Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 24, 1991 TAG: 9102250390
SECTION: BOAT SHOW PAGE: 14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
He pauses in the finishing room to examine a new 2600 Sportfish, pointing out to a visitor that it has port and starboard transom doors.
"I am an offshore fishermen," Curry says. "I mainly fish for blue marlin off of Hatteras, N.C., which is my favorite fishing area on the East Coast. When I designed this 26 [footer], I tried to put everything into it that a large boat would have."
So when you play a big fish and want to bring it home for hanging on the wall, you can slip it through the transom door, just like you would if you were aboard a 40-footer.
"Before, people with smaller boats had to drag their fish on a rope behind the boat to take it to shore."
The on-the-water experience of Curry and his eye for practical details have helped thrust Wahoo! to the forefront as a national boat builder in less than a dozen years. Working at his retail boat dealership in Richmond, in 1982 he designed his first Wahoo!, a 16.2 center console boat.
Now he manufacturers 2,000 boats a year at a modern factory near Ashland, selling them through a network of 100 dealers in the United States and another 25 in places like Italy, Germany, Japan, Holland, Singapore, even Kuwait when there isn't a war in progress.
One dealer, Valley Marine Center of Roanoke, will show the Wahoo! line at the Southwest Virginia Boat Show.
While the 26-footer, with its sleek European lines, is a major head-turner among the Wahoo! offerings, the company's bread and butter craft are its 16, 17 and 18 footers. They are open, unsinkable boats designed with an angler in mind, most with a center console, some with a walk-through dual console. They can chase flounder off Eastern Shore, go after schools of blues in the Chesapeake and, equally well, fit into the striper fishing scene at lakes like Smith Mountain.
Much of the success of Wahoo! can be pinned on the fact that the line reflects the desires of boat buyers, Curry said.
"I had been in the retail boat business for years and kept listing to the customers saying, `I wish this boat had this; I wish it had that.' So what we try to do is build everything into our boats that everybody has been asking for."
Curry was born along the Rappahannock River and owned his first boat at age 5. When he became a boat dealer, he had his pick of numerous types and brands of craft, but often found himself jumping into a Boston Whaler to check his crab pots, to fish or to take a summer afternoon spin up and down the river. The Wahoo! reflects the simple, seaworthy, workhorse features of the Whaler, but with the addition of more storage, built-in gas tanks and less clutter, said Curry.
"The people who buy our boats are usually third- and fourth-time boat buyer, which is very important," said Curry. "The third- and fourth-time boat buyer knows the mistakes he has made in his earlier purchases and he tries to eliminate them."
Ed Graves, owner of Valley Marine Center, said his typical Wahoo! customer is a person shopping for a second boat. That person owns a large runabout, and is looking for a craft that is versatile, functional and easy to maintain.
The buyer often is shopping for a boat his youngsters can enjoy, thus saving the runabout for mom and dad and their guests. But the Wahoo! will be the one that dad choses for fishing or for running the lake in rough water, Graves said.
"Our boats are noted for saltwater, but they are very good striper boats, good lake boats," said Curry. "They run a little bit more in cost than a freshwater boat. The reason, a saltwater boat has to be built a little stronger and heavier because it has to go out in heavier seas, where the bass-boat type is strictly for lakes."
The Wahoo! can be customized with a bass fishing package, a downrigger package and a poling platform used for going after shallow-water species like bonefish.
As for the name Wahoo!, Curry said it came from his love of saltwater fishing.
"Ours is a saltwater oriented boat, so I though it ought to have something to do with a fish name, and wahoo is the fastest swimming fish in the ocean."
A 100-pound wahoo that Curry caught in the Bahamas hangs over the receptionist's desk at the boat factory. The exclamation mark in the brand name is there for a dash of excitement, said Curry.
Curry plans to be at the Southwest Virginia Boat Show, and so will his daughter, Jill, a student at Hollins College. Before becoming a full-time student, she was Wahoo!'s top factory sales representative, he said.
by CNB