We Love May

The shrink wrap’s coming off. The guys in the boatyard that houses Atlantis World HQ are running flat out to catch up and get boats in. The Red Sox are hot and the Yankees are stumbling. Just another Spring in beautiful Marblehead.

And it is beautiful. The past week has been one spectacular day after another, and the marine industry is loving life. Here at Atlantis, we’ve had some pretty good days too. Last Thursday evening, we had an in-store launch of the AWG 2007 product line at Team One Newport, arguably THE authority on and source for technical sailing gear. The event was well-attended, both by customers and by the Newport maritime cognoscenti who never pay for their own gear. Mick Harvey and the IYAC folks provided some drink tickets, and the launch party moved across the street to continue the sailing stories that were already in progress.

Team One owner Martha Parker is a bundle of wired energy who accomplishes more in a day than three normal humans. She’s also a gear expert, and her vote of confidence was very important to us. Full disclosure: Martha and I have known each other for 20+ years and we’ve sailed a lot of miles together. That said, though, the bet she’s making on us goes far beyond the call of duty, and we truly appreciate that.

Our main idea behind our product strategy has been clear from the day we first purchased the AWG brand: great gear doesn’t have to look like crap. We’ve set out to design sailing gear that works better than anything else on the water, but also looks good enough to keep wearing once you’re ashore (if you don’t want to look like the Gloucester Fisherman). The idea that a performance sailing gear brand can make the leap from the micro-market of performance sailors to appeal to a broader audience is not new, but to-date, no one’s been able to do it right.

Enter Puma.

I’ve spent the past few months working with Ken Read to put together the Puma Racing entry in the 2008-2009 Volvo Ocean Race. On Friday, we held a press conference at the Boston Harbor Hotel to introduce the boat (something to see – see Sailing Anarchy for some great pics), and announce Boston as the sole US stopover for the race. We also spend a couple of hours ripping around the harbor in one of the coolest boats I’ve been on.

The VO70 is pure function – a tool built for getting around the planet as fast as possible – and it is something to behold up close. According to Jerry Kirby, veteran of a couple of these races, it is a level well beyond the kind of offshore racing most of us are used to. Every time the boat tacks, the crew spends 15 minutes shifting everything that’s not screwed down to the high side, and between that and a steady stream of sail changes, it’s possible to miss a couple of off-watches and end up staying awake for 20+ hours. The guys that do this are not sailors, they are highly-conditioned and trained professional athletes, and they earn everything they make.

What I find gratifying about Puma’s entry into the VOR is that someone besides us believes there’s a lifestyle opportunity here. Puma’s corporate strategy is to build the brand at the intersection of sport and lifestyle (they call it “sportlifestyle”), and they see enough of an opportunity in sailing, a sport with which they’ve never been involved in the past, to make it their main global marketing initiative for the next 2+ years. The Puma brand speaks to a younger audience than we do, but the fact that someone else believes that sailing gear can be cool is music to our ears here at AWG.

Finally, congratulations to fellow Marblehead sailor Jud Smith for winning his 6^th Etchells North American Championship (and 4^th in a row). Given the depth of talent in that class, this kind of domination is unprecedented, and to us, it couldn’t be wrought upon the class by a nicer, more genuinely down-to-earth guy. Way to go, Jud!