The cats in Muscongus Bay are bigger and faster these days, and may soon move to Rockland or Thomaston. These aren’t felines. These are catamarans, built by Maine Cat in sizes up to 38 feet long.
Dick and Lynn Vermeulen started the business in their Jefferson garage, building 22 foot fiberglass catamarans, in 1993. A few years later, the expanding business moved to a business park in Waldoboro, then two years ago to a Route 32 site in Bremen with its own waterfront. The smell of fiberglass resin, and the sounds of power tools, fill the busy shop where the couple spends most of their time.
More than 40 of the firm’s Maine Cat 30-footers have been sold to date, and the latest design in CoreCell – a structural foam core material used throughout – is the Maine Cat 38. The first of that line is under construction and slated for a spring launching.
Vermeulen loves the possibilities with CoreCell, developed in the last decade, which enables him to build large but light-weight. “I mean, this is an inventor’s dream. Anything you can dream up in your head, you can now build. It’s amazing.” He said his crew can build boats by hand that are lighter than boats mass-produced with high tech, expensive machinery.
The FAMMU SAMI, moored seasonally Rockland harbor, is Maine Cat’s biggest boat to date. Launched in June 2001 for owner Richard Saltonstall, it’s 46 feet long and 44 feet wide. Saltonstall has already won the Gulf of Maine race in FAMMU SAMI, sailing from Yarmouth, Maine, to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, in 17 hours. That’s about 12 hours off the previous record, traveling at some 17 knots. “It was a good project. It was a fun boat,” Vermeulen said.
He explained he now needs more room, and more workers, than his Bremen shop affords. But that’s not the whole story. State authorities refused permission to build an on-site launch ramp into the bay, and a group of local activists oppose Maine Cat’s very existence in Bremen. Vermeulen says their letters to the state Department of Environmental Protection sealed the rejection of his ramp. The result is that all launchings involve a truck trip to the Waldoboro town landing or, when that ramp is frozen in, to Round Pond’s public landing.
Other sources in Bremen say Maine Cat simply failed to obtain a permit for the ramp on the merits of its case. A couple of years ago, the Vermeulens were talking about building a house near the shop, instead of commuting from their Jefferson home.
But, as Vermeulen said, “not everybody wants us here. They spray-painted slogans on the building, drilled 36 holes in the bottom of a boat before we launched it.”
“We brought a great business to this town. We advertised for people to work here. We have nobody from Bremen employed at this place. I don’t know why. We went to the town and they gave us a permit to build a building, and put a ramp in.”
Some local residents oppose Maine Cat’s site, a large industrial building in a residential area, with scant screening from the road. Some residents are concerned about chemicals used and stored on site. Vermeulen suggested that wealthy people moving to sleepy little Bremen may balk at having a business in the neighborhood, no matter what it is.
“Why waste any time trying to figure it out?” Vermeulen said. “You just move forward. We’ve got so many good things to do.” He and Lynn plan to lease the existing building when they find a new home for Maine Cat. “Can you imagine a person who starts out in a garage 10 years ago? And a year from now we’re going to have a 25,000 square foot building. I’ve got a wonderful wife. I’ve got three healthy kids, and one is getting married this summer. You know what, I haven’t got much to complain about. I’m a pretty happy guy.”
Meanwhile, “if someone walks through the door that has any boat-building skill, we’ll hire him in a minute.” He hopes to add up to six workers to the existing crew of 14, in the coming year, and anticipates building another five 38-foot cats, and 10 more 30-footers.
Vermeulen hopes to double his business, pointing out the 38-footer is twice the price of the Maine Cat 30, which sells for about $150,000.
Nobody is a bigger booster of Maine Cat than Vermeulen himself. “The Internet helps, advertising helps, the boat shows certainly help. That’s a big one. If the guy down the street has one in the same harbor that you are in, it’s a done deal. It is an awfully attractive boat. I mean, it really is different from what else is in the harbor. People like the look of it. Or maybe they hate the look of it. No doubt about it, it’s not a Hinckley,” he said.
Vermeulen grew up in New Jersey doing some lake sailing. At 10, he and his father built and raced plywood sailing pram. He remembers seeing his first catamaran, an Aqua Cat at 15, “it’s not a particularly good sailboat. It had twin hulls, anyway.”
He built go-carts. “I’ve always built, my whole life,” he said. He studied engineering in college and before switching to boat building, was a metal building contractor. He radiates enthusiasm for his work; it is his passion. He approaches designing and building boats with energy, discipline, teamwork and some humor. He works hard, he expects his employees to work hard, too. But he will sometimes reward them, and their families, with a Maine Cat cruise in the Bahamas. He said he values people, not just profits, and that extends to his customers. He considers them friends and maintains contact through a Maine Cat newsletter, even a Maine Cat regatta in Florida.
“The guys work 45 or 50 hours a week. To be a good boss, you have to work more than they do. I come in seven days a week. You have to. It’s the dream. You have to just love what you do.”