Hatteras Celebrates 60th Year with a Customer Party

On September 27 and 28th, the owners of a wide variety of Hatteras and CABO models converged on Hatteras World Headquarters in New Bern, North Carolina for a fun-filled weekend celebrating six decades of the iconic Hatteras brand.

The agenda for the VIP event included tours of the Hatteras | CABO factory, including a sneak peek at the all-new GT65 Carolina model currently in build. Hatteras Yachts’ factory leadership team proudly presented the different stations on the manufacturing line from lamination to assembly to paint, pointing out all the technological advances and innovations that make Hatteras and CABO yachts stand out from the competition.

Hatteras Club

Persimmons Waterfront Restaurant in downtown New Bern once again was transformed into the Hatteras Club, right down to logo umbrella tables on the back deck overlooking the river. Featuring signature cocktails, locally sourced Carolina cuisine, casino gaming for charity, and music by Vegas’ best Sinatra impersonator, and seven-piece band Seven Til Sunrise, the “Clubhouse” was the place to be for relaxing, dining and dancing during this exclusive event.

On Friday evening, six striking Hatteras Yachts, including the 105 Raised Pilothouse, M90 Panacera, M75 Panacera, M60 Motor Yacht, GT59 Hatterascal and the GT45X, along with the new CABO 41, paraded past the Hatteras Club. Fireworks exploded across the night sky as these beautiful yachts, lit up with colorful LED lights, showed off their lines to wild applause. On Saturday, all the new boats were available for sea trials by our Hatteras Club guests.

HATTERAS YACHTS AT 60 – A LEGACY OF INNOVATION

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the iconic Hatteras Yachts brand, which pioneered the use of fiberglass for recreational boats over 40 feet.

Until the Post-World War II era, most small recreational boats were made of wood. Then, in the 1950s, a few manufacturers of sail and powerboats began to experiment with building them out of woven, fiberglass-reinforced plastic (commonly known today as “fiberglass”), which had been developed by the Owens Corning Company in 1932. However, many marine industry leaders remained highly skeptical about using the material for boat building.

“If God had wanted us to build fiberglass boats, He would have made fiberglass trees,” was the saying commonly heard around the docks in those days.

History of Hatteras

Designer Jack Hargrave and Hatteras Yachts founder Willis Slane.

Early in 1959, textiles manufacturer Willis Slane from High Point, N.C., and an associate, “Sleepy” Carter, who was involved in making fiberglass for Owens Corning, had the opportunity to seatrial the Crystaliner 27 in Miami, Fla. This 27-foot fiberglass race boat, built by Don Mucklow and powered by twin Corvette engines, had won the 1957 Miami Nassau Powerboat Race, covering a total distance of 180 ocean miles. Needless to say, Slane was impressed. He was an avid offshore sportfisherman who liked to spend his weekends fishing in the Atlantic Ocean off North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras. Those waters, near the confluence of the Gulf Stream and cold Labrador Current, are known as “Game Fish Junction”.

Slane was a member of the new Hatteras Marlin Club, established earlier that year near Hatteras, N.C. The sportfishing boats that Slane and his fellow club members fished from at the time all were made of wood.

According to Hatteras Yachts’ famous “origin story”, one fateful day in 1959, Slane was extremely frustrated because the weather off Cape Hatteras was stormy and the captains who ran the sportfishing boats that he and his fellow club members chartered to fish from refused to risk their vessels by taking them out.

Slane vowed to build a boat big and tough enough to withstand the conditions off Cape Hatteras. In one version of the story, Carter, also present, suggested the boat be built of fiberglass, a suggestion that Slane embraced.

Slane raised the initial capital to build the first boat from amongst his fishing buddies right there at the Hatteras Marlin Club. He started to look for a boat designer who could help to realize his dream boat, but met with resistance from those still wedded to wood. Finally, one of the Hatteras Marlin Club founders, C.F. “Charlie” Johnson, referred Slane to Jack Hargrave, a naval architect who had designed the larger cruising yacht that Johnson was building at Burger Boat Company in Wisconsin.

The First Family Cruiser and Sportfish

Slane outlined the concept he had developed for the first Hatteras for Hargrave. He specified a roomy salon, full galley, and two staterooms so the yacht could also serve as a family cruiser – an early innovation. The boat would be powered by twin 275-hp Lincoln-block Chris-Craft V-8s. Both the hull and deckhouse would feature fiberglass construction. Hargrave developed the design, which turned into a 41-foot sportfisherman with a spacious 14-foot beam. The demanding Slane gave his new production crew in High Point, which included Don Mucklow, just four months to build the boat.

“We went on and built that first boat because we didn’t know we couldn’t do it,” one of the crew members commented later. On March 22, 1960, Willis Slane’s wife, Doris, christened the new Hatteras 41 Convertible Yacht Fisherman Knit Wits in honor of that fact that Slane and many of the company’s original investors were in the textiles industry. The yacht slid into the water and went on to deliver a top speed of 36 knots. Slane took seven orders for the new Hatteras yacht the same day. And the rest, as they say, was history.