“This doesn’t work. Can you make one better?”

Bob Latham, founder of Latham Marine, has heard this question for the past 50 years while designing, engineering and manufacturing hardware, steering and more. In some cases, his metal parts outlast the vessels where they’re mounted. As an example of durability, Latham regularly services steering rams every 15 to 30 years by polishing, adding new seals and fluid, and returning them for another 15 or more years of use.

Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Latham Marine has an 18,000-square-foot factory and nearby warehouse, with some employees who have been there for decades. For years, Bob ran the business with his personal and professional partner, Kathy, who in January died of cancer. She managed the front office and logistics — with a “no cash, no splash” policy of not accepting checks or credit cards — while he focused on design, engineering and fabrication.

Today, the company holds numerous patents on parts and systems, from hydraulic steering rams and tie bars to sea strainers, custom rudders, hydraulic lifts and spacer kits. “We sell such a wide variety of parts,” says Tom Gongola, who started in polishing more than 25 years ago and now heads sales for Latham Marine.

From the Beginning

Bob Latham grew up in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, where he entertained himself by taking things apart and fixing them. He built bicycles from spare parts, then graduated to fast cars as an adolescent, tinkering with engines and speeding through sparsely populated, wooded areas of South Florida. He learned electronics from his father, the chief engineer for a Miami television station. Latham would crawl under the subfloor at the station, running wires and helping build the master control panels. His dad also bought the family a 17-foot Chris-Craft in the 1950s; it came in boxes, and Latham put it together.

Latham got into performance boats through a neighboring boat broker, John Nagler (grandfather of Yellowfin president Wylie Nagler), who in the 1960s sold Magnum boats in the burgeoning offshore powerboat racing segment. Few people knew how to work on high-powered engines, and Latham became the go-to guy. He also got into the cockpit, perfecting rigging systems and learning how to coax the most from equipment without breaking it.

At first, Latham Marine was a mobile engine repair and rigging outfit that fabricated parts. Later, there was a shop in North Miami. In 1979, Latham bought a lathe, taught himself how to use it, and created a hydraulic steering ram that, in 1981, helped win several racing titles. Latham soon met John “JT” Tomlinson, who today looks to Latham to create parts for his TNT Custom Marine teams out of North Miami.

New Dimensions

“We just say, ‘This is what we need,’ and always trust that what Bob gives us will work,” Tomlinson says. The Latham quick-release steering wheel is an example. When Tomlinson told Latham that steering columns were binding up, Latham had a solution two weeks later: a steering column and wheel that could be moved to various positions on the dash. In the late 1990s, Tomlinson asked Latham for a new trim system and strut assembly for a racing catamaran. With the new parts, the boat became a world champion and a speed record holder that still runs today.

But racing was just one proving ground. “Most people have no idea of all that we do,” Latham says, pointing to custom boat lifts his team created for Thunderbird Marine.

Scott Porter, president of Formula Boats, also has a longtime relationship with Latham. “Bob has quite a mind,” Porter says. “He can’t make anything but high quality, so when our lifts weren’t holding up, we went to Bob, and he did an awesome job. The lifts were stainless, so they were good in salt water, and we bought the patent from him.” The lifts have integral hydraulic rams without exposed cables or wires, creating a strong and non-corrosive piece of equipment that lasts.

A similar experience brought Latham Marine and Gemlux into the sportfishing market. Ash Gravely, vice president of engineering for Gemlux, had been working on plans for a hydraulic outrigger for a sportfishing boat. He thought the Latham Marine steering ram design looked scalable.

“Bob was all over it,” Gravely says with a laugh. “I told him that we were on a tight time frame, and if he just wanted to build a good-enough demo piece, we’d understand.” Latham responded with a firm no. Instead, Latham proposed putting the hydraulics inside the carbon fiber tube, making the outrigger smooth and easy to operate without external lines and wires. He delivered the finished product within 12 weeks, on budget.

“It worked perfectly the first time, and we were impressed. It changed the fundamental look of sportfish boats, where outrigger technology really hasn’t changed since 1947,” Gravely says.

Gemlux wanted to bring the technology to the whole sportfishing market. Today, there are multiple versions insstalled on boats. “Everyone who sees it thinks it’s incredible and they ask, ‘Where are the hoses?’ ” Gravely says. “We are super-proud of this and amazed at what Latham did.”

Confidence in Latham’s products also comes from the U.S. military and other governments that use Latham Marine steering and pumps on their vessels. “Everything else would just fall apart,” Latham says. “Year after year, boat line after boat line, we built on request, and Latham Marine definitely gets around the world. I build everything like it is for my boat, so it is overbuilt.”

Latham’s desire to improve things even extends to shop equipment. He was dissatisfied with the coolant pumps on CNC machines, so in 1997 he designed and built his own pump that is now sold to CNC manufacturers, resellers and companies such as Bosch and Caterpillar through a sister company, Latham Performance Products.

Changes in the marine industry keep Latham inventing new products, such as the spacer kits he developed for multi-outboard boats, to keep the powerheads clear of backsplash. He also built a variable speed pump for today’s bigger-power, heavier outboards with a power-on-demand control system to make low-speed maneuvering easier and quieter. A microprocessor varies the amount of power to the pump based on steering wheel speed.

“I’ve always had the ability to understand applications in my mind, visualize and build it,” Latham says. “I don’t do this for the money, but I build a good product at a fair price — but that is according to my standards.” 

This article was originally published in the March 2023 issue.