Q&A With Roger Moore

At the end of October, MarineMax was in the midst of adding to its portfolio of dealers by acquiring Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Nautical Ventures Group. But in the end, CEO Roger Moore and his management team decided to back out of the deal.

“I think the world of the people at MarineMax,” Moore says. The main reason we decided to back out is that the culture we’ve created [at Nautical Ventures] is one of team spirit. We’ve got some really great people, and I don’t think of any of them as employees. I think of them as teammates. I realized that for my whole life, I’ve never worked for anyone else. I was finding it difficult in my mind to give up the control, give up the company.”

Instead, Moore and his business partner Jeff Garcia decided to put together an employee-owned stock option for Nautical Ventures Group. “I’d like to share the success of the company with those who created that success,” he says. “Some of that is because that’s what I’d like my legacy to be; the other is that they deserve it.”’ flagship outlet is a former BMW corporate office in Fort Lauderdale and one of 11 retail locations the company has throughout Florida. Moore says he is negotiating on a new location farther out of the company’s territory.

He admits that there was a little bit of self-service with the move, as well. “If I can put those golden handcuffs on them, I’ll have a stable crew because they’re getting solicited by other companies,” Moore says.

In a conversation with Soundings Trade Only days before Thanksgiving, Moore, 77, described how he and Garcia grew Nautical Ventures to one of the biggest dealerships in Florida and where the company is headed.

You have a lengthy history on the water. How did it start?

I grew up in Staten Island, N.Y., and my parents had a 33-foot Wheeler they kept in Bayonne, N.J., at the Atlas Yacht Club, so I was brought up on a pram. My dad bought me one of the first see-through, plexiglass dinghies. As I grew a little older, there was a guy at the club with a 16-foot Correct Craft that I loved to death. It was really a mess. It cost $600 and my dad said, “If you pay half, I’ll pay the other half.” I came up with $300, and presto, I was a boat owner at 14. It had a Ford flathead 60-hp V-8. I learned how to do all the basic things and got it back into shape. My parents would go down to Red Bank, N.J., during the summer. I’d drive my boat right behind them.

Did your family stay on the East Coast?

We moved to California when I was in high school. I didn’t boat for a while there, and then I started off with a little 19-foot Marquis for a July Fourth weekend. I kept moving up in size and ended up with a 50-foot Gulfstar sailboat, sailing in San Francisco Bay, which I dearly loved.

How did you support your boating habit?

We were in the manufacturing business making water purification products, plastic injection molding and NFL-licensed products. We sold that company, and I said to my wife, Samantha, “Let’s get a boat and cruise down the coast to Southern California.” She looked at me and said, “What?”

So did you persuade her to join you on the trip?

She was part of my business, and she was my first mate on the water. We had never been out of the bay, so we bought a 63-foot Cheoy Lee motorsailer with twin 3208 CATs and a ketch rig. Off we went down the coast, gunkholing our way through every bay, every marina we could stop at.

Were there any unexpected hiccups?

The boat ran fantastic. One thing I did when we started was learn the systems. I asked the Caterpillar mechanic to come out and teach me how to maintain the engines. I sat him on the battery box and gave him a beer and said, “You tell me how to do it.” I had the manual, and he showed me how to adjust valves, how to change the fuel pump. I love mechanics, and I made notes in the manual. I did the same thing with the air-conditioning guy. That was invaluable throughout the journey and our whole boating life. I bought an encyclopedia of heating and air conditioning. You don’t read the whole thing, but when you need to know something, it’s there. The other one I had was Jimmy Cornell’s World Cruising Routes. He went back as far as Capt. Cook’s records and compiled charts, and I pretty much followed his guidance.

Was that the end of the journey?

By the time we had gotten that far, we were in love with cruising, and when we got to our destination of San Diego, we said, “Let’s keep going down to Mexico” and sailed down to Acapulco. When we got down there, some people told us they were crossing the Pacific to the Marquesas Islands. I said, “You’re nuts. That’s 2,850 nautical miles with no land. There’s no way I’m going to do that.” A month later, off we went, and once you get to Marquesas, what do you do? Let’s try the Tuamotus and Society Islands in French Polynesia, Cook Island, American Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, and we ended up cruising the South Pacific.

What kind of time frame are we talking about?

We spent one cyclone season in Tonga for seven months in a small island group. Then we spent another cyclone season in Australia before we went through Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, across the Bengal Sea to Sri Lanka, the Maldives and up the Red Sea. We ended up being guests of the Saudi government, then headed to Egypt and spent a winter in Tel Aviv, Israel. We cruised the Turkish coast in the Black Sea to Odessa, Romania, Bulgaria and all around the Mediterranean, up around Portugal, down to the Canaries and Cape Verde, and then crossed to Barbados, down the island chain to Venezuela.

How did the journey wrap up?

After 13 years, we arrived in Florida. The Cheoy Lee needed a paint job and new teak decks. I had rebuilt the generators in Israel, and they were ready for another rebuild, so I said, “Why don’t we get a trawler and sell the Cheoy Lee?” I met my current partner, Jeff Garcia, and he managed to sell the Cheoy Lee. Then I bought a 72 cockpit motoryacht. It was a fixer-upper, and we redid the interior and spiffed up everything. We lived on that for a little while, and I bought another boat, and after talking to the brokers down here, I said, “This is something I could do.”

So your entrepreneurial instincts kicked in?

I used my sales and financial experience, and my adventure of sailing around the world, and thought I’d be an unusually good broker. We started a company called Quality Power and Sail, and did quite well, even through the downturn in the economy in 2008. We were buying boats from National Liquidators, fixing them up ourselves and selling them down-island. Jeff knew many people in St. Maarten, Guadeloupe, French Guyana, and one thing led to another.

What boatbuilders did you start with?

The first new lines we brought in were Fountain, Donzi and Baja, and boy was that a mistake. They made a lot of promises and commitments to the media and everyone else, including us. The editors wrote about everything they were going to do, and the company never advertised, so the magazines weren’t happy with them. We were out there shouting the brands in the wilderness. They were burying me in boats, and I was so excited to be carrying Fountain, Baja and Donzi. They were iconic brands.

Where was your first location?

On Griffin Road and 95, right behind the Hilton hotel in Dania Beach, Fla. We bought the business next door that was selling kayaks and paddleboards. It was called Nautical Ventures, and it was about to go bankrupt. Nautical Ventures was easier to say and more descriptive, and we changed our company name to Nautical Ventures, and that eventually became Nautical Ventures Group.

Where did the orange polo shirts come from?

Our first [boat] show was on Halloween at Fort Lauderdale, and I said, “Let’s wear orange shirts,” and it stuck.

How did you end up in the current location of the flagship store?

Fort Lauderdale International Airport expanded and by eminent domain took the original location. We built a new location on Dania Beach on the C-10 canal, and that went quite well. In 2019 or 2020, we made a deal to buy the current location we’re in that was previously a BMW main office. It’s a phenomenal location with three properties on U.S. 1, and BMW built a $35 million facility across the street.

How many locations and employees does Nautical Ventures Group have?

We have 153 employees and 11 locations, five of which are retail. We have North Palm Beach and Stuart, Fla., and we acquired one dealership that had two locations on the west coast, one in Sarasota and one in Tampa Bay.

Are you looking to add more locations?

We’re negotiating on one quite a bit farther out of our territory now, and the key is having those golden handcuffs I talked about earlier to find the right people to be able to operate.

All Nautical Ventures stores are separated into departments. How did you come up with that?

We have watersports, RIBs/tenders, center consoles and fiberglass boats, a yacht division and two new sectors: sailboats and electric. I’ll use the sailboats as an example. We’ve been selling Hobie sailboats, Laser performance sailboats and Tiwal inflatable sailboats. Don Smith, the president of Beneteau USA, came to me and said, “Rog, how would you like to handle First Sailboats? They start at 14 feet.” I said, “That sounds great, but I have one problem. There isn’t a single person in this organization that knows the difference between a bedsheet and a jib sheet.” If you’re not a sailor, you don’t know.

How is the search for qualified sailboat salespeople and brokers going?

You can’t get good people if you’re selling small sailboats because there’s not much money, so I pulled back. And then the Oceanis line and Excess catamaran line from Beneteau came available. Coincidentally, we are also now the Nautor Swan agents for Florida. Now we have the money to attract the people to join the Nautical Ventures sailboat sales team. My goal is to have it up and running by the Miami boat show. It’s an underserved market. We sold two boats in Annapolis and came away from the show with 175 leads for sailboat sales.

Why is the yacht division separate from regular boat sales?

Yachts require a different mentality. The way we chose the best team for our yacht department is not the best salesperson. We chose it from who is the best follow-up person because that’s relationship-building. If you buy a boat from us, I want someone to call you in two weeks, a month, two months to see how you’re doing. I don’t want a salesperson to be afraid to call and find out, oh my God, the bilge pump isn’t working. It’s, how can I help you fix the bilge pump?

Some people are questioning paying the money to attend big boat shows, but you like to make a big impression. Why?

We do all the events. At the Fort Lauderdale boat show, we were the largest single exhibitor, with 83 boats. We always bring the Aqua Zone 40,000-gallon pool, and it’s part of a joint venture … because we sell a lot of water toys.

What are your annual sales?

For 2021, we bumped just over $100 million.

How much of your business is water toys?

They are a significant portion, not a major portion. Our philosophy is that we don’t sell watersports toys or boats; we sell fun. When you walk in, it doesn’t look like a boat dealership. It looks like a toy store.

You have a diverse selection of powerboats. Is there one that stands out as the sales leader?

Axopar is the leader. We have been the No. 1 dealer for them for five or six years. More than 35 percent of our sales are Axopar. We carry so many lines because we want to capture anyone that’s in the market, and part of it is a desire to bring in new boaters and watch them progress. When we sell someone a 24 Axopar, they upgrade almost immediately to a 28. The 28s go up to a 35, and owners of a 35 want a 45. We can’t get enough boats. Bringing people in at every level is what we want to do.

What was your first impression of the Axopar?

The first time it was shown to me, I said, “That is a weird-looking boat. It has to be wet. It has no freeboard.” I could see all the negatives, and I couldn’t comprehend it, but then 30 minutes into the meeting, all of a sudden, I started to like the design. Axopar has really dialed in and hit the market with good quality and fantastic performance.

Why do you think the imports are so popular?

People want something different. I live on a boat on the New River. People see center console after center console after center console, and then they see an Axopar and they say, “Whoa, what was that?” People see the difference. A De Antonio is another off-the-charts boat. It’s a different design, and people love it.

What segments do you see electric power being most viable for?

Rentals and day boating. When I talk to friends who own Freedom Boat Club franchises, they say the average run is 8 miles. People who rent a boat go to a restaurant or a sandbar. They’re not going to the [Florida Keys]. I think people will come to adapt to electric, and some won’t. If you look at [land-based] gas stations, they don’t have power anywhere, but marinas already have it, and it’s sufficient for overnight power. The infrastructure can keep up because I don’t think enough people are embracing the electric yet.

Is electric more expensive?

When I talk to X Shore, they think they’re going to bring boats in parity. With batteries and a 180-hp E-Motion engine, Vision Marine Technology’s new 21-footer is going to be somewhere in the range of $150,000.

Are we getting to a point where the technology that many manufacturers are installing to make boating easier is going to make it cost-prohibitive to get into the sport?

I don’t think that’s going to eliminate anything for us. People who opt for a Seakeeper or a Quick or a joystick have plenty of money. If they’re getting a Starcraft, there’s a little of this and that, but I don’t think they’re doing anything that’s pricing it disproportionately.

What new technology impresses you?

What Brunswick is doing with Navico’s Fathom power system is cool. It eliminates the generator and has the whole system integrated. To have Navico design the whole system is going to be seamless and better for the customer, and for us.

Is the majority of your business outboards?

Always the outboards in this market. I think customers just feel more comfortable with outboards.

How are you being affected by the state of the economy?

We’re already being affected in the small-boat sector. The smaller boats are typically bought by someone with a fixed salary, and now the costs of many things like groceries and fuel have gone up, so their spendable income has been reduced. In the pandemic, there was money around, and people jumped into it.

So you’re expecting new boaters who got in during the pandemic to be around short-term?

Many first-time boat buyers are going to find out that the wife really doesn’t like boating, or the husband is done, or someone gets seasick. Many of those people who jumped in are now realizing it’s time for annual service or haulout or insurance renewal, and they’re getting their first dose of sticker shock.

Can buyers still get financing for smaller boats?

Increased interest rates are a significant factor for smaller boats because they’re probably financed, and rates are almost doubling.

How about the larger boats, are they still moving?

As far as larger boats go, as fast as we can get them in, they’re selling.

Are the boat manufacturers getting caught up with inventory?

Some of them have an abundance now. We’ve called a couple of suppliers of smaller boats and said, “We need to back off. We’ll take what we have on order, but we’re not going to order more until we absorb some of this inventory.”

Are you concerned with the current state of the economy?

My way of trying to understand the economy is we all know there’s a storm brewing. Is it going to be a small tropical depression or a Cat 5? I don’t think it’s a Cat 5, 4 or 3. I’ve tried to teach our sales guys who’ve been lazy because the business came to us to grab a ladder and reach for that higher-hanging fruit because it’s going to take more effort. People aren’t walking in with a blank checkbook or bag full of cash. We need to work with them to find the right boat.

After the havoc wrought by Hurricanes Ian and Nicole, has your insurance changed?

We just had our insurance double for marina operator liability coverage. Our property insurance was up for renewal Nov. 15, and it’s been extended because of the hurricanes, so I’m a little nervous about what I’m going to see in all the renewal premiums on all the real estate.

What does the future hold for you and Nautical Ventures?

I don’t want to retire. I did that when we made our 13-year-journey around the world. I’m sort of unique in my goals, and my partner Jeff wants to take off for six months or a year. He just bought a 15-meter [49-foot] catamaran. He’s going to take delivery in France, and he’s going to sail through Europe and bring it back here. If we do this public offering, I can hang some golden handcuffs on the railing here behind me. When I need them, I can find the next good person to open up the next office or whatever. I’ll be able to provide stock options and a fair compensation package to help build the business. 

This article was originally published in the January 2023 issue.