Cam is a visionary entrepreneur who has made a significant impact in both the craft brewing and boating industries. As the co-founder and former CEO of Steam Whistle Brewing, he led the company to become one of the most successful and profitable craft breweries in Canada, despite fierce competition from larger breweries. Cam’s innovations include establishing an eco-friendly manufacturing facility, which earned Steam Whistle recognition as Canada’s Greenest Brewery, and leading industry and government relations initiatives that resulted in numerous milestone policy changes. His strategic planning and brand positioning skills earned him an Entrepreneur of the Year award, and Steam Whistle was recognized as one of Canada’s Top Employers.
In 2010, Cam turned his passion for performance boating into the innovative company Carbon Marine, where he pioneered the use of advanced carbon fiber laminates in the marine industry. He also co-owns the legendary Pantera Boats brand. His current venture, Voltari Marine Electric Inc, is a company that he co-founded, with the vision of eliminating pollution from the world’s waterways while providing the most electrifying boating experience. Cam’s leadership and entrepreneurial spirit, paired with his educational background, with a BA in Business and Philosophy, and a graduate of Ivey Academy’s Quantum Shift entrepreneurship program, has led him to be a powerful force in shaping these industries. His vision is to make a positive impact on the world and bring about a cleaner and more exciting way of enjoying the water.
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Transcript —
Farah [00:00:09] Hello and welcome to the Ship Shape Podcast, a series of podcasts where we meet amazing people and talk about their experiences, personal, technical and all related to the maritime world. Come and dive in. Dive in, Dive in.
Georgia [00:00:43] This week on the Shipshape podcast, we speak to Cam Heeps founder and CEO of the Canada based Voltari, Marine Electric. Here we find out more about the present state of green technology within the industry. His secrets to business success and how to navigate the jump from brewing beer to building super fast eco friendly boats. My name is Georgia Tyndall and I’m a freelance editor and writer based in the UK.
Merrill [00:01:08] And I’m Merril Charrette, a liveaboard on a tasking. Toshiba 36 in Boston, Massachusetts. So, Cam, where are you recording this from?
Cam [00:01:16] I’m recording this from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States.
Merrill [00:01:20] I wasn’t expecting that one. It must be nice and toasty down there right now.
Cam [00:01:24] You know what it was? It was 60 degrees yesterday. People were complaining that the Canadians brought the weather.
Merrill [00:01:31] Sounds about right. So you guys are Canadian based, right?
Cam [00:01:35] Yeah. Our engineering and manufacturing is done in Canada and we’ve recently arrived here in the US to set up our sales, marketing and service headquarters here in Fort Lauderdale.
Merrill [00:01:46] I don’t know much about the boating industry in Canada. Can you talk a little bit about what that is like?
Cam [00:01:53] Well, you know, we’ve primarily we’re freshwater boaters, at least in central Canada. My friends on the east and West Coast will be upset. I said freshwater. But, you know, for example, in Ontario, there’s 450,000 lakes. So boating is very a very common hobby. And as far as the industry itself, not a ton of manufacturing, although we do have a number of manufacturers, including Neptune Yachts. We’ve got metal craft in Kingston, which does a lot of international work and the sort of fire rescue. And then we’ve got a couple other spread throughout the country.
Georgia [00:02:29] That’s really cool. Thank you. And in terms of your own background, I see that you work CEO and co-founder of Steam Whistle Brewing for years. And that’s obviously beer, not boats. And I read that when you were established, you were competing against major breweries. And it sounds to me like something of a David and Goliath story. Could you tell us a little bit more about that background?
Cam [00:02:52] Yeah, My partners and I started Steam Mussel. We had been fired by another brewery, so we were set out on a mission to prove our abilities, but also really go after some of the most valuable market share that was being dominated by the two Goliath, if you will, AB InBev and and Molson Coors. And we had a lot of fun setting up a brewery downtown Toronto at the bottom of the sea tower. And we did a lot of guerilla marketing to establish what has become Canada’s Premium Pilsner.
Georgia [00:03:22] What kind of thing? What did you do with your guerilla marketing? I was like caring about these slightly off the wall ideas from breweries.
Cam [00:03:29] Well, we used to take a lot of vintage vehicles actually, and we had quite a noticeable color of bright green, and we converted these vehicles and drill holes in the sides, but draft taps and them set them out to various arts and charitable events and poured the beer out of these vehicles, sort of signifying mere overbuilt quality.
Georgia [00:03:51] Very nice. Yeah. There’s certain breweries in the UK that like to do kind of controversial things and stunts in order to get, you know, to really get people talking. I think you can have a lot of fun with it.
Cam [00:04:03] Well, the OR this time of year or ready for the winter, the Winter Craft Brew festival. So we host it outside you come in your eighties ski suit you know you we invite all the breweries from the province and people it’s an outdoor festival and usually it’s minus ten and snowing and live music go And the deejays are pumping and the beer is flowing and it’s a pretty special time.
Georgia [00:04:25] Yeah, that sounds great. What’s our invite?
Cam [00:04:28] The event is open to any time.
Georgia [00:04:31] Fantastic.
Merrill [00:04:31] So where did the whole boating start for you? I mean, did you grow up boating? Like, was this a hobby? How did you decide to go from beer to boats?
Cam [00:04:41] Well, originally, I grew up canoeing. Actually, at a young age, I was sent into the far north to a canoe trip only camp where you’re sort of in camp for a day and you’re on trip for a couple of weeks and you in love pretty quickly with the waterways and and nature. And then it was on to the 9.90 board on the back of a tinny as a kid that so then your first freedom in life to tear down the lake with your 9.9 playing with where you put your fuel tank to get the optimal speed and raise your body, etc.. And then that hobby grew quite quickly. I had spent some time. My parents, when I was a kid, had spent some time in the Caribbean. So in about 2008 I started picking up Go fast boats out of Miami. Remember the market got. Off there and you could pick up these boats I dreamed of my whole life for next to nothing. And I started driving them down 1600 nautical miles to Saint Lucia through the the chain of islands between Miami and there. And when we got down there, a buddy of mine and I were really following carbon fiber in the automotive world. And, you know, boats are inherently inefficient, operating in a hydrodynamic state, having to push, you know, thousands of pounds of water out of the way versus versus a car rolling down a highway. So we’re always looking for anything that can can give us an advantage on the water. You know, go faster, burn less fuel, go further. So we started cutting off the top decks, console fuel tanks and hand laminating carbon fiber in its place, taking those same boats out into the ocean and ripping around. And it was amazing what we saw performance change wise in the same hull under the water, same powertrain, but a totally different power to weight ratio. And we were burning less fuel, going faster, going further. And we just said, Wow, this is unbelievable. We got to go to the next level. And so we did. So we partnered with the Saint Lucia government and brought in a set of tooling from Trinidad for a 21 foot deep. We called the Bullet and we did it entirely. Was the world’s first set of production exposed carbon fiber powerboat, and we used to test that. So that’s the whole boat was now carbon fiber. And we would rip between Saint Lucia and Martinique, which, you know, the water there can get pretty nasty. And it was the funnest boat we’d run to date. So that’s when we sort of knew carbon fiber was going to change the world of boating. And although we were a little ahead of our time, we came up to Canada incorporated Carbon Marine in 2015. So that’s where the boating passion has evolved.
Merrill [00:07:23] I’ve seen a lot of boats start moving over to carbon fiber. Can you discuss kind of the different, you know, ways of production and when it comes to fiberglass versus carbon fiber, like what’s that look like?
Cam [00:07:36] Yeah, there’s lots of different I mean, over the years, traditional fiberglass boats evolved into sort of chopper guns and building up mass amounts of of sickness and also weight. You know, there’s also a lot of hand lamination. More recently, companies have gone to a few infusion which sort of improves your resin to to mat ratio. You know the resin itself is is a lot of dead weight if that ratio is too high because it’s not really providing a lot of strength, it’s there to hold the fibers in place so that they can do what they’re supposed to do. So when you get that ratio much better, you really improve efficiency. Then sort of the Kevlar revolution happened where people started mixing some Kevlar in and then some people did all Kevlar. It’s very tough, very light material, very, very painful to do restoration work on because the same fibers that stop a bullet in a bulletproof vest want to stop your grinder when you’re trying to do repairs. So very nice material like tough but very tough to work on. And carbon fiber is just a game changer. It’s lightness, but also it’s stiffness. And, you know, when you’re running deep V in the ocean that V is designed to cut, you know, it’s designed to cut that wave. And when you. One of the shocking things we found when we did that full boat is all of a sudden a V, there is no reverberation coming through the hull like you normally get when you slam two waves in a in a fiberglass boat. So all of a sudden that V was even more effective and that was really mind blowing for us. And then we went through, you know, originally we were hand laminated with polyester resin when we were down in Saint Lucia and the first one up in Canada. And then we moved it, we moved to infusion and more recently we’ve moved to full pre preg. I went over to the UK to do a pre prank course, just the folks at Dark Matters who who train all the advanced laminates from Boeing and Lockheed and and Rolls Royce etc. and those folks came over Ronnie who runs dark matter who came over to set up our first facility for pre preg and so that’s sort of the history of the different lamination and what we do. But I think you’re going to see a lot more carbon coming into the marine industry very quickly or.
Merrill [00:09:44] Sure. So I’m still kind of interested, you know, on the whole beer side of things, you manage to come in and create this huge beer company and I’d like to think that the beer industry is much more established than recreational boating. So what lessons did you learn from your experience of being like owner of this beer company to bring to the marine industry?
Cam [00:10:08] Well, we had always focused the beer we made with a, you know, a premium product. We were going after, you know, import market share, you know, the Heineken’s, Astellas, etc.. And we’re like, this is crazy because best in it’s freshest state. What is the most expensive beer in the market being shipped in a container, you know, across an ocean through a warehouse and whatnot. So you know I think the reason I. I mentioned that is in there in the voting space and you’ll see with Rotary is we are very dedicated to the premium space and the premium customer because it allows you to invest in the process to make the best possible product. And I think when you’re in that that space, you’re not in the sort of mainstream price war space. It allows you to do what you need to do to get yourself established amongst very well established companies.
Georgia [00:10:58] Yeah, I read that you may have been awarded Entrepreneur of the Year at some point. Do you have any kind of tips for other budding entrepreneurs, whether in the maritime space or elsewhere?
Cam [00:11:09] Well, I think the key for my partner, Greg and I at the time in the beer business was we just went for it. You know, we never people ask about what was what about all the rest, you know, how did you get through that? And it’s like, well, you just don’t see the risk if you believe in it enough. The other one is is really make sure that you’ve got the right level of expertise surrounding you to ensure your ability to execute. Because especially when you have manufacturing involved, that’s a lot of moving parts. And you know, you really got to have not just key talent, but also the resources to invest in key equipment.
Farah [00:11:48] This show was sponsored by Shipshape school.
Merrill [00:11:55] Ahoy, there we are. Ship shaped our prow the National directory of Marine Repair and refit. We hope to be a valuable resource for all your boat or yacht repair needs. Your struggle to find the best marine service ends here with us. We provide you access to the largest database of marine service providers across the US. Whether you are looking for electricians, engine mechanics, welders, detailer, divers, or any other general contractors are easy to navigate. Categories help you save time and effort in finding the best service provider for the job wherever you may be. Look us up at WW w dot shipshape dot pro or send us an email at info at shipshape dot pro. We would love to hear from you.
Farah [00:12:47] Welcome back to the Shipshape podcast.
Merrill [00:12:52] The whole electric boat space is a relatively new thing, so I’m sure when you first started coming in and taking a look at it, you saw a ton of opportunity. Can you discuss a little bit on the what the global market of Electric Boat is and where we could be in the next 5 to 10 years?
Cam [00:13:11] Yeah, I mean, just before I get into the industry, I just mentioned the how we got from carbon fiber to electric. So there’s a key piece of the puzzle here, which is a company in Montreal that was called Delta Marine and founded by two individuals, Bruno and Jeff. And they, you know, parallel to us working on all the carbon fiber development. These guys were avid water skiers and engineers. You know, we’re dedicated to electrifying ski boats. So retrofitting existing they’ve done some schematics. They had done some Malibu’s. And basically they were shocked to find how little stuff was available for them to do that. So they essentially have designed and built a company that can not just manufacture their own lithium ion battery packs, but also the whole propulsion system and the the user interface software engineering. The key to the electric is you can’t just take the passenger automotive systems and put them in a boat because they’re not designed to produce the type of power a boat requires. You know, a boat, you know, you have a spring on your accelerator and your cards very rarely pinned to the floor. And when you get into a boat, you take your throttle and you put it forward and then it stays there as you drive around. So that’s a continuous power draw, and it’s a very high kilowatt continuous power draw. So the type of lithium ion battery packs you need are very specific. Anyway, these guys have pioneered that. I went down to test drive the boat that they had done in Malibu. And when you first hit the accelerator, the throttle on that electric boat, my entire life combustion passion went out the window and it was like you could there was no noise, there was no smoke. You could hear yourself talk. The boat accelerated beautifully and you can hear water coming off the hull. And I’m like, wow, this is I mean, this is a better boating experience. And at the end of the day, in order to get boats to do what we are used to them doing as boaters, you still need a lot of lithium ion battery packs in there because it’s why your fuel tank and your boat is so much larger than your car. Same reason you need a lot of lithium ion battery packs. And they’re not light. They’re very heavy. So it was in in chatting with the guys, you know, you quickly realize that these two technologies are perfectly suited for each other. You know, we save a couple thousand pounds of hull making it with carbon fiber. And we take there’s, you know, integrated systems, which we’re now all under one company. And you’ve got now global leading performance and range. So that’s all those came together. And there’s a third piece we’ll touch on later, I’m sure. So with regards to the industry, the early commercialized product came out of Sweden. There’s a couple of companies up there that have done some pretty neat stuff for Candela. Both have commercialized product on the water here in the United States and in Canada. We’ve got a couple of companies that have outboard solutions, not so much complete boats. You know, you’ve got Vision Marine as an outboard, you’ve got pure watercraft that has an outboard. You’ve got ARC in California that sort of in early, early stage development, you’ve got a company called four is also very early stage. And then you’ve got military, which is sort of the first full production powerboat. The company doing everything from the boat manufacturing to the entire powertrain and user interface.
Merrill [00:16:43] When you start talking about electric boats, that’s like one part of the puzzle. But there’s also the infrastructure of marinas at the present. How does that factor into the your company?
Cam [00:16:53] Well, the marinas, especially here in Florida, are an incredible asset for the move to green energy in the marine space because, you know, most marinas here in Florida at your slip, you have two hour and 20 volt power already, whether it’s 30, 50 or 100 amp, some of them even doing a thousand now. So you can base in with your slip includes, you know, usually water and power. So what the infrastructure that’s needed is actually quite a bit less than what we see in the automotive sector. So your slip would already have that power. Now if you’re at your dock or your house, we have a product that can be installed.
Merrill [00:17:36] What is the range on one of these electric boats? I’ve heard that, you know, obviously brought up a lot in the industry when it comes to electric boats, the concern of like range capacity.
Cam [00:17:47] It ranges always on top of mind when it comes to anything. You know what we find and we’ve been out here for a few months now working the waterways and even the ocean is about 80% of the average boat use we see can be covered with our product. You know, if you want to go, you know, 70 miles offshore, fish all day and come back. Eaves Dot is getting ready for you. But if you’re the average boater running up and down the Intercoastal, going to Miami, going out for dinner, all of that can be covered with what we do now. So, you know, you can get between a sort of 120 and 50 miles, depending on how you’re offering product.
Georgia [00:18:30] Well, there’s a lot of talk about the environment in the industry. And I’ve I’ve read about you come that one of your aims is to help eliminate pollution from the world waterways. So it’s not just about talk, it’s also about action. What how would we actually do that in practice?
Cam [00:18:47] Well, this is a very important role in Georgia. I mean, the is sort of not high on the awareness scale for boaters is that we are the biggest polluters of the waterways or one of the biggest polluters. You know, we’re exhausting. Most boats are exhausting straight into the water, most combustion boats. And that’s certainly, you know, and we don’t have even catalytic converters. So we’re like 1950 cars driving around, belching, exhaust into the water. Yet we all love the waterways. Right. I mean, you find most one of the common threads you’ll find amongst boaters is, well, we love the water. The other one is just the unnecessary noise of it all. You know, waterways are traditionally a peaceful place and there’s no need to be making so much noise with all the boats going around. And the other one is the things that end up in people’s villages, oils and stuff like that that inevitably make it directly into the water. So, you know, we’re super, super excited to be working with a product that, you know, has no emissions and makes very little noise and is virtually maintenance free.
Georgia [00:19:56] And fewer is more of a priority now for boat owners. Do you think people actually do care about these things more than they used to as an especially, I guess as technology improves and people worry less about range and all those other considerations?
Cam [00:20:11] Yeah, I think, you know, for the transition to a zero emission product, you know, there’s a few sort of criteria that have to be met in order for consumers to switch. It has to be able to do the basic needs that you’re looking for out of the boat. So, for example, if it if it can only run for 2 minutes and go half a mile, well, you’re not going to be able to replace your boat because it just is impractical. The other is price. You know, I find that, you know, consumers, the average consumer, is willing to pay a premium of some amount to get a more environmentally conscious product, but not an unlimited amount. You’re not going to pay five times the price of a boat just because it has an impact, because, you know, there’s economic realities. So I think those two criteria are one. The other is you’re going to see government regulation enter the space more aggressively like it has in automotive. So it’s not going to be so much, you know, whether zero emission electric marine products are going to continue a fast growth path. It’s also going to be there’s not going to be a lot of choice because the regulators are going to to do that. You’ve seen now in Austria and they’ve already banned combustion boats with grandfathered system. But I think you’ll see that hit a lot more places very soon. They you know, so it’s sort of our responsibility as a manufacturer if we want this movement to take off to make the products fun, because, you know, people are not using their boats to go to the grocery store and commute to work and whatnot. They’re using them in their free time in a recreational environment to enjoy their time on the water with family and friends. And so they got to be fine. They got to be able to get your where you need to go and get your home safely and be worry free. And I think that’s probably one of the most exciting things for me as a boater is there’s been such a barrier to entry for people to get into boating because it’s so expensive to operate. You know, the fuel is so expensive, the maintenance so expensive. And here you’ve got a product where you’ve eliminated two of the greatest barriers to entering the boating market. And I think if we as a segment, an EV segment, you know, stay band together and really excite people, not just existing boaters, but even people who have wanted to get into boating, but perhaps have been intimidated by those two things to enter, it can be a very exciting time.
Merrill [00:22:31] I had a whole career in renewable energy. At one point I used to do residential and commercial solar, and when we were doing residential solar, like the target demographic was early forties, families that had kids that were concerned about the future. Then when I left solar and I got into boating, we did some solar installs on some catamarans and whatnot, and I found that the demographic of the people that were in the boats, the sailors, primarily, their whole thing was being able to just be off the grid and be able to do whatever they wanted and have a lot of the luxuries that they have. What type of demographic are you seeing when it comes to like electric center console speedboats?
Cam [00:23:12] Well, I mean, the center console is the most popular format here in Florida. It’s not just a performance boat. I mean, people have leveraged performance platforms largely because it allows them to feel safe and run nicely. And when they go out into the ocean, you know, the ocean being a dynamic state, those which traditionally come from the performance world. In fact, for us, you know, we’ve acquired some Pantera assets in order to leverage that performance ability. But you’re you know, that boat is being used for families going to a sandbar, buddies and their friends going to a sandbar, people going out to dinner, you know, people going over to Bimini for the weekend. It’s I liken it to my partner’s I always use this analogy. It’s like the SUV of boats. It’s just a very versatile platform, which is why it’s sort of the fastest growing platform in the boating industry. So as far as the target profile or the typical demographic using or interested in in the center console, probably one of the broadest demographic type boats, I mean, the early product is no getting around it. The early product is going to cater itself to a higher net worth individual because the early product is incredibly more expensive than when you’re five years in and your volumes are up. You know, you you look back to the original Teslas, you know, those original lotus body tests, they were quite a bit more expensive than the product you see nowadays from from them. And that’s just the reality. When volumes are low, the prices are higher.
Georgia [00:24:45] And where are your main markets like where there are people actually interested in buying them?
Cam [00:24:50] Yeah, that’s a very interesting one. I think, you know, the main markets we see, obviously Florida is you can’t get around the fact that Florida is the king or queen of the body industry. You know, as far as days of good boating in the year and number of parts and whatnot, then you go up the Eastern seaboard in the U.S., you’ve got quite a bit of interest coming out of the northeast. And then throughout the rest of the market, we also see incredible demand out of Europe. You know, they’ve they’ve traditionally they’re a little bit ahead as far as consumer behavior in the EV space when it comes to Marine. So that’s something we’re seeing. The other thing we’re seeing, which has been a really pleasant surprise for us, is the amount of interest in the government agency side. So, you know, you think of all the Fish and Wildlife commissions, you think of all the police departments, you think of all the sort of pilot boats that are running on the water. Most of them are perfect candidates for electrification. They spend most of their day at the Intercoastal cruising around. And, you know, you see them filling up with the gas docks and it doesn’t take much of a conversation to get that going because they’ve got the politicians on the political side, obviously are putting a lot of green mandates on to their various governmental departments. So there’s a very strong interest in greening government fleets and I think you’ll see them as some of the early adopters, which is very cool.
Merrill [00:26:17] So we’re very much still in the early adopter phase of electric boats 100%.
Cam [00:26:22] You know, I mean, if you go back traditionally, you know, you got to take your hat off to a company like Duffy, for example, that’s been making electric boats for forever. I mean, they’re a different type of product. They’re, you know, they go at a very slow speed, but they’re for putting around, you know, their customers but not be early adopters anymore. But in the planning type of vessels and in what most people think of as your typical recreational vehicle, it’s very early days.
Georgia [00:26:47] And do you aside from maybe what’s going on with your own company, do you see any more like exciting innovations in green technology within the industry?
Cam [00:26:56] Oh, there’s some pretty cool stuff happening on the boiling side, and you see a couple of guys using foiling technology, which is always need to see it has certain application. I think one of the most exciting things that you’re going to see is, is on the user interface side. You know, as you know, the whole movement in automotive has completely changed how you interact with your car and the various things you can do with it and the, you know, the over the air updates and whatnot. And that’s just making boating more fun. I mean, when we set out to build the Volturi, you know, we thought, well, how can we make this not just give it the best chance of survival, but of success and survival, but how can we make it have the greatest impact and get, you know, on the waterways? And that’s simply to set it, to make it better. But if the boat’s a better boat, well, then, you know, saving the waterways and climate can be a fun thing. It doesn’t have to be this sort of negative pressure thing, which I think, you know, it takes some of the fun out of being involved in a movement, you know?
Georgia [00:27:55] Definitely. And that is one throughline. And I think if we can think about Bear when we think about voting this to common things, right. Unless you’re doing it wrong, they’re both quite fine. Right.
Cam [00:28:04] Well, that’s that’s very true. And, you know, usually you can find a bear on a boat somewhere.
Georgia [00:28:09] Though. Don’t drink and drive kids.
Cam [00:28:10] That’s right.
Georgia [00:28:12] And I also read I was very happy to hear the shouts out for Europe coming from you. And in saying that, you know, people are quite ahead in Europe, I noticed that you also seem to have a diploma in Eastern European studies. Tell us about that. Yes.
Cam [00:28:25] Oh, well, many, many moons ago in between before we started Steamer. So I ended up on a Canadian joint venture project in a country called Kyrgyzstan, which is a former C, a former Soviet Union state. And they called the Switzerland of Central Asia because it’s sort of the foothill of the Himalayan and beautiful green wonderful lakes, when anyway, I was on that project working with the brewery to try to help them win back some of their local market share. So after perestroika and the, you know, the opening up of the markets over there, European breweries were sending over some beer and half liter cans to Kyrgyzstan and for a dollar U.S. can. And they took 50% of the local market in a very short period of time. And the local brewery was trying to understand, well, why were people so interested in purchasing this foreign beer versus their locally produced beer? And so we did some studies and found that the beer left the brewery in pretty decent shape. But by the time it got to the consumer anyway, I sort of fell in love with the, you know, working abroad and learning some language and working, immersing yourself in a culture. So I took a program through University of Arizona, which had a program actually in Moscow, was sort of a business internship program where you worked a couple of days a week and studied some language a couple of days a week. So I ended up over there interning with the plastics division and with some really neat kids. We were kids at the time, you know, experiencing it in Red Square at midnight in the middle of winter, and the snowflakes are coming down and there’s no one around. It’s a pretty surreal moment. So anyway, I then spent a fair bit of time traveling around the other countries of Europe and have a deep passion also for their beer culture. We every good staff at the brewery hit their fifth anniversary. My partner Greg and I would take them over to to Munich, to the Octoberfest, and then we’d take a bus up through into the Czech Republic where our brewmaster was from, and visited a bunch of breweries along the way. And anyway, it’s hard not to fall in love with some of the culture in Europe.
Merrill [00:30:38] Well, it sounds like the beer market is very much a global entity, but so is Maureen, and I hear it all the time, like we’re all connected by the ocean, and so we all just, like, interact with each other. How have you seen just your outreach to other countries? How has that been taken in? And, you know, are you going to be doing any traveling out to Europe with your boats?
Cam [00:31:01] Yeah, absolutely. I think we’ll probably head over to the Monaco show, whether it’s this year or next. We’ve got some product we’re going to take over. But the nice thing about the boating industry is when you meet people, you know, in Fort Lauderdale is a really fascinating place because, I mean, there’s people from all over the world in the boating industry here. I mean, people bring their boats halfway around the world just to get some work down here. So there is a very much a common connection with boaters globally. And perhaps it is the fact that the water touches all of us. You know, I think in general it’s a small world and the boating industry and people are pretty well educated on what’s going on and with different products and different markets. So always surprised to hear about some awareness for someone who’s heard about the military or when you are, they walk by you. You know, we’re here. Pier 66, beautiful Marina. An exciting development brings people from all over the world. And these some of them incredible mega-yacht, you know, cup of water. Yeah, I heard about that. And it’s like, wow, how did you hear about that? And it’s pretty amazing.
Merrill [00:32:01] And they’re like, Oh, yeah, we’re looking for a new dinghy for our Superyacht.
Cam [00:32:04] The tender market is an exciting one. They’re running a second fuel for a lot of these guys. It’s not something they enjoy doing. You know, products don’t get used every day and gasoline does not store super well. And and these people it’s funny, a lot of the orders I find have a deep passion for not just the waters, but also the environmental aspect. And some people think that’s counterintuitive because they’re in this mega-yacht. But, you know, there’s this whole new program, the yacht world of scoring your your your yacht based on how low a footprint it has and it has an incredibly lower footprint than jumping on an airplane and flying across an ocean. So I think there’s you’re going to see some strong advocacy come out of. Of the art world.
Georgia [00:32:47] Absolutely. I mean, one of our upcoming interviews is actually with the Water Revolution Foundation, who are there in the Superyacht space, and they have this yacht index. And it’s exactly that’s driving their conferences. And as well as we were discussing earlier, if it’s about paying a slightly higher price point, the people who are going to be willing to do that, we’re talking about them now a lot within that. Yeah. And also in terms of, you know, a lot of owners don’t necessarily want a load of PR and all the rest of it. But for high profile individuals as well, obviously it’s it bodes well to actually show that they do care about the environment despite having products which some people might say having a yacht and itself isn’t sustainable. But that’s a different argument, isn’t it?
Cam [00:33:31] Yeah, for sure. I mean, there’s a lot of people in the advocacy space that that have combustion boats because there hasn’t been a lot of electric options. And I think you’re going to see a lot of people, you know, who want to walk the walk and talk the talk of the life they live, of wanting to preserve the ocean. So, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio comes to mind, for example, he’d be a great potential user of a marine Navy product.
Georgia [00:33:54] And a great potential interview subject, if you know him.
Cam [00:33:57] Yeah, well, it was he who was able to connect first. There were some the more abrasive.
Georgia [00:34:04] Abrasive.
Cam [00:34:04] Okay, good.
Georgia [00:34:07] Yeah. Now, that’s that’s all very fascinating. Thank you. Come.
Cam [00:34:10] Hey, no problem.
Merrill [00:34:11] You know, I think that we should try to jump on this topic a lot. Like, when it comes to innovation in the marine space, it’s quite difficult. You know, the the industry is very much dated. And, you know, though, there’s innovations coming in and it’s hard for the innovations to be really viable. Like I see it all the time with electronics where they install some brand new electronic into a boat, but there’s no service providers around to actually be able to back that up. How are you handling like the service side of things and, you know, customer service?
Cam [00:34:47] I guess that’s a great question. Well, you know, one of the people that’s always on their mind when there’s a new technology is, okay, great, I love the technology, but what happens when something doesn’t go right? You know, how am I going to deal with that? Am I going to go into a service center and no one will have ever seen or heard the technology, know how to deal with it, etc.. So, you know, for us, it’s why we are working directly with customers and it’s why we’ve set up the 24 seven Global Service network, because we can if you can get into that, give us a call, we can patch into your boat anywhere in the world and we can pull up the full data set. And 95% of issues can be trouble shot through software, much like you see in the automotive world. You know, the Tesla has the road Rangers which will come out to your car. Now, they very rarely ever need to, but it makes you feel warm and cozy knowing that they would. And so we’ve got our aquamarine service that’ll deploy if necessary for those 5% occasions. Let’s say you you drove over a shoal and blow your lower unit off. Well, we’re going to get to you in 72 hours here in North America and and get you on your way. And that’s something that you’d have a very hard time finding with a traditional product.
Merrill [00:35:56] So as we wrap this up, could you give us some tips and pointers for someone that’s trying to come into the industry and do some revolutionary product? You know, where would they build the foundation?
Cam [00:36:09] Well, I think my first piece of advice is spend as much time on the water as you can with your product. Man is amazing. Every time we go out, you know, the ideas we come up with, you know, where to go with the product, how to understand it. From a boaters perspective, you cannot do Marine Navy just in it in front of a computer screen. Strictly from an engineering perspective, you have to get out and also do the the boating side because that’s how the customer is going to see it and that’s how they’re going to use it. And I think, you know, more time on the water is also a great thing.
Georgia [00:36:40] And how do you envision the boat of the future then in like 20 years time, what’s going to be on the water, do you think, and what’s not going to be on the water? You’ve already talked about certain countries banning certain types of boats.
Cam [00:36:51] I mean, I think the variant the interesting thing for me is watch what’s happening in the whole world with these, you know, electric drone like passenger carrying planes and whether you’re going to see a little bit of that technology make it into the marine space at some point, I think that’s kind of cool. I think that’s, you know, probably a number of years out you’re going to see. And what we’re seeing now is a continual evolution of battery technology. What’s going to make the marine heavy space more and more exciting every year. And the last thing is, as I mentioned, the user interface is going to become the funnest thing you’ve seen in boating in your life.
Georgia [00:37:30] Oh, yeah. It’s not that.
Merrill [00:37:32] Yeah. Awesome. Cam So where can people find out about you? Check out your boats, order one.
Cam [00:37:37] You can find a lot of information on us on our website, which is our electric Dcoms. You can always feel free to email or reach out to us and. Please visit us at our test center here at Pier 66 and Fort Lauderdale. We’d be happy to take you for a ride. Or if you want to schedule a demo somewhere else in the country, perhaps we can make an arrangement.
Merrill [00:37:58] Awesome. All is great talking to the exam.
Cam [00:38:00] Merrill, real pleasure. And Georgia, Great to chat with you guys. Hope you guys have a great day.
Georgia [00:38:04] Thank you.
Farah [00:38:25] Check back every Tuesday for our latest episode and be sure to like, share and subscribe to ship shaped up for.
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