Boston Whaler


Boston Whaler is an American boat manufacturer. It is a subsidiary of the Brunswick Boat Group, a division of the Brunswick Corporation. Boston Whalers were originally produced in Massachusetts, hence the name, but today are manufactured in Edgewater, Florida.

History

Richard "Dick" Fisher graduated from Harvard University in 1936. He ran a company building small, lightweight boats out of balsa wood. He designed a rowboat and got the materials to build it, but he never completed it.
In the 1950s, polyurethane foam, a stiff, lightweight, buoyant material, was invented. Fisher imagined it as a replacement for the lightweight balsa used in small boat construction, and in 1954 he constructed a small sailing dinghy filled with the foam, with a design similar to the Sunfish. He showed the finished product to his friend, naval architect C. Raymond Hunt. Hunt recognized potential in the process, however he did not feel the design was particularly suited to sailboats. Instead, he created a design based on the Hickman Sea Sled featuring a cathedral hull.
Fisher built a prototype out of Styrofoam and Epoxy. "It had two keels," said Fisher, "one inverted V between the runners and an anti-skid, anti-trip chine." Fisher tested the boat all that summer and thought it was “the greatest thing ever”. That fall, Fisher started running the boat in rough weather, and found that the hull displayed issues with handling and cavitation. Under heavy load, and off-plane, the cavity in the middle of the hull forced air into the water, and then back into the prop. Fisher approached Hickman, the original designer of the wooden Sea Sled for a solution. However, Hickman thought his design needed no modifications. Fisher contemplated putting "some stuff on the bottom to move that airy water out of there." He used a method of trial and error, laying fiberglass on the bottom of the hull in the morning and running the boat behind his house when the glass cured. If the design did not work, he would bring it back to his house and start over.
This prototype boat began to have a slight V bottom and the two runners on the sides. Fisher then approached Hunt to examine the design changes. Hunt added his own design changes to the prototype; most notably, a third runner in the center of the hull. Fisher then built a prototype based on this new design to serve as a plug for the production mold.
Fisher and Hunt then took the boat on sea trials. One of these tests was to run the boat from Cohasset, Massachusetts to New Bedford and back, which is roughly. During these sea trials, Fisher found another small flaw in the boats design: it was "wetter than hell." "A lot wetter," he said, "than the other boat had been." The reason for this, according to him, was the sole throwing spray into the boat. Since the mold was already made, it was modified by adding to the flat center between the three chines, turning it into a V-shape. In 1956, this design became the original Boston Whaler 13.
In 1958, boats made by the Fisher-Pierce manufacturing company were first marketed and sold under the brand name Boston Whaler. The boat was very stable and had great carrying capacity. These two features, along with great performance and rough weather handling made it very desirable. Also since the Whaler was so light in weight compared to the other boats at the time, it could be propelled by lower horsepower engines. Thru the late 1980s, the classic Whaler, and the Montauk were the most popular models in terms of sales. Gradually though the company moved away from these designs to a more conventional deep-vee hull, and after 1996 no more of the classic tri-hull boats were manufactured.
In 1969 the Boston Whaler boat operation of Fisher-Pierce was sold to the CML Group, whose portfolio would eventually include brands such as NordicTrack and The Nature Company. In 1989, amidst financial problems, the CML Group sold Boston Whaler to the Reebok Corporation, where, despite several advertising campaigns and new hull designs, it did relatively poorly, and was sold to Meridian Sports in 1994. Two years later in 1996 Brunswick Corporation purchased Boston Whaler for $27.4 million in cash and debt.

Users

While Boston Whalers are primarily seen as recreational boats, Brunswick Boats maintains a commercial division that sells Boston Whalers to coast guard and naval units worldwide. Boston Whalers were used in the Vietnam War by both the Navy SEALs and the United States Coast Guard in rescue and river patrol missions. "The unique Boston Whaler boat has attracted an intensely loyal group of owners and fans." Active discussion forums on the web attest to the broad allegiance to the brand. It is used for sport fishing, water skiing, as a runabout, and as a tender on larger yachts. The Bolivian Naval Force has 32 Boston Whalers in their fleet.

Current models

Current production models range in length from 11.3 to 42.5 feet. Brunswick also owns Mercury Marine; as a result, new Boston Whalers, like all other Brunswick boats, ship from the factory already equipped with Mercury engines. Models include:
NameLengthLayoutMin HPMax HP
2Tender1 Skiff515
1Sport1 Skiff525
3Super Sport1 Skiff2540
3Super Sport1 Skiff7590
4MontaukCenter Console4060
4MontaukCenter Console90115
4MontaukCenter Console115150
Montauk21.3 feet Center Console150200
Dauntless17 feet Center Console90115
5DauntlessCenter Console135150
5DauntlessCenter Console150200
5DauntlessCenter Console250350
Dauntless27.8 feet Center Console350600
6OutrageCenter Console115200
6OutrageCenter Console250350
6OutrageCenter Console350450
6OutrageCenter Console500800
6OutrageCenter Console500800
6OutrageCenter Console7501,200
6OutrageCuddy Cabin9001,600
6OutrageCuddy Cabin1,2001,675
Vantage23 feet Center Console250350
Vantage28 feet Center Console400600
Vantage33.5 feet Cuddy Cabin500800
7ConquestCuddy Cabin450500
7ConquestCuddy Cabin600800
7Conquest3 Cuddy Cabin7501,200
7ConquestCuddy Cabin1,2001,600
7RealmCuddy Cabin7501,200
7Realm3 Cuddy Cabin1,2001,600

Advertising and unsinkability claim

Boston Whaler has, for many years, sawn boats in half to illustrate their durability, performance, smooth ride and "unsinkability". The original 1961 Life magazine ad pictured Dick Fisher sitting in a floating Whaler with a crosscut saw halfway through the hull. After the cut was completed, Fisher used the stern section to tow the bow section back to shore. Modern Whaler advertising uses a chain saw. Due to the foam core construction, the Whaler will remain afloat when sawed completely in half. Boston Whaler boats also remain afloat when completely swamped. Because of these attributes, Boston Whaler's trademarked sales line is "the unsinkable legend."
Today, this "unsinkable" attribute is not exclusive to Boston Whalers. All motorboats under, manufactured for sale in the United States are required by law to have positive flotation, such that a completely swamped boat will still float. This is accomplished through the use of closed cell foam, or other non-permeable material. Boston Whaler, however, does claim to exceed the Coast Guard requirements.
, North Carolina