Visit any yacht club in southern Ontario and you'll see fleets of Canadian-built boats. There are sailboats made by C&C, one of the most famous names in fast cruisers, CS and Hinterhoeller. They have one thing in common: All are old and somewhat tarnished. That's because none has been in production for more than a decade.
Canada used to be a boat-building leader. C&C alone made more than 7,000 yachts in the 1970s and 1980s, making it one of the biggest makers of quality sailboats on the planet. Most went bankrupt or simply faded away in the 1990s, the result of mismanagement, high costs, shifting consumer taste and foreign competition. Today, the market is dominated by French and American names such as Beneteau, Jeanneau and Hunter.
It's highly unlikely Canada will regain its boat-building status. But one company, privately held PDQ Yachts of Whitby, Ont., is making a splash in a niche market that is getting more popular by the year.
PDQ makes only catamarans -- twin-hulled boats that are generally lighter, faster and far more spacious than their monohull counterparts.
The company makes catamarans in both sail and motorboat versions. The diesel-engine PDQ 34 Powercat (the number refers to the length in feet) is proving such a hit with wealthy Americans that the company is building a new factory in North Carolina.
"We want to double the size of the company in two years," says PDQ president Simon Slater, 44. "We have to build where we can deliver year round and we can't do that in Canada."
PDQ -- acronym for pretty damned quick -- is hitting the market at a time when boaters' tastes are starting to shift away from heavy monohulls to lighter, faster boats, much in the same way SUVS are being traded for sedans.
In the 1980s and into the early 1990s, catamarans were fast, funky boats sailed by daring people who didn't fit in with the Polo-clad yachting crowd. Now catamarans are becoming common. Caribbean charter fleets are suddenly stuffed with them; the larger versions are the nautical equivalent of two Winnebagos connected by a tennis court.
PDQ is not going after the mass market for cruising catamarans. Its sailing "cats," as they're called, are luxury offerings aimed at ocean-going boaters who want to pampered as they tack through the teeth of a gale.
The 44-foot Antares cat costs $665,000 (U.S.). It comes with Corian or stainless-steel countertops in the galley (kitchen to landlubbers), cherry-wood panelling, washer-dryer, trash compactor, satellite-Internet connection Optional , queen-sized beds, halogen lighting, flat-panel TV, stand-up shower, air-conditioning, solar panels and dozens of other features that would have been unthinkable in the Spartan, last-generation cats.
"Boating is no longer an adventure sport," Mr. Slater says. "It's now competition for luxury condos and resorts."
For its part, the Powercat, whose price starts at $276,000 (U.S.) and can rise to about $340,000 with certain luxury options, seeks to create an entirely new market.
Most powerboats of that size are monohulls. Because the Powercat has two hulls, it is both roomier and more fuel efficient than the so-called express cruisers, which use extremely high-powered engines to lift the hull over the water, as opposed to through the water, so it can move quickly.
The Powercat goes half way. It skims through the top two feet of the water and can attain relatively high speeds -- 15 knots or so -- with relatively low-powered twin engines of 75- to 100-horsepower.
The big express cruisers, though faster, can guzzle $500 (U.S.) of fuel a day. The Powercat might use a third of that amount.
The Slater family has been messing around with boats since the late 1960s, when they built cats as a hobby and sailed them from Toronto Island Marina. "We built boats because we couldn't afford to buy them," Mr. Slater says.
