rough waters off
Australia, is in an industrial area that has a
concentration of boat builders including
Maverick, Pursuit and Bluewater Sportfishing
Boats. It is not unusual, East said, for a
trained worker to work for two or three of
those companies within a few years.
“They can hop from company to company
to make an extra 50-cents-an-hour
and that’s why we have to treat them well.”
EARLY BEGINNINGS
The boating industry began along the
Treasure Coat about 100 years ago. According
to local boat builders, the first company
to make boats was started by Curt Whiticar,
who founded what is now a marine servicing
company called Whiticar Boat Works in
Stuart. Whiticar built his first fishing boat in
the 1920s and built a few more on what is
Jonathan Dickinson State Park in southern
Martin County. Whiticar moved to its present
location in Stuart in 1947.
East said that there were only a few boat
builders in the area, including Maverick, by
the 1990s when he came on the Treasure
Coast boat building scene. He pegs 2004
and 2005 as the time that the industry
greatly expanded in the region.
Today, the area is in the top three nationwide,
according to John-Michael Donahue,
vice president of public affairs for the >>
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