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Interview with Steve Hutchins
Steve Hutchins, President
Hutchins Yacht Sales, Inc.
Notes from a recent interview with Power and Motor Yacht Magazine.
Steve grew up in Virginia and was a fishing and boating enthusiast as a very young boy. He even built his first boat at the age of 12 from mail order plans and lumber store parts in his basement — a 12 ‘ Chippewa canoe covered in canvas and painted. While fishing his canoe in the reservoirs of Northern Virginia, Steve was invited to fish a “big boat” in the Chesapeake for stripers and has been an avid sportfisherman ever since.
Traveling every weekend to the Outer Banks of NC since the late 60’s, Steve originally fished various “mid size craft (23 Sea Craft, 25 Whitewater, etc.), got his captains license in 1980 and ran a 32’ Blackfin out of Oregon Inlet on weekends. Being a light tackle enthusiast, Steve was invited to fish the International Light Tackle Tournament in ’83 with Kurt Gowdy, Lynn Swan and Ernest Borgnine. He caught his first world record and won that tournament with his teammates. He also saw a lot of Blue Marlin in the chum during the tournament and vowed to return to that fabulous island with his own boat one day. Steve and his wife, Teresa (who also holds close to thirty women’s IGFA world records for everything from Blue Marlin on 16# to yellow fin tuna on fly) did just that and still hold the Bermuda record for catching 7 Blue Marlin in one day on their boat, Temptation. In 5 years of fishing that boat, the pair caught over 2,000 billfish (Bermuda, Carolina and Mexico). This couple is into the sport. Selling their printing business in ’95, the couple was free to purchase a 48’ trawler, which they have equipped for world travel, and fish exotic locations with a 16’ flats boat mounted topside. After about a year of this pursuit, Steve and his wife decided that he was not “old enough” for full time leisure and he threw himself back into the workplace in an endeavor he loved—interim CEO for one of the Carolina's largest producers of Sportfishing Vessels. Do you wonder why Steve specializes in high end Custom Carolina’s?
Helping this large Wanchese builder get basic infrastructure in place and seeing the difference in custom boats built in North Carolina, Steve recognized a pressing need for a locally based brokerage and dealership that understood the custom market and founded Hutchins Yacht Sales to fulfill that need. Carolina boatbuilding has evolved from commercial and charter boat operators building, during the harsh winter months, boats sturdy enough to meet the needs of coming and going throughout the graveyard of the Atlantic. Today’s’ evolution provides more and more “creature comforts” and “high finish” details to an increasingly demanding sportfishing/traveling clientele. Techniques, complexity of product and even basic business models have transformed greatly in response to client demand and will continue to do so as long as the clientele is happy with the products and services it receives from this region. Hutchins Yacht Sales is right in the middle of it all.
What special skills/services do you offer your clients?
“New Builds” represent a significant portion of our business. We not only arrange financing and insurance, we also act as an intermediary developing construction agreements, monitor “milestone” attainment and represent the client throughout the entire build process. Our presence in the different plants not only keeps us current, but keeps the customer in constant communication with the progress of his job in a particular builders’ plant. Keeping both builder and client on balance and in harmonic relationship has been proven to be vital to the client’s final satisfaction with the end product and ongoing service from the builder.
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Hutchins Yacht Sales, Inc.
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207 Queen Elizabeth Avenue, Suite Two Manteo, NC 27954, USA |
Toll-free 877-268-2047 Tel 252 473-6605 Fax 252 473-6612 Email Us |
