Sailing Anarchy Podcast #76. Alex Simanis

Yeah, you know what that means.

It's time for this.

You know, Lil' This, Lil' That.

It's got tempesta, that's me.

This is the sailing anarchy podcast.

Number 763.

For those of you keeping score at home.

Doing something a little different today.

And it's by popular demand, less me, more guest.

I understand why.

So, you know, the world of sailmaking is an interesting one.

Right.

To put it lightly.

I mean, those of us like me, been around forever.

You know, I actually worked in the industry for quite a while,

about 10 years.

And, you know, we've all seen as either, you know,

racers or owners or even sailmakers,

seen the changes that have happened to the industry,

primarily through technology.

I mean, I think the advent of the string sales,

which we used to call them back in the day,

led, you know, initially by, by Sobsdad and the Genesis sales,

and then completely fucked up by Peter Conrad

and then North had their, you know, 3DI stuff.

And they just simply did a better job than Sobsdad did

with certainly marketing the product.

And I think ultimately making a better product.

Although, I think the Genesis sales were better.

I know they were better.

They were just simply better.

I mean, they were, he was way ahead of the curve

on the whole idea and the construction.

And he even tried, you know, to really make some big strides

in building these things.

But it's just so difficult.

I mean, I can't tell you how many Genesis sales I would get

that would be like, okay, I think I already hear it

delaminating in the goddamn bag.

You know, it just was a hard time with glue

and all that kind of stuff.

And oh, my God.

So, but clearly, if you look at the landscape

of virtually any competitive sailmaker,

they all have levels of technology,

whether it's the stuff that they build, you know,

have manufactured out of the country,

whether it's the various cloth manufacturers

who have really stepped up their game

in order to compete with those type of sales.

And I think it's a fairly impressive array.

But one of the stories that I like the best

is when a local story, it's not local to me.

It's local to Pacific Northwest, you know,

Washington, Seattle sort of area.

There's a loft up there, Ballard Sales.

And a lot of you might not know who they are.

And you couldn't be faulted for that

if you're not in that area

or you don't pay a lot of attention outside of your world.

You might not know who they are.

Now, I do and I have, and I'll tell you why.

It's nothing, nothing that I don't know much

about their sales.

Here's what I know.

It's Alex Amanis, the guy who owns Ballard.

I think he's got a co-ownership.

He, whether he knows it or not,

and I think he does, because he's a super bright guy.

He has done such a great, low-key,

I don't even know if I want to use the word marketing.

Let's just say a presence online

where, you know, they have great success.

He's a good sailor.

He's got a neat little 27-footer

called Pell Mel that they race with great success.

And, you know, he's known, well known,

I should say, in the Pacific Northwest,

and his sales, Ballard Sales are as well.

And there, I can tell by the pictures

that they're nice sales.

And he just seems like a really good guy

who's done a good job, I think, through hard work,

through good product.

I think I would just guess I don't know.

I've never talked to anybody,

but I bet they render really good service.

And they look to me like a friendly group.

I think there may be six or seven,

or eight folks that work there.

And so I've always liked it.

In fact, I even, I don't even think I was drunk when I said it.

I said, on a Facebook post,

or a comment on something I said,

if I lived up there, I'd buy your sales.

I mean, and that's from a guy

who doesn't even know what their sales are like,

but I know they have to be good.

And, but I just, I've always liked his approach.

I've liked his vibe.

I think people, I know people tap into that.

You know, it's refreshing from a compare and contrast

to what some of the larger brands do

and how they promote themselves.

And what's interesting about the conversation today,

I'm about to have with Alex,

and one that you're about to enjoy,

is that he has joined forces

with one of the evil monsters out there

destroying the world of self-making.

And I say that just late hardly,

but I actually mean it.

Once you give a saline anarchy,

welcome to our guest, Alex Samanas.

Hey, buddy.

Hey, how's it going?

Thanks for having me on.

You're very welcome, man.

See, you're very popular.

So first of all, I want to tell you something.

You sound like you're 12 years old for God's sake.

Oh, yeah, 12, yeah.

I look at when I look at when I shave, too.

I look at it from 500 feet away.

So there you go.

That's great. How old are you, bro?

I just turned 40 in September.

Yeah, you can have a little bit.

I'm losing it now because I'm in an old man territory,

but I too had a younger sounding voice.

And it's nice to sound youthful,

even if reality dictates something else entirely.

So am I wrong in my,

am I wrong in my assessment of you guys?

You sort of how you present yourselves?

No, I don't think so at all.

I think to be honest,

so I have a business partner.

His name is Joe Griser.

And we started this business in January of 2010.

And to be 100% honest,

we both worked at the Halsey Lidgard loft here in Seattle.

And did sale making apprenticeships and went sailing a lot.

And went sailing and kind of came back and decided

that there was no real local loft in Seattle anymore

after the whole UK Halsey merger happened.

And that Lidgard kind of presence went away in our region.

And we basically just wanted to build sales for ourselves

and for our buddies on the weekends.

And we had a little loft.

And we got an order for Peterson 42 tuner here.

And it was like, oh boy, we got a bill.

We got to have a real floor.

So in the little building where we had our closet,

there was a small space out front here at Shoshal Marina

that we ended up taking over and put some plywood down

and built our first sale there.

And I'll tell you what,

it was like one of those things

where we thought we're gonna be building sales

for our buddies on the weekends.

And it turned into one of those weird things

where we just started building sales

and doing service work and all that stuff.

So it's always kind of,

it kind of grew out of nothing.

And all of a sudden,

we created jobs for ourselves.

Isn't that funny?

I mean, how these things end up going?

It's like, well crap,

I think we might have to do this full time.

I mean, we better build the loft.

I remember when back in the day,

when I got hired to be the big boat salesman

out of Mark Reynolds loft,

Mark I think had just about,

in fact, I think they were still like building the loft

a little bit,

still expanding their production

because he was hitting his stride with star sales.

You know, like no other.

I mean, they were so dominant.

The early sobstead.

And then the later the quantum sales.

But yeah, I just remember like,

wow, it's right.

You actually do have to build a space to build these things.

And Alex, was it daunting?

I mean, let's say, for example,

that the Peterson,

was a two-tonner.

When you got that order,

were you like, holy shit.

How are we gonna build this thing?

Like, what are we gonna do?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, just it took us,

you know, it was funny

because we both had done some sale making

and, you know, had done a lot of reek.

And I worked on a TP52 team

and did a lot of re-cuts and stuff.

And I remember getting this order

and being like, all right, let's stick this thing together.

And I remember like getting the whole sale joined

and realizing, oh, man,

we didn't sew the patches on before we joined the sale.

And it was just like,

we are, it took us hundreds of hours

to build that first sale, you know,

and just trying to figure out how we're gonna see it

and building troughs and our funky loft

and all that stuff to get it done.

But it came out and it, you know,

and ended up coming out really nice, you know?

It was super daunting.

We were just like, oh boy, here we go.

Is it safe to say you didn't make a penny off that sale?

I mean, probably not.

Well, you know, in labor even in labor dollars, no.

Right.

When you're doing something for yourself,

sometimes you do it to take a loss,

but you do it to put a penny

it back in the bank account, you know?

For sure.

Get your brand out there and, you know, all of that.

And so how have, how have you gone about

before we get into, you know,

you're the big news, how do you guys go about

building the brand?

I think both Joe and I and our team

that we've had over the years

have been really interested in sailing in Puget Sound

and whether it be cruising or racing, you know,

we do a fair amount of both.

And just digging into like our, you know,

Sluk Tavern Yacht Club is our like local

like on paper Yacht Club kind of a deal

and they run a lot of cool races.

And I think, you know, spending some sponsorship dollars

and serving on their boards

and, you know, just kind of building this like,

well, it's like every man's sport kind of deal

and trying to build our brand

through the small channels that we were so passionate

about growing up and sailing, you know,

these fun, small Puget Sound races and cruises

and really trying to focus on what we do here

and what we do well and not trying to like

overreach what we can do, you know?

Interesting.

And I think, and that's probably smart.

I think though that none of that works

unless you're building a good product

and how have you guys like, you know, just give,

I mean, the question would require an hour to answer

but just in terms of, you know, like sale technology

and, you know, now there are, you know,

the bigger brands have come and gone

and I think there's still a couple up there.

But, but how have you guys like, you know,

changed your product that you guys ultimately deliver?

You know, that's an interesting question.

You know, when we first started, you know,

we didn't really have any access

to any kind of string product

or not that we really knew of.

So, you know, we build a lot of tri-radial sales

and, you know, dealing with like,

dimension, polyant and contender

and they make really nice sale cloth

and, you know, executing a paneled sale

on a high level is something that we've always been

very good at doing.

And I think in the Pacific Northwest,

you know, it might be changing now

but there's not a lot of, I think people are more interested

in just a product that's gonna be good in last

versus like the hype of say, you know,

you know, whatever fusion product

or a stratus product or a 3D eye product, you know?

And I think we're lucky in our region

to be able to build a name using very little,

like old school technology, you know,

good designs, good cloth and getting them cut

and sticking them together.

And I think as our, as we started going,

you know, there's more options of like string product,

you know, DP had their D4 product

that they bought from Doyle

and they were, you know, executing small boat,

you know, membrane sales we could order

through the East Coast and they had a year up,

you know, things so we did some D4 sales

and, you know, they were good, bad otherwise,

you know, some of them were quite good

and then, you know, there's this whole dirt tech thing

that, you know, quantum, the device, you know,

thing they started and that's where quantum

has all their sales made.

And they have a really nice stringing facility

that we've used, you know, we can buy from them

and they sell to white label guys like us.

And so over the years, we've used them

and there's another stringing facility

and it'll be called Power Plast

and they sell to a lot of independent guys like us.

So, you know, I think over the years,

we've kind of expanded like, oh, well, I think panel,

you know, a string sales are nice to be able to do

and they look nice and they're, in the end,

they're quite quick to assemble

because they're, you know, six panels

instead of 40 panels and say like a J29 Geno or something.

Yeah.

And, you know, we are original sale designers,

names Doug Christie, he worked the Halsey Libgard loft

and he passed away about 10 or 12 years ago

and we ended up working with a guy named John Fries

that I knew through the Libgard,

to the Libgard thing.

And he does all of our sale designs

and the guy done America's Cup sales

and all kinds of stuff.

And he's kind of a string expert, you know,

and he's built a lot of these big boat string sales,

you know, for lots of different brands including his own.

And so having him in our corners

really helped us kind of gain footing

in some of the really high end stringing products, you know?

He's a good dude, I only know him through Facebook

but, you know, you can tell a lot about a person,

you're just by, you know, just by what they type in.

And I've always liked him.

And so that's really good news for you guys.

Is it, is it when you get,

so I know that tri-radial sales can be so bitching.

And, you know, once they started to get perfected,

you know, tri-radials were just the shit

there was no other really way that you would want to go.

But now that there are these other options,

do you, when you have a customer come in,

I mean, it's obviously incumbent upon you to sort of

size them up and see what it is that they want.

Yeah.

Do you find that people go, yeah, yeah, I like the tri-radials

but tell me more about the stuff that's the same

as the North stuff, you know what I mean?

Or like tell me more about that kind of stuff.

Do you tend to push them one direction or another?

Is it become down to a price point?

Like are you able to manufacture at your loft,

tri-radial sales for less than a string sale?

You know, it's sometimes, sometimes you are.

And I think there's a, like, I guess,

going back to the first question about pushing

somewhere, some customer one way or the other,

is you know, I think when somebody comes to the door

or calls us on the phone, they, you know,

you have to ask all the pertinent questions.

Like, what, what kind of sailing are you doing?

Are you cruising or you're racing?

And, you know, if you're racing and you're banging around

on Wednesday nights and you want to sale,

that's going to last, you know, five to eight years

and there's not going to be any question marks, you know,

I kind of immediately shoot them down a tri-radial

or even like a cross-cut, you know,

roll good type product because, you know,

all these roll goods are so good that, you know,

we don't just, you just don't see delamination issues

if you build the sale correctly, you know,

where some of these high tier string products, you know,

they have also gotten very good.

You know, you talk about, you know,

the genesis sales back in the day.

And I remember them having flies laminated into them

and all kinds of stuff, you know?

You just go, you don't see that, you know,

I don't really see a lot of failures anymore,

but just the lamination process, you know,

I think the radial sales are probably laminated more reliably.

But, you know, as you get into these bigger boats

where say like, you know, you have a swan 45

or a, you know, far 40 or something like that,

it starts to make a lot of sense from both production side

and the customer side where a string sale makes more sense

because you have bat and pockets

that are strung internally, patches are strung internally

and then if you're actually assembling the sale

on your own floor, you know,

you can have the sale on the floor for less time.

Where the blank may cost more money essentially to us,

the end product to the customer might be the same

or a little bit less than a radial sale

because there's a lot of labor that goes

in a radial sale.

Yeah, for sure there is.

It's interesting, you know, that you talked about consistency.

Like the inconsistencies with those effing genesis sales

was just ridiculous.

And I remember I was, we built,

we're building all the sales for a,

it's called Love Machine LM5, the Peterson 41,

old IWR, really great boat, super fast lighter boat.

This is sort of back in the, sort of the end of the IWR days

but the boat was just a rocket.

And I remember I ordered a light one

and it came, it was so goddamn heavy.

It was probably the weight of two light number ones.

I mean, it was, and you know, there was no recourse.

I mean, I called them up and I called Conrad,

I go, dude, this thing is so fucking heavy.

We just waited and it's like, Jesus Christ, I can't,

he's like, that's the way it is, that's the way,

and it's like, okay, great.

So then I had to like go in there and go,

listen, it's a little heavy, but you know,

it's gonna be better.

Yes, yes.

And you know, it wasn't, but you know,

we sailed the boat really well and the boat

was inherently fast, but yes,

I think the consistency of the product

it had to get markedly improved or it wouldn't have,

nobody would have been able to make it fly.

I don't care if it was North or whomever,

you wouldn't have made it go

if you just couldn't turn out a better product,

especially at the prices being asked,

and certainly in the bigger boat range.

Let's get to the real news of the day

and that really is that you are now,

you've gone from ballered sales and whatever else

you guys are, I think it's sales and drinking,

I think was your original title.

Yeah, yeah.

You guys are now Doyle Seattle.

Yes, we are, we made that announcement,

I think officially on March 1st that by our business,

we are still, you know, ballered sales, LLC,

and DBA, you know, doing business as Doyle sales.

So, you know, the nuts and bolts

is that like our day-to-day operations

really don't change much.

Like, I don't have to, you know,

I'm not having to deal with New Zealand directly

and all that stuff, you know,

they've been a huge help in getting us set up

and they have a lot of channels for information,

all that stuff, but you know, the reality is,

that I believe that Doyle really believes

that like having sale-offs that know how to build sales

is valuable to them, you know,

and having them around the world.

So, and I do, I believe that, I think they're good.

And we, you know, we made this decision not, you know,

they've approached us a few times,

including quantum's approaches in North and, you know,

at some point kind of go down this road of looking at

what's happening in the sale-making world with NTG

buying, you know, these three brands

and then, you know, dimension-polyent

and content are getting bought by the same

parent company in Europe.

And, you know, you can just kind of feel

that like things are kind of mixing

and they're kind of condensing down.

And, you know, with having to work

for another long period of time,

I was hoping to stay in the industry

and not, and we're strong right now, you know,

so we can, we have some good leverage, you know.

Yeah, that's, that's really good.

And you stole my question.

I was gonna ask if other, other, you know,

sale-making companies had gotten attached with you.

And I knew the answer was going to be yes,

but, and I think what I took away from you're like,

you made it very clear that, you know,

you won't still own it.

In other words, we don't answer to them.

Like, we don't have to like, you know,

if they had bought you, then, you know, there you are.

Indeed, effectively, your bosses,

but I think it's important that you guys,

and I'm sure you feel this way.

I know I'm speaking for you, but I know I'm right.

You need to maintain your independence

and, you know, the direction of the law,

but having the weight and I dare I say might of oil.

I mean, honest to God, who would have ever really thought

that oil, oil would come out of nowhere to,

and I know it's not really nowhere,

but to raise their, their game and their presence

and their market share across the board.

I mean, whether it's K-R, you know, sailing stars

or, you know, some of the biggest maxis and super yachts

out there and a lot in between,

who would have ever thought that oil would be the one

to get in there?

And I mean, I'm sure North hates oil

in every way possible, just because of,

they've taken that ton.

I mean, those areas, not so much stars,

they've taken those areas and really,

I mean, I don't know the percentages

of what they've taken market share-wise,

but it's gotta be a big giant bite out of North's ass.

And it is impressive.

I mean, there's no denying,

just simply looking at the sales and looking at the boats

with them, how far they've come

and the product that they make clearly is good.

I mean, you wouldn't have done this

unless you felt comfortable that, you know,

anything you're gonna get from them,

and I don't know how you're gonna quite work that out.

I assume it's mostly big boat sales,

but you wouldn't have done this unless you had total confidence

in their ability to turn out a really, really good product.

Yeah, and I think I'm of the mind that like you can build,

let's say, like, you know, build a sale

out of the greatest fabric in the world,

like whether, you know, 3DIs,

the greatest fabric in the world, I don't know

for certain applications I think it is,

or oil, stratus, or quantum fusion,

or, you know, whatever these top-tier products are,

you can build out of the greatest thing.

But if the design and the execution are not correct,

you're gonna have an awful sale.

And I believe that, you know, and what I've seen in this,

and I'm not trying to be a bullshit artist, like,

you know, I get to, you know, I know our product is good,

but when you're got sailing on people's boats

that have a oil sale or whatever,

you really notice that they're, you know,

at their top-tier product, like how well

and how thought out their processes are,

and they have a very deep, you know, design side of oil,

all many of the very good designers

are out there designing for oil.

And, you know, and having John Fries, our designer,

and still being able to utilize him is very good.

And I want to keep using him

and I think he will be an asset as well.

But, you know, if there's say like a J70 sale,

I can buy a sale from Judd and like sell it out the door

and they know how to make him go.

And I'm not sitting here trying to develop

a J70 sale with the zero support.

So I think, you know, it's too tiered.

If we get a big super yacht or something,

they become through, we can execute it,

or write down a J70s, which we have 30 J70s,

erase every Wednesday night here.

Wow, you know, it's, it's, it seemed like an opportune time

to make, to make this move for us.

And listen, leave the bullshit artist to me, okay?

I mean, you're, but, but, you know,

and I've never really actually,

I mean, I don't really do much sailing anymore,

but I'm not sailed with them,

but I know that they look good and they are good.

And so, let me ask you a question.

So would it be a conflict?

So let's say you got a, whatever, some bitch in 50 footer,

and you got the order.

And would Doyle go, no, we know, we like John,

but we want to do it.

We want our design in the sale.

Is that something that is a potential conflict for you?

You know, I think they're pretty open.

I'm still feeling it all out,

and I don't want to get in trouble for anything I say.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, too late.

You know, you know, well, you know,

read between the lines, right?

But, but I, I think in my initial dealings

with the heads of the group that I've had to deal with so far,

they've been very accommodating to, like, safe,

especially if like we have sales,

we have a 40 footer, we're just going to do a main sale for.

And I have like an existing catalog for, you know,

this is going to be main number three, you know?

And I want to do a Doyle Stratus product.

So I feel very calm, like, very adamant that, you know,

we use the same designer, and we can go forward.

And, you know, they're willing to work with us

in certain things with, you know,

maybe there'll be some of their string layout

or whatever, but I want the shape to be our sale

and like an iteration of last main,

rather than starting over?

Yeah, I know that makes perfect sense.

So what was it about,

so you said Doyle had approached you before?

What was it about their approach

and this time that made you sign on the dotted line?

Well, it's funny, they reached out to us.

It was very odd, Scott.

We had kind of like a quantum reach out, you know,

and they chatted with us and we chatted them for a while.

And then we had a North reach out

because the local North guy here retired

and they were looking for somebody to fill that spot.

And then the Doyle guys reached out to us

and we're kind of like, well, this didn't really make a lot of sense.

We're kind of fiercely local and fiercely independent.

They reached out to us again.

I said, well, what changed and nothing really changed?

And then honestly, we reached out to them this time.

I was driving to California thinking about, you know,

how all these changes in the industry are happening.

And it's like, you know, it might be good

to just like with some leverage right now, join up and see how it goes

and kind of just give ourselves some more market share, hopefully.

And we actually reached out to them this time

and it seemed like it all turned over quite quickly

from the time that we sent the email to the time

where we were officially, Doyle Loth was maybe about three weeks.

Wow, that's interesting.

And so what was it about quantum that didn't get you to jump?

I mean, there's a lot that's pretty attractive there.

But a lot, right?

Lots, lots.

And I'm sorry to speak over you.

I didn't mean to do that.

I just, I do think that quantum is very attractive in a lot of ways.

And I will say like we have built,

while we do build a lot of sales here,

we have a lot of sales built in Dirtack,

their facility in Sri Lanka.

And we've been building sales there for probably 10 or 15 years,

10 or 12 years now.

Wow.

And so they know because, you know, of what we're doing

that, you know, we do a fairly high volume

of racing and cruising sales.

And, you know, we chatter with those guys.

And I think what it kind of came down to, Scott,

is that, you know, their model is not allowing us to build sales,

which I totally agree with.

And, you know, everybody in our shop,

we've got seven of us.

We all own our own boats.

And it's pretty important that, you know,

I think we all will be able to build sales for our boats

and be able to do it because let's face it,

like, a, sales are not getting cheaper.

And b, working a sale off is not going to make a millionaire.

So you might as well be able to build sales for your boats.

And that's kind of part of the benefits package around here,

you know, and I think being able to move,

and North was the same way.

It was just, you know, they have their channels

and the way they do things.

And, you know, it just was not super attractive to us, you know?

That's interesting.

I would, you know, I mean, I guess it's not that,

you know, surprising that North

wouldn't have that much flexibility.

But I would have thought maybe Quantum would have.

And I know they're under the same umbrella,

but it sure seems like, you know,

if that was a sticking point,

then it would have been an easy one to overcome.

I'm shocked because they know you guys make a good product

if it's got a quad label slapped on it.

And it's made in your loft, oh, so why?

I mean, so it's a good sale.

I mean, at the end of the day, it ultimately doesn't,

I mean, it matters to guys like me and a lot of other people.

What label?

We all choose a brand, whether it's cards,

clothes, sunglasses, sales, right?

We all do.

So we do like that logo on that logo

that we like on the thing that we're buying.

But at the end of the day, it's going to be,

you're not going to turn out a crappy product.

And so, you know, I'm surprised.

I don't know.

Sometimes companies and individuals

or whomever can't look beyond, you know,

this the immediate thing.

Go, how about we let them do what they've been doing it?

But, you know, we'll still, you know what I mean?

I'm surprised they didn't give you that.

But hey, they didn't, Doyle did.

And, you know, it's not like, well, we chose Doyle

because we couldn't do that.

No, you chose Doyle because I mean, fuck.

Listen, just some people at Doyle, I cannot stand,

but they make a great product.

I mean, there's just no other way around it.

And if they didn't, this would,

their rocket flight to the top

would have been an equal rocket crash to the ground

if they didn't.

And they do agree, right?

I agree.

So I agree, 100%.

Yeah.

So they're clearly, you know, in it.

And more than just in it, I mean, they're a big player.

And now, yo, buddy, you a big player too.

We're trying, you know, I mean, I don't have any ambitions

of taking over the world, but I just,

we have a nice little slice up here.

And I think it'll be pretty nice to have

a little bit of support on some projects where, you know,

we didn't really have a lot of support before.

I think it'll, it'll be pretty nice for us.

No, I mean, I, I think it does.

It clearly opens up some avenues

that maybe you guys couldn't compete in.

And, but now you can, I mean, how there's absolutely no excuse.

What do you got?

You got a, you got a snipe or you got 124?

Which one you got?

Like, we could help you anywhere along the line here.

And that's, that's got to be for you as a guy selling sales

and running a loft and a business.

That's got to be, that's got to take a lot of pressure off.

Yeah, it does.

I mean, even just the other day, we had like, you know,

we stopped making stack packs and doing, you know, stuff like that

because we didn't have a good way of doing them.

And then all of a sudden, I have a four stack bag request

to do for, for some customer, for customers all over the place.

And then I just emailed the group.

And I'm like, who's making the best stack bags?

And how do I measure for them?

And I get like four emails, like, talk to this guy,

talk to that guy, you know, whatever it is.

And you're like, oh, I got an answer in 20 minutes

instead of like having to deal with how to do it

and on my own and spending three days to figure something out.

Right, right.

Yeah, no, that, that's awesome.

Well, listen, dude, I, I'm impressed.

You're exactly who I thought you would be.

And it's clear why you're popular up there

and why you guys have such a good wrap.

And I want to thank you for joining us today.

Anything, let me ask you a question.

Anything on the horizon for you in terms of like new projects,

new, something new and exciting coming along?

Well, we're getting ready.

So I've got some friends of ours, the Bata Santa Cruz 52.

It's the old Rosebud.

And it's owned by a bunch of 505 sailors,

Mike Holti and Bruce Edwards and Blaine Pedlow

and a bunch of people.

And so there's a big, there's a whole story

in the Rosebud as well.

And you should actually do a story on this boat as well.

But they're getting ready to do Transpac in 27.

We're getting ready to do some sales.

We're going to do the ORC North Americans in San Francisco

at Big Boat series.

So we're getting ready to do some sales for that

and some other rigging bits.

And then get ready to call off

to our Race Week in Transpac next year.

So getting that boat geared up to go

across the Pacific with some, with some fun people.

I'm really looking forward to it.

Oh, that's bitching, you know, just as a quick aside

because I always have to tout my, my success.

I think my last big order when I was at

Sobstead was Santa Cruz 52 called Pressure Cooker.

We went up and say demo the stock boat.

And I told the owner, I go, listen,

we gotta go up like six feet on the rig.

This thing's a dog in light air.

So we built a, back when I'm 100 used to make spars,

built a big giant tall carburet.

And the goddamn thing was a rocket.

I mean, it was such a great boat to sail.

Really just a fabulous thing.

And is this boat a standard or tall rig?

It's standard, but it's one of the ones.

It's got the, it's got like very little interior in it.

It doesn't have the aft head and stuff.

So it's got pipe bursts and stuff,

but it's a really solid boat and a good group

and we're really looking forward to it.

I mean, and the other thing that we're really stoked about

is we're my partner and I and we have a more 24

that we keep in San Francisco.

And this is the 50th anniversary of the more 24 nationals.

They're going to be in Santa Cruz in September.

So we're going to get in geared up for that

doing the whole Roadmaster series

and keep the more 24 thing going.

They're slated to have maybe 50 to 60 boats

in Santa Cruz for the more 24 nationals,

which would be very, very cool to see that.

God, that would be a good time up there, man.

Wow, I should just come and hang out.

I'll hit you up off the arrow.

I'll hit you up, I'll send you an email,

get some info on the Rosebud thing

because that sounds like a really fun project.

And you know, you point me in the direction

of somebody to talk to about that.

But yeah, that's cool, dude.

I appreciate it.

Alex, thanks so much for your time.

Oh, Scott, thank you.

You're, of course, you're a good dude

and I wish you the best going forward.

All right, well, thank you so much.

And we'll look forward to more content.

It's always always fun to listen to you guys.

I appreciate it.

Thanks, my friend.

Thanks.

Take care, buddy.

Yeah, yes, sir.

Sorry, I couldn't resist that.

Alex the Manus, Ballard slash Doyle.

But now they're, you know, they're officially

Doyle's the Alex.

There.

Isn't that cool?

I mean, I didn't, I never talked to Alex before.

Never.

First time I talked to him was two minutes

before the show started.

But I just knew that the guy was interesting.

I just tell him.

And I hope you found it that way.

I did for sailing in our key.

I'm just got tempester.

Stay up.