ROBINHOOD – There are a number of people in the marine industry you just love sitting down with and hearing their life story. Many of them have had a remarkable career spanning a number of decades. One person I have always wanted to do this with was Andy Valvolotis, who was owner of Robinhood Marine in Robinhood and before that Cape Dory. I also knew that he had been involved with other marine businesses. When he stepped away from Robinhood Marine it was always interesting to see what he was developing from multihulls, rowing seats or the floating motel rooms on the water. Over the last year, he hooked up with author James Nelson and wrote an autobiography, which anyone interested in the marine business will enjoy reading.
Unfortunately, three years ago Andy developed a blood condition and his doctors said that he was not allowed to work in his shop anymore. This must have been a tough pill to swallow because Andy absolutely loved developing boats or items for boats. Andy added, “The brain is still intact, and I can recall a lot of wild and crazy things that went on during those days building Cape Dories. I started scribbling down notes about all of the different adventures that went on there. I also thought a lot of these guys are still living and I am going to call them and see if they would be interested in writing. Well, they all jumped on board, it was fabulous.”
Andy starts right at the beginning, which started in Taunton, Massachusetts where he spent his youth. Taunton is not on the water, but it does have a river running through it. What fascinated Andy was the many manufacturing companies. There was a locomotive building company, big foundries, and the Taunton Stove Works. His father came from one of the largest islands in Greece and his grandfather also came from an island off Lesbos, Greece.
Early on, Andy was always building something. He explained, “I built models, maybe some aircraft models, a few ship models. So, I was into boats. Of course, I would read all of the magazines like Popular Mechanics, Science and Mechanics and Mechanics Illustrated. They would have a feature of building a boat or how to build 20 boats. I just loved to read all about that. I created my own little workshop down in the cellar of the house. My father was a chef and restaurateur for all of his life and he was great in the garden, but he was not a craftsman. I was taken to working with tools from an early age. There were some old derelict tools down in the cellar that had been left there from the previous owner. When I was probably 10 or 11, I thought ‘wouldn’t it be neat to have a table saw?’ Of course, I do not have any money for a table saw. I used to spend time in the equipment section of the Sears Roebuck catalog. I would read about all of the machines. Maybe I could work with a power arbor, which had a couple of shafts sticking out of it. It was like $299 for this arbor so I took that gizmo and mounted it on a platform and built a box around this arbor and put an 8-inch circular saw blade in it. The arbor already came with a v-belt. Over in the corner was a decrepit washing machine and the motor was still good. I hooked the motor up and then built a tabletop and I had a table saw. That was the beginning of my building a shop. I always had a respect for machinery.”
At this time Andy started building various boats. The first was a skin boat followed by some plywood boats. When he was 16, he built an 11-foot Class B utility racing boat. The motor he found in a hardware store in Buzzards Bay, which was a Mercury 20H Golden Hurricane. Andy added, “That was a pretty hot engine. Maybe the ccs were in the same range, but they had an incredible exhaust port that was big and came down to the water and when you turned the engine on you would swear it was 500 hp. I pleaded with my mother; I really need that motor. That was my intro to high-performance, that thing would do 50 mph. I almost started to race outboards with my buddy, but a young lady entered the picture, and all bets were off.”
Andy went to work for Al Gray at Gray’s Boatyard when in high school. He said, “Al Gray was a master shipwright. When I was there, 15, I think, I was doing odds and ends. He had me doing some planking on the bottoms. I also noticed what they were building in the main shed, I think it was a 49-foot Eldridge McGinnis sport fishermen. That thing was unbelievable, teak cabinetry in the cockpit.”
After graduating from high school Andy went to school for drafting and engineering in Chicago. He also went to work for the world’s largest lampshade manufacturer. It was a huge complex with lots of sophisticated machines some of which came from Taunton. He returned to Taunton and went to work for one of the local mills working as a draftsman in engineering department and demonstrating to clients how their fabric would run through a machine, they were interested in. At the same time, he built a fiberglass hardtop for a 1940 Packard convertible. He built a plug out of clay and then fiberglassed it. He then modified it by cutting it just behind the front seat and that gave him two removable sections. This was done in the mid-fifties, which was very early in the development of fiberglass.
After a short time at Mount Hope Machinery, he went to work for Boston Whaler for almost two years. He started in the moulding shop, then to the finish department and then to R & D in the engineering department. He was always reading the technical journals and noticed that a company, the Rand Corporation, had developed a machine for spraying fiberglass. When he got to Boston Whaler, they had machines similar, but they had built their own. He said it was all a learning experience as to the pros and cons and the ins and outs.
Then Andy thought he needed to make more money and decided to go into the real estate business thinking he could make a fortune so he could get into the boat business. So, he left Boston Whaler and became a broker in Brockton where he was living at the time. He was there five months, and no one had sold anything, but Andy who had sold five houses. Realizing this was not going to make him a lot of money, he left. It was also the time that he sketched his first Cape Dory. He explained, “Phil Bolger had just designed the Gloucester light dory and I built him a dozen of those with a fiberglass joint. That was the forerunner of Cape Dory. I designed a Swampscott type dory which had panels, with the same idea as the glass joints. We did maybe 15 of the Cape Dory 15s. The 14 came after them, and that was a round bottom boat, narrow, good rowing and sailing boat. The 10 came after that and that became an all-purpose boat, good for kids and good for towing behind a larger vessel. That really got us going.
“I just love to get into the shaping and styling and creating and then to be able to build it,” said Andy. “It is one thing to design a boat, but can you make the thing, make it profitable and sell it at a price that people can afford? How can we build it better? Timing is everything and certainly luck is involved. I stumbled across certain things like the Typhoon and then the relationship with Carl Alberg. One phone call was the difference between success and failure.”
Naugus Fiberglass was going out of business on the North Shore of Massachusetts and Andy noticed that they had two models, the Typhoon and a 30-foot Hood auxiliary sailboat. He wanted the 30-foot Hood and was able to win the bid. This consisted of just the hull. However, they had not done anything with it as they were so busy selling the dinghies. The Typhoon was purchased by a company on Cape Cod. A couple of years later Andy gave them a call and asked if they were doing anything with it. They said they had not, and he asked if they would be interested in selling it, which they were. That was an incredible purchase and became one of their best sellers. It was also Andy’s introduction to Carl Alberg, the designer of the Typhoon. He called him and told them he would be interested in paying him a royalty on the ones he sold. Every month a check went out for every one they sold. Andy added, “In many ways that was such a key to the company. It was a full keel boat, small, and it was great for entry-level people just getting into sailing. The demand in the market was just unbelievable. The timing was perfect, everything fell into place and basically the best salesman that we ever had was the Typhoon. That boat would sell the next boat, you know the 25 to the 27 to the 28 and to the 30.”
They were using fittings from several manufacturers, but they did not work or look right. That is when they formed Spartan Marine, and they built their own hardware for all their boats.
Carl was going to the Newport Boat Show one year, and as he passed West Bridgewater, he stopped at Cape Dory and went into Andy’s office with a big manila envelope under his arm. Andy added, “He pulls out the drawings and it is the 28-foot Alberg. It was like an Alberg Triton, but on steroids. He lengthened the water line and beamed it out a bit, but still very moderate. In later years I would plead with him that I needed more beam. I have got to have more room inside, the other guys in the market are killing me. I also need the keels to be a little shallower. He liked my R & D department because even before I would think about it, he would be looking at my product line and he was right there with new designs. If I had not picked up the phone and called him, I would have lost that whole opportunity.”
The energy crisis in the early 1970s hit the boatbuilding world hard. Andy was wondering if he would ever build another fiberglass boat. There was no resin to be had and they did not know when any would be available. What could they build that would keep them in business? The thought was a commercial boat. He liked Royal Lowell’s designs, and he went to him for a dragger. “I want the boat to be slow,” said Andy, “but powerful and not cost anything for fuel to run it. This 38-footer started with 100 hp motor, John Deere, the problem is you need a lot of horsepower for hydraulics and things that you are running on the boat.”
It was this boat that brought Andy to look for another facility, preferably on the water, and that took him to Maine. This was when he discovered Robinhood Marine. The owner, Ralph Becker, wanted out and Andy jumped in with both feet.
Then Cape Dory hit hard times and Andy was not sure if he could save them, Spartan Marine or Robinhood Marine. He explained, “The sailing market was saturated by ’85, and it was like the whole market shutdown, and everybody was moving into power. That was the beginning of our powerboat ventures and that came at a key time. Before Cape Dory closed down, I bought a Webco 22 hull. This was what I wanted to build. I built it in my garage in Lakeville at the time. I finally finished this boat, just about the time Cape Dory was closing and this boat went to Robinhood. I can build a product like this that the market would have an interest in. But we did not go that route. Fortunately, Robinhood was okay. These things happen and you know you can’t plan it. I did not plan any of it. I was going about my business doing things that I felt I needed to do, and it just so happens that they kind of fall in place.”
While running Robinhood Marine Andy built a number of sail and power yachts. He also developed all sorts of marine items and boats that he felt the market would like. Then several years ago, he sold the yard and went into his shop at his home just around the corner from the yard and continued developing items and boats.
There is no question Andy has had a very interesting life and he wanted to tell his story. He first contacted a neighbor, who was a writer, but he did not want to get involved in a big project. Other people were recommended and the one he settled on was James Nelson, who was still working on the Virginia Project in Bath. The two made an agreement and after numerous interviews, with the inclusion of others that had worked with Andy over the years writing their own parts, they had a book that Andy has every right to be proud of. For those interested in a copy of this book, turn to the advertisement on Page 18.
