The unsinkable Paul Adams

A good idea plus the challenge of constantly improving the product are what keep a multi-million-dollar company afloat. Words Sam Davison; Photos Miz Watanabe.

UNSINKABLE. It’s a word that aptly describes Paul Adams’ Stabicraft boats. It also describes the man himself and his drive and determination to run a successful company. There are no airs and graces about Paul. He admits he’s not really much of a boatie; he’s just into making stuff. And he likes to do a proper job of it. He’s also into lists – and systems, structure and consistency. His business has grown on these ideals and his life is run by them. There is no room for a “she’ll be right” attitude. Consistency and quality control are the lifeblood of Stabicraft.

It’s not surprising then that a boat like Stabicraft was designed and produced in Southland by a born-and-bred Southlander. It’s built to weather the extremes; it’s not pretty but it’s hard-working, robust and practical, easily matching the environment in which it was conceived. Over the last 20 years Paul has built a multi-million-dollar company and an internationally recognized brand out of Stabicraft. But outside the corporate world he is a family man who forms a tight team with his wife Liza and their four children aged two, seven, 11 and 13. His eldest daughter, 24, made him a grandfather for the first time late last year.

When NZ Life & Leisure catches up with Paul over Christmas, it’s not at a fancy lake-house getaway but in a quintessential Kiwi camping ground where he is holidaying with his family – a menagerie of four adults and six children piled into four old caravans at Lake Hawea. The only sign the camp-site houses Paul Adams is the giant Stabicraft boat and a 1960 Cadillac Coupe de Ville parked outside – a hint at Paul’s secret addiction to classic cars. He currently owns four but would love to have up to a dozen.

While he never dreamed of building a multi-million-dollar company, Paul has always followed his heart. As a child he would spend hours in his grandmother’s shed building toy planes out of fruit boxes. In the summer of 1969, after Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, the same shed was producing moon buggies. Today his business thrives on the fact that every day he derives enjoyment from “building stuff” and the constant challenge of improving his product design.

There was no fancy school or university education which led Paul to where he is today. He left school after the first term of fifth form and began a coach-building apprenticeship – an unusual choice at the time but one which would ultimately provide a great grounding for Stabicraft.

After various roles, including a short stint in Western Australia and four years carting wild deer around the country, in 1987 Paul found himself working for a commercial fishing company in Bluff.

A couple of fishermen had bought a paua quota and came into the smoko room one day complaining that the rubber inflatable they were using was not up to the job. They had an idea for something similar to a pontoon boat but made out of aluminium and they wanted Paul and his colleagues to build it. Paul initially turned the project down, thinking it was a crazy idea. The fishermen went to a rival company but when Paul saw the finished boat he knew he could do a better job. He made a one-off design for another fisherman and the idea grew.

At 26 years of age with a business partner, a sketchy business plan, a budget and a $1000 overdraft, he branched out on his own and Stabicraft was born. Technically, the vessels have “advanced metal extrusion technology used to create continuous pontoons that provide a life-ring on the upper-outer extremities of the boat, creating positive bouyancy”. In layman’s terms: trapped air in the hull makes the boat so stable it’s virtually unsinkable.

Today about 60 percent of the Stabicraft boats manufactured are exported, primarily to the United States and Australia. While 95 percent of these are for recreational use, the company has also sold boats to the Australian Customs Department for border control. Initially the boats were designed with the more serious recreational fisherman in mind but over the years the customer list has extended to include all recreational fishermen and boaties.

One of the company’s biggest obstacles has been the reaction of women, Paul says. While the Stabicraft vessels are robust, they are not often described as attractive – something many a Kiwi bloke has had to convince his wife is not important before he can buy one. But Paul believes it is its unique look that has given Stabicraft its edge in the market-place and he is loath to give it a more “acceptable” shell. “We don’t want to soften them up so they don’t look like Stabicraft. From day one the whole evolution of the design has been to improve the boat so it is better for the customers.”

To prove the toughness of these boats, here is a true story about a Stabicraft boat: it fell off the back of a fishing ship off the coast of Nelson and was found many months later off the Gold Coast of Australia, upside down, covered in barnacles. After it was righted and cleaned up, it was found to be in working order and is still being used to this day.

Paul has learned to balance work and family life but admits he’s probably worked longer and harder in the past year than ever before. The recession was not kind to Stabicraft which was forced to lay off 15 workers last year – 25 percent of its staff base at the time. Unsinkable fishing boats, no matter how unattractive, are still a luxury item and among the first to go when times are tough. But as confidence has returned to the economy, sales have lifted. “It was hard but we had a plan in place; we worked through it and coming out the other side we can look at what’s happened and how we’ve come through it,” he says.

Before the recession, Stabicraft was a $17-million company heading towards $21 million. By the end of last year, however, that figure was “drastically lower”. But Paul prefers to focus on profit rather than turnover and says coming out of 2009 profits were “extremely good for the year”. He hopes 2010 will be better. “There’s always a way. It irks me when people say you can’t do that. I think there must be a way.”

It is this attitude which has led Stabicraft to become a New Zealand business success story. And one word describes it well. Unsinkable.