Boating 1972 - Quality Control, part 1
text excerpted from article -
EXCERPTED FROM AN ARTICLE IN
Boating Magazine
SEPTEMBER 1972
Meeting the Crisis In Quality Control
PART ONE
As pressure increases, good builders use different methods to solve one one of the boating industry’s most pressing problems.
BY MOULTON H. FARNHAM
AQUASPORT, inc. Hialeah. Fla. In presenting the seven boat builders covered in this report. it is appropriate that Aquasport should come first, both on alphabetical and logical grounds - alphabetically for obvious reasons and logically because at Aquasport, quality control is under the direct supervision of the president, Roger S. Smith, a veteran boat owner and operator. And you can take it as gospel that in any company where the president is not personally dedicated to quality, the boats shipped out of that plant will not be apt to win friends for the sport. Mr. Smith, as you will see is so dedicated.
Aquasport’s present owners bought the company from owner and co-founder Fred Coburn in 1969 because of its dynamic growth, which was based on a reputation for building 2quality fibreglass boats. When Coburn had built the first Aquasports in 1964, under the firm name of Coburn & Sargent, with his naval architect partner Lennox Sargent (whom he shortly bought out) his basic premise had been to build a good boat – one that he himself, an experienced boatman, wouldn’t hesitate to take to sea. C&S’s 22-foot Aquasport, an outboard-powered, open fishing boat, was an immediate success. In 1968, Coburn added a 19-footer, and in 1970 Walt Walters was chosen to design a 17-foot Aquasport. Walters, well-known for his offshore racing boats, came up with a model that gave the owner many options in its arrangements. It was an instant hit – the company had to run to keep up..
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