🔒With sale of Morris Yachts, Cuyler Morris looks ahead

Morris Yachts owner Cuyler Morris finalized the sale of his company to The Hinckley Co. on Jan. 1 for an undisclosed price. Morris focused on the daysailer and ocean cruising sailboat markets. Hinckley dominates the jetboat market. Their production plants are within a quarter-mile of each other, in Trenton, and both have service and storage yards on nearby Mount Desert Island.

Morris Yachts was founded in 1972 by the late Tom Morris, Cuyler's father, and Cuyler joined the company in 1995. Over four decades, it has produced 330 boats. Prices on some boats can range from $200,000 to more than $1 million. Like other boat builders, the Morris yard took a hit during the recession. Staff levels went from about 130 in 2007 to a third of that by 2015; new-boat production dipped from a peak of 21 or 22 to four in 2014. Still, service and storage remained steady, keeping the company solvent.

Cuyler Morris keeps an office at Handy Boat in Falmouth and works with Hinckley as a brand ambassador. Mainebiz caught up with him as he contemplated the next stage of his career. Below is an edited transcript.

Mainebiz: What tipped the decision to sell the company?

Cuyler Morris: It just seemed like a great opportunity to become part of an organization that has a great team all-around. We share the same ethos: We're both downeast Maine boat builders. Hinckley has a great organization, a great management team, a great service network and a great sales network. And it became more difficult to go it alone, as a small company, particularly in downeast Maine. It's been too long of a recession and it's been too difficult of a business environment. We honestly didn't have the resources left to be able to develop the next best thing. And there were some personal changes in my life, so this was an opportunity I couldn't let pass.

MB: What do you see for the Morris brand's future?

CM: I see a more viable future, a more stable future. Having been in and around the marine industry, particularly in Maine, all my life, it's been clear that the last five to 10 years have been much different from the first 35 years. The economy's cycles are much higher and lower than they used to be. There's a lot of variability from year to year. That makes it difficult for small businesses to adapt. Being part of a bigger organization, where there are different resources, and different opportunities to share across lines, will provide stability to our workforce.

MB: In what ways has the boat building business become variable in recent years?

CM: People are pressed for time. But they still want to go sailing. So we had to build sailboats that solved that problem. So the sailing industry had to develop boats for people in the modern world and the way they were using them. For us it was the M-Series daysailer, in 2004, that really saved the company. We evolved our product for the way people were going to use them. Consumers could just get in and go. I remember getting a Christmas card from a customer who used to rave about the number of days he could go out and sail his [M-Series] boat every year. One year, it was 217 days. He said, 'I can go out in this boat for an hour, and have an hour of enjoyable sailing. I'm not spending half that time getting the boat ready to sail, then putting it away.'

MB: Was it difficult to adapt your business to that trend?

CM: Short, limited use is not a trend. It's not going away. Everyone's got an iPhone and a car that's Internet-connected. Consumers today are used to modern conveniences and modern technology and they expect it in everything. You can say, 'But sailing is about getting away and unplugging.' And for me, as a purist and as someone who grew up sailing and cherished it, I would say it is. But there are more and more millennials now who want to go sailing and still be connected. You've got to create connected cars, connected boats, connected everything. That kind of modern technology has to be woven into products today to get consumers to bite.