Interlocking aluminum planks, patented by Aluma-Weld, are welded together (above) to create the decks of Veranda Marine's line of pontoon boats. | |
If you think of pontoon boats as the minivans of the lake - stable, family-friendly, frumpy, slow - you haven't seen a late-model pontoon boat.
Demand for pontoon boats that do much more than serve as floating islands inspired Aluma-Weld Inc. of Hot Springs to expand its production beyond the complete line of fishing boats that had been its bread and butter for more than 40 years. But using its fishing boat brand name, Xpress, for a completely different type of boat with completely different customers didn't sit well with the approximately 80 Xpress dealers nationwide.
So last year, Aluma-Weld introduced an entirely new brand: Veranda Marine. Veranda has seven different series and 23 different models, with retail prices ranging from $20,000 to $50,000.
After only two seasons, Veranda still represents a fraction of Aluma-Weld's business, according to Nathan Kyzer, national sales manager. The company's $30 million in annual revenue still comes primarily from the 2,500 to 3,000 Xpress fishing boats that it sells each year. Veranda's goal for 2007 was a modest 400 units, and the distribution system is only 18 dealers.
"And growing," Kyzer adds.
But Kyzer and Kenneth Jones, regional sales manager, believe Veranda has some advantages that will allow it to compete with better-known brands like Bennington and Premier.
"When we decided to get into the pontoon market, we wanted to improve on what's out there," Kyzer said. And the primary improvement is the same material that led Kermit Bryant to found Aluma-Weld in 1966: welded aluminum.
Aluma-Weld has patented a system of interlocking aluminum planks that form the deck of each Veranda boat, and these aluminum planks are welded to each other and directly to the two or three pontoons underneath.
"It doesn't warp; it doesn't get hot; it doesn't flex and twist when you are out on the water," Kyzer said, giving a practiced sales pitch.
While other all-aluminum pontoon boats are on the market, most manufacturers still use plywood. Because Aluma-Weld holds the patent to the interlocking planks, no other company is building decks quite the same way.
Another advantage is Veranda's location in an industrial park south of Hot Springs on Highway 270. Not only is Lake Catherine "in our backyard," as Jones put it, but Veranda is the southernmost pontoon manufacturer in the United States.
Aluma-Weld
Kermit Bryant founded Aluma-Weld at Friendship, in Hot Spring County between Malvern and Arkadelphia. There it stayed for almost 35 years, turning out tens of thousands of fishing boats ranging from 12-foot johnboats to 24-foot center-console bass palaces.
In 2000, the company, now run by Bryant's daughter and son-in-law, Debbie and Rodney Herndon, moved into a 250,000-SF facility formerly occupied by Pirelli Cable. There, 150 employees take rolls of aluminum and form it into hulls and pontoons, fabricate aluminum rods into the railings of pontoon boats and build trailers to get the boats to the water. The patented aluminum deck planks are extruded by a vendor, then welded together at Aluma-Weld to the specification of each boat.
Aluma-Weld, Inc. of Hot Springs, maker of Xpress fishing boats, has expanded its production into high-end Veranda pontoon boats up to 24 feet long and priced between $20,000 and $50,000. |
(Although Aluma-Weld is a stone's throw from Jones Mill, none of its aluminum comes from the Reynolds plant there, although some parts do come from the Arkansas Extrusion plant next door to Aluma-Weld.)
Painting facilities disguise some Xpress boats in camouflage patterns, while others are sprayed with metallic enamels that make the aluminum indistinguishable from fiberglass. And the Veranda pontoons are fitted with upholstered seating built by Hoofman Upholstery of Vilonia.
New Deal
Aluma-Weld made pontoon boats under the Xpress label for about four years before deciding on a different marketing approach. The new brand freed the company to line up a new system of dealers without stepping on the toes of longtime Xpress retailers. "A lot of your dealers, that's what they are interested in is fishing boats," Kyzer said. "About 90 percent of Veranda dealers will not be Xpress dealers."
Veranda pontoons are higher-end than the pontoons Xpress offered - with a higher profit margin, Kyzer acknowledged.
"We've got a boat out here that will run 60 miles per hour, and that's with a 225 [horsepower] motor," Jones said. "And that's not even the big motor."
In other words, a pontoon boat that will easily pull a skier.
One Veranda that has been hauled to boat shows around the region this summer has a tanning deck (also made of the patented aluminum planks), a pop-up changing room, toilet, refrigerator and a sign on the woodgrain console warning that the maximum capacity is 17 people.
Jones lifted one of the bench seats to reveal storage space and pulled out a pillow made of matching upholstery with the Veranda logo embroidered on one side.
"I think the upholsterers went a little crazy," he said.
