Salty Podcast Part 3 of 3 Part-Series | Island Packet Factory Tour⛵ | Behind-the-Scenes of Building Island Packet Sailboats!

Welcome to Part 3 of the Island Packet Factory Tour series! In this final episode, factory owners Darrell & Leslie Allen take Capn Tinsley deep inside the Island Packet Factory in Largo, FL. Watch where the skilled team brings each custom sailboat to life—from the mold to the finishing touches—and learn a few ways you can get your own Island Packet sailboat.  Made in America!

⛵ Watch the full 3-part series:
⚓ Part 1: First look at the IP 44 Motor Sailer – https://tinyurl.com/IPFactoryPart1
⚓ Part 2: Full tour of the Island Packet 349 – https://tinyurl.com/IPFactoryPart2
⚓ Part 3: Behind-the-Scenes Factory Tour (this video) – https://tinyurl.com/IPFactoryPart3

🎧 Listen to the full Salty Podcast Playlist here: https://tinyurl.com/SaltyPodcastPlaylist

#SaltyAbandon #SaltyPodcast #Sailing #IslandPacketYachts #SailingLife #CapnTinsley #madeinamerica 

Chapters

• 0:00 Island Packet's Historic Lamination Shop
• 3:10 Boat Building Process and Timeline
• 6:30 Hull Construction and Material Upgrades
• 9:43 Exploring Molds and Arch Construction
• 14:33 Mill Work and Factory Operations
• 17:33 Refit Services and Legacy Support
• 21:22 Chain Plates and Island Packet Integrity

Transcript

Darrell Allen: 0:15

In the lamination shop. This building is 20,000 square feet. It's basically 100 foot by 200 foot, and every island packet that has ever been built has been built in this lamination shop. This is the original island packet facility A lot of history. And this has always been a lamination, all the way through Mr Johnson's days and then through our days.

Capn Tinsley: 0:36

Tell me the year it started?

Darrell Allen: 0:39

Oh, this facility was built in 1979. And this was the first building he built. And then he built the, the building that we'll go into next, and he built the assembly building last. And then in the late 80s, you know, he went across the street and built 250,000 pushing things across the street exactly, but the lamination was all done here okay and then, once they were all laminated, they would drag them across the street and assemble the boats over there.

Darrell Allen: 1:04

We now assemble the boats over here because we build 12 boats a year on average, and Mr Johnson and his best times were building about 120 boats a year.

Capn Tinsley: 1:14

What is this right here?

Darrell Allen: 1:15

Well, this is the deck mold for the motor sailor, and so what we have in here right now is mainly molds, because when we're you know, we don't use all the 20,000 square feet for lamination. We use different bits and parts of it depending on what we're laminating and what we're building at the time. So what we have here is we have a deck of a 439 being assembled, so this is called decking, and so this is where the headliner is installed on the deck, and then the decking guy comes in and installs all the lights, the handrails inside the hatches, the ports and then everything outside on the deck as well, except for what goes on the cap rail. And then, after the deck goes down onto the hull, then we install the stanchions and everything that goes on the cap rail. But we can't do that, obviously, until the deck is screwed down to the hull.

Capn Tinsley: 2:11

This is beautiful.

Darrell Allen: 2:12

This is an off-light with the graystone. It's the deck for the boat that we'll see a little bit later on 439 number 27. And this boat is going to a really cool couple that are retiring here in about another two months and that's about when we'll have the boat done.

Capn Tinsley: 2:30

Tell me about the process. Real quick yeah well it's right now, when you're ordering a boat.

Darrell Allen: 2:35

Right now. If you gave me a check today, you would be about a year, about 14 to 16 months out, away from getting a boat.

Capn Tinsley: 2:43

Okay.

Darrell Allen: 2:43

Because we usually stay booked up 6 to 12 months in advance, because we only build 12 boats a year and then, it takes us about 6 to 7 months to build the boat, once we start it.

Capn Tinsley: 2:54

So how much do you put down?

Darrell Allen: 2:57

Typically, if you're paying cash, you would put 30% to start the boat and then when we get the boat about a third of the way through third to half about 40 we give, we get another third and then, when the debt goes down, we get the last third. We save 10 for when the boat's finally finished and then they pay us all of the last 10 less two thousand dollars that we take when the boat's completely in the water in their slip they're happy financing, we do financing as well.

Darrell Allen: 3:24

Probably 20 of our purchases are financed. We actually have a finance company that we worked with as a dealer in san diego or something it's usually about one percent more than a home loan. It's not that bad. It's a lot right now well, you know, but I mean you know if you're going to use this as your home.

Capn Tinsley: 3:40

6.99 right now in a primary home, so yeah, so it's's gonna be about 7.99 on this.

Darrell Allen: 3:46

So it'll cost you a percent more to live in a boat or an island package.

Capn Tinsley: 3:51

Sure, oh, it's worth it. I'm just trying to get a handle on the number you got it.

Darrell Allen: 3:55

Yeah, now this is a mold for the swim step or for a 349. Okay, so you're looking at the back side of it. So every mold is going to be the reverse of the part, right? Okay, so we would build the swim step on this mold and then we would glass it to the back of the transom of the boat.

Capn Tinsley: 4:15

What are the major changes you made to the factory? I mean, I know the changes you made to the boats, but in the order, Well, we haven't really changed.

Darrell Allen: 4:22

We've upgraded, you know, obviously, the lighting in the factory, the LED. We have upgraded the gel machine. We've upgraded the hoist. You know a lot of the equipment, you know just gets tired. We've bought a new air compressor. We've upgraded the CNC software. Just, you know, in the usual maintenance, you know New, usual maintenance, you know it's a boat factory.

Capn Tinsley: 4:45

Yeah, it's constantly in these maintenance. Okay, so you were able to come in and just get started.

Darrell Allen: 4:49

Well, not really.

Leslie Allen: 4:50

We had the property across the street too, and that was the first hard decision.

Darrell Allen: 4:55

Yeah, so we had to move out of across the street because, honestly, when we started, we had 12 people and no boat orders.

Capn Tinsley: 5:03

Yeah, and Leslie told us in another video how you got a lot of people back.

Darrell Allen: 5:08

Well, as far as workers you know, island Packet had been their home for 20-30 years and they kind of scattered to Catalina or Compact or Bertram or Jupiter or you know Chris Craft, wherever, but when they and they all knew of us as a dealer in California. So when they heard that we were the ones who took Island Packet over and were trying to revive and build new Island Packets, they did want to come home.

Leslie Allen: 5:37

Especially after you know, slowly they still all stayed in contact with each other. So one would come back and then they'd tell the other.

Darrell Allen: 5:45

But many of them, you know, bought their homes close to the factory here and now that where they were working before was maybe twice the distance.

Darrell Allen: 5:52

So you know their lives were built in a round island packet so they were able to put that back together again and for example, we have a husband, wife and a son that work for us, and the husband and wife had been here for 30 years and the son's been here for probably 20, and and they all live, you know, within five minutes of the factory we have here is a motor sailor, number two with the gray stone hull. And then what happens when we build the boats is we build the hull first, and then this area is called hull prep. So this is basically a raw hull that's been built, and then the lead has been installed in the keel and then the KUZA board has been installed for around the tank grid. This will become a tank grid and that's the engine, where the engine sits, and that's all KUZA board and the legacy boats. It's all plywood.

Darrell Allen: 6:48

Okay, so one of the upgrades that Leslie and I did was we changed, we got rid of all the plywood that we could in the boats and changed it to Koozaboard, which is a synthetic product which will never be wrought, will never rot in the bilge, will never be eaten by termites, it will never warp, it will never go away. So it'll be there as long as fiberglass is.

Darrell Allen: 7:00

Water won't damage it. Now it's impervious to water, yeah and Now it's impervious to water.

Leslie Allen: 7:03

Yeah, there's some bridges in some places. I mean it's amazing. We did a lot of research about it.

Darrell Allen: 7:08

Yeah, so our main fuel tank will go there, our water tank will go forward and then our holding tank will go forward, so this will be the tank grid is what this is called. So once the tanks go in in a couple weeks, then they'll come in and they'll run the hoses, the wires, they'll put the through holes in and then we'll drop this here, which is called the internal grid unit or IGU, and that's what forms the floor in the boat. It floors, forms the settees and the salon. It forms obviously the forward stateroom that we just got off of. Basically, this is a motor sailor, about 20% built.

Leslie Allen: 7:47

Okay, okay. And when we were talking about customization, we can't change the IGU.

Darrell Allen: 7:53

Internal grid unit, and that's not necessarily true, you know It'd make it harder though, wouldn't it? Well, you know, it depended on the change and how much time it takes us to do it right too, too late in the process. No, I'm sorry well, but we don't start in boats that are sold right, yeah, right, but you know people change their minds along the way.

Darrell Allen: 8:13

Very true, kinsley, that's very true, and and we, we we have a cutoff point where, once we start the boat, it's got to be pretty much done now. If you want to change cushion color or countertop color, yeah, we could do that, but we're not got to be pretty much done Now. If you want to change cushion color or countertop color, yeah, we could do that, but we're not going to be obviously change fiberglass color. We're not going to be able to change wood color, because all that is already done, it's all been ordered, you know, and it's already done.

Capn Tinsley: 8:34

Wow, what is this? So this is a 349 mold. Okay.

Darrell Allen: 8:39

And this is a 439 hull mold. It's massive and this is a 439 hull mold.

Capn Tinsley: 8:43

It's massive. To see it like this, it's just so massive, it's amazing, huh yeah.

Darrell Allen: 8:50

And then we've got an IGU mold here, and then this is a headliner mold. This is obviously an arch that's in the process of being built, so it basically starts out as six pieces the outside skin is one piece, this is another piece, this is another piece, this is another piece, and that side is another piece. So it's actually what? One, two, three, four pieces that go into building this, because you can't build this in one mold. It wouldn't pull out of the mold. So you have to build each side and put them all together, and then, when you're done, you have to make it look like it's all one piece.

Darrell Allen: 9:24

But, believe it or not, there's a seam right here that you would never know when we get to this point. And then this is a headlighter that we're building for 34926, and we're going to see it later on. This is the plith that we put on top of the arch to hold the solar panels. So this sits on the arch and hold the solar panels. So this sits on the arch and then the solar panels fastened to this, and there's usually four pliths at the very top of the arch, so two to support each solar panel.

Capn Tinsley: 9:52

So you think this is better than stainless steel, just less maintenance.

Darrell Allen: 9:55

Oh God yes.

Capn Tinsley: 9:56

And less money.

Darrell Allen: 9:57

You still have to polish it. A stainless steel arch today. Have you priced it?

Capn Tinsley: 10:00

Not lately $25,000, $30,000.

Darrell Allen: 10:03

And we do the fiberglass arches for $20,000. Plus they have a built-in davit system and the davit line runs straight to the primary winch. So, literally, you can push the button on the primary winch and raise the dinghy up. So this is everything started here. Every island packet ever built started right here. In this gel coat booth we have a little cherry picker or hydraulic chair that moves around in the mold to be able to spray. I don't have the lights on here today.

Capn Tinsley: 10:35

I actually don't really know where the light switch is.

Darrell Allen: 10:39

This is our wainscoting mold here. So we actually vacuum, bag our wainscotting. So they're gonna. It looks like it's ready to be gel coated, and then they'll they'll put it in a bag, they'll put the, they'll lay the fiberglass in, they'll put it in a bag and they'll they'll pump resin in from one side and they'll suck it out the other.

Capn Tinsley: 10:55

So it's so. This is the actual mold yes, okay for the wainscotting okay, so the vacuum bag is very even.

Darrell Allen: 11:03

Yeah, so it's basically resonance. We infuse the resin and it goes through the fibers completely.

Capn Tinsley: 11:09

Yeah, it's actually the best way you can build a fiberglass, so this is a very historical room right here.

Darrell Allen: 11:14

It's this. Is it Every island package ever built?

Leslie Allen: 11:17

I love history. Before this was a boat manufacturer, it was a monkey farm no way.

Darrell Allen: 11:24

Yeah, well, that's the rumor Get out of here, and in some ways it still is. We've got to get some local knowledge on that. For every big part. So there's four big parts, four big moats for every boat the hull, the IGU, the headliner and the deck. But then we have hundreds and hundreds of small parts. You know little lockers, little wells, little. You know hatches. You know the, the companionway slider. That's a completely separate mold. Uh, the cockpit hatches are completely separate molds.

Capn Tinsley: 11:52

I mean, there's just, you know so many different moving parts yeah and those cabinets up there, or oh god, holy.

Darrell Allen: 12:00

No, who knows what's up there. That's probably something we didn't want to throw away right now, so they just stuck up there. So this is a part again of one of the arch molds, in fact that I don't know if that has a part. It says 439 on it. Yeah, that may be. Oh, look at there.

Capn Tinsley: 12:19

It's an actual piece. This is the mold.

Darrell Allen: 12:20

This is the piece.

Capn Tinsley: 12:21

And what is this? This is good. This is the side piece to that arch right there, the outside piece. Oh, I see Actually it's the inside piece I see.

Darrell Allen: 12:30

Because this is the little cutout right there on the inside.

Capn Tinsley: 12:32

Okay, we got to see it. It's in all different stages here.

Darrell Allen: 12:37

Yeah, so that's the other side.

Capn Tinsley: 12:38

So this is a mold.

Darrell Allen: 12:39

And this is the very top of the arch.

Capn Tinsley: 12:42

Okay.

Darrell Allen: 12:42

So that's why I say it's five different molds to build that arch, and then you glass them all together and finish them all out to make them look like one piece. I don't know anybody that builds a nicer arch than we do.

Leslie Allen: 12:57

It's immaculate, everybody loves it.

Darrell Allen: 13:00

It's immaculate, everybody loves it. So we'll walk out of the lamination building and then we use this area here for tooling. So right now we're not doing a lot of different tooling projects.

Capn Tinsley: 13:14

What do you do with all the old molds?

Darrell Allen: 13:16

Cut them up and throw them away yeah yeah, no, every year your 320 is gone. The 350 is gone 380 is gone, 370 is gone, 420 is gone, packet crafts gone, packet cats gone, 31, 27, 32, they're all gone because you don't have enough space, go in the smithsonian or something. So we have a 349, number 25 right here and this boat's about 30 days away from shipping. So it's in the paint area and you can see we've mastered off for the bootstripe.

Capn Tinsley: 13:50

So no teak on this one either. Is nobody doing teak no.

Darrell Allen: 13:54

No, we don't. No, we offer a teak eyebrow for an extra charge, but nobody wants it. Well, two boats, I guess, have ordered it out of 70.

Capn Tinsley: 14:03

We've built about 70 boats, but you'll do it if somebody asks for it. Yeah, okay.

Darrell Allen: 14:06

I won't do a teak cap rail, I can't. We've changed the hold of deck joint.

Capn Tinsley: 14:10

I see.

Darrell Allen: 14:17

On the legacy boats the whole deck joint was under the cap rail. On ours it's more of a shoebox fit, which is much more conventional to the modern technology.

Capn Tinsley: 14:22

Okay, yeah, all right, it is hard to take care of, but it looks so good all right, and then we'll leave this area. This is about 10,000 square foot area here and then we're gonna go a with the little sailboat over there.

Darrell Allen: 14:39

That's actually one of our employees. That's Bobby's boat. Bobby bought that and it was kind of a hurricane damaged little boat. He asked if he could bring it in and work on his spare time getting it fixed so he could go sailing and get it back in the water. Bobby's a hard worker and you know there's nothing that we won't do for our guys that work like Bobby does.

Capn Tinsley: 15:02

So this is wood in here.

Darrell Allen: 15:03

Yeah, this is obviously our mill and we've got, you know, planers and table saws and router sanders and you know, drill presses and back in the corner we have a CNC router that we do a lot of the intricate cuts on.

Capn Tinsley: 15:20

And all this was here. I mean, obviously you have to upgrade.

Darrell Allen: 15:23

Well, we added the mezzanine on top. The router was actually here. We built each table. Some of these tables were here, some of them we built when we took over. They were basically building, oh, maybe one or two Seaward 32s a year Because Seaward bought Island Packet from the bank and they were building a couple 26s. So the guy that owned Seaward and bought Island Packet from the bank did it for a hobby. He wasn't in the boat business, he just wanted to have play with boats and it's still on the name, see.

Darrell Allen: 16:00

See where we still own the name seaworth. Yeah, and we may bring it back out with some type of a product someday. Oh, here's the back seat to the motor sitter that they didn't get in. They were supposed to have this place in the cockpit, so this is the aft facing seat for the motor sailor, and then, of course, storage below.

Capn Tinsley: 16:17

Yeah, I remember you saying it would go right in front of the door. Yeah, okay.

Capn Tinsley: 16:26

Yeah, and it's big enough for two people, and, of course, we'll have a cushion on the back. Okay, so let me ask you, okay, so we have people that can afford a new boat, and then we have people that want to do a trade-in, and and then there are people that would want to bring a boat here and get work done so our refit business, you know, what we've learned is is you know, most factories do refits because they don't have enough new boats to build and in the end of mr Johnson's days that's what they started doing.

Darrell Allen: 16:54

So there were some refits done here at the factory at the end of of the time because he didn't have any new boat sales. We have plenty of new boat sales to keep the factory alive and going and happy and well. But what we've learned is there's a real need for refit. As these boats get older, you know they need a refit.

Leslie Allen: 17:13

Well then, nobody can do it like we can, and we make sure that it's cost effective.

Darrell Allen: 17:22

Yeah, you know what? We'll beat anybody's price and we'll do it factory certified at the same time. So we've got right now. The gentleman who's running our refit department is Bill Charles, and Bill's been associated with Island Packet for over 40 years and there's nobody more knowledgeable on the legacy boats than him that's currently anywhere working.

Leslie Allen: 17:45

He probably built almost every Island Packet.

Darrell Allen: 17:47

Or been a part of every Island Packet. So how do you?

Capn Tinsley: 17:50

get a boat in here.

Darrell Allen: 17:51

Well, you know we were obviously a lot of the refits don't have to necessarily be done in the factory. Okay, so so far we've done a 44 and a 38 in the boat yard. So they wanted to say replace their standing rigging at the same time as we did the chain plates. So we would do the chain plates and then we'd have a company called the yacht riggers do the standing rigging and we would haul the boat at the yacht riggers boat yard.

Capn Tinsley: 18:13

Okay, you work with yacht riggers Will and Steve. They're the ones that did all my stuff.

Darrell Allen: 18:18

They're amazing. Yeah, they're the best rigger company I've ever been associated with.

Capn Tinsley: 18:23

Richard is the dad. Yeah, I met them when they were working out of the back of his house.

Darrell Allen: 18:26

Yeah, yeah, exactly, they're great people. Yeah, all of our new boats and they help us on the refits where they need help. But, for example, we have a island packet 31 refit coming up. He just had a standing rigging done. And when I say refit, mainly it's chain plates on the or tanks on the older boats.

Capn Tinsley: 18:45

I know they do the external, but we don't because they did the external and it was fine. I'm like 27 but I kind of have gotten where I'm a little biased now because, well that, because for resale too, yeah exactly To me.

Darrell Allen: 19:00

The external chain plates, you know look kind of homemade or home, you know, like you did it in your backyard or something. Let's do it the way the boat was designed by.

Capn Tinsley: 19:08

Bob Johnson. So they will do it the original way for you. Well, we will, you will, yeah.

Darrell Allen: 19:14

Okay, so we will handle, you know, the cabinetry. We'll take the cabinetry out. We'll take out the oak chain plates.

Capn Tinsley: 19:20

And it'll be at their yard.

Darrell Allen: 19:22

Yes, or we can, even if you don't need the rigs In St Pete. Yes, if you don't need the rigs changed out, we can actually do it in the slip.

Capn Tinsley: 19:34

Okay, so far do you travel.

Darrell Allen: 19:37

Well, we stay in St Pete. Okay, yeah, we have a relationship with the Harbridge Marina in St Pete.

Darrell Allen: 19:42

And we have two 50-foot slips there that we deliver our new boats out of and we bring boats back for warranty and we use that area there and then we use a slip, if we need to, for refit as well. So we've refitted a 38, a 44. Uh, we've done this is a hurricane damaged boat that we had to bring back to the factory refit because there was no choice. Uh, that boat was damaged by hurricane milton and and had nearly a half a million dollars worth of damage on it, so that that was significant.

Darrell Allen: 20:11

a boat of that significance we will bring back to the factory that's a 439, number 21 okay yeah so, but if we can do it in the water, we're doing the water. We have a 380 coming up, but their boat was damaged in Milton as well in their slip, and we're gonna be able to repair it at the at the Harbridge marina, because it's mainly stuff on top of the deck there's a little bit of fiberglass.

Capn Tinsley: 20:32

You can inspect mine exactly at the marina.

Darrell Allen: 20:35

So to haul the boat, take the mast off the boat, haul it out of the water, get it on a truck, get it here and get it back is about $15,000.

Capn Tinsley: 20:45

In addition to the work.

Darrell Allen: 20:47

So if we can keep you from having to spend that $15,000, and keep it in the water. It's much better, or haul it at a boatyard. So if we can't do the work in the water, then our second choice is haul it at a boat yard, because putting it on the truck tends to be most of the most. Probably over half of our owners are legacy owners. Yeah, or half of our buyers, should I say of the new, next generation, on that packet you want to make legacy?

Darrell Allen: 21:10

owners yeah and and not only just make them happy. We get emails on a regular basis on and we send them to different engineers. Jerry Swartz, who's retired but was here during back in the day and he still works out of his home for us and we'll send questions to him. You know, warren, you know, is one of our engineers here. He answers questions. I answer questions. We try to keep up with the legacy questions and needs as much as we do the new boats so the trade-in thing and I'll wrap this up, but what?

Darrell Allen: 21:39

that would be interesting to a lot of people well, we love island packets right and so even if you want a brokerage island packet, we'll help you with that. We have. We have a a resale island packet. Yachts resale is a separate company that I'm part of, uh, and Barone runs it for me, and so we've resold 485s in the last couple years. Probably what three? We've resold a couple 465s, we've resold a couple 420s, we've resold a couple 380s, we've resold one, two, three, four, three, nines, and so we do very well with that. So even if you're not in the market for a brand new boat, call us.

Capn Tinsley: 22:22

Because you might have a legacy boat.

Darrell Allen: 22:24

Yeah, we're helping several owners, so you could even upgrade to a legacy boat here.

Darrell Allen: 22:28

Oh yes, maybe, oh yes, right now we have two 465s listed, one's under contract. We have two 485s listed, one under contract. We have two, four, eight, five listed, one under contract. We have one, two, two, four, three, nines listed actually three, one under contract that we're doing. So you know, we do very well with the resale business and the refit business is just as important to us because we believe that people should have an option. Okay, so if you want a second opinion on your refit, call us and we'll try to make it work out. And I know there's another vendor in Florida who's telling 320, 380, 370 owners that their chain plates are bad and I'm sorry, I'll stand up and I'll defend that all day long. And out of all the chain plates and all the boats that are out there, we don't know of more than about a dozen that have actually failed and they were on the 27s and on the 31s. We've never heard of a three-digit series island packet ever failing Even a 98?.

Darrell Allen: 23:30

And, honestly, when they pull them out of the boat they're fine, there's nothing wrong with them.

Darrell Allen: 23:35

And in 98, which Bob Johnson changed the way that they were installed, so some that were built water so somewhere in 98 you know that was changed 99 or newer, you know it's exactly like we're building today. Okay, okay, yeah, so so. But before you give somebody $20,000 to replace chain plates, call us, we do it, do it for less, but before we change them, we're going to inspect them to make sure they actually need to be changed. We don't make a living off of refit, we do it as a service.

Capn Tinsley: 24:06

Okay.

Darrell Allen: 24:07

Okay.

Capn Tinsley: 24:08

All right, salty Ben and out.