Wellcraft is a brand of American powerboats. It was founded in 1955, making wooden runabouts. The company is owned by

Groupe Beneteau Beneteau or Bénéteau () is a French sail and motorboat manufacturer, with production facilities in France and in the United States. The company is a large and recognized boat builder, with its holding company (Groupe Beneteau) now also holdin ...

, part of its Rec Boat subsidiary.

Acquisitions

In 1982, Wellcraft purchased California Yachts from the Marshall Boat Company and in 1987 sold it back to them. In 2014,

acquired Rec Boat Holdings (Wellcraft, Four Winns, Scarab, and

Glastron Glastron is a boat manufacturing company and was one of the first manufacturers of fiberglass boats. Glastron is owned by Rec Boat Holdings, a subsidiary of Groupe Beneteau. Bob Hammond, Bill Gaston, Bob Shoop, and Guy Woodard founded the company ...

Education programs

Wellcraft created the Wellcraft Saltwater

Fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...

School to teach new Wellcraft owners how to become better fishermen. It also created Wellcraft's High Performance Boot Camp to teach new Wellcraft owners how to get "maximum thrills" out of their new purchase while operating them safely.

Product line

Its Scarab line of boats, specifically, the ''Scarab 38 KV'' was featured on ''

Miami Vice ''Miami Vice'' is an American crime drama television series created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series stars Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs, Ricardo "Rico" Tub ...

''. The Wellcraft Scarab 38 KVs were a 28-hued, twin 440- hp boat that sold for $130,000 in 1986. As a result of the publicity the show gave Wellcraft, the company received "an onslaught of orders", increasing sales by 21 percent in one year. In appreciation, Wellcraft gave

Don Johnson Don Wayne Johnson (born December 15, 1949) is an American actor and singer-songwriter. He played the role of James "Sonny" Crockett in the 1980s television series '' Miami Vice'', for which he won a Golden Globe, and received a Primetime Emm ...

an exact duplicate of the boat featured on the show. Altogether, one hundred copies of the boat (dubbed the "Scarab 38KV Miami Vice Edition") were built by Wellcraft. The ''Miami Vice'' graphics and color scheme, which included turquoise, aqua, and orchid, was available by special order on any model Scarab from 20–38 feet. Don Johnson also designed the Scarab Excel 43 ft, Don Johnson Signature Series (DJSS), and

raced In sports, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific go ...

a similar one. The Don Johnson Signature Series was powered by twin 650-hp

Lamborghini Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. ( , ), usually referred to as Lamborghini or colloquially Lambo, is an Italian manufacturer of luxury sports cars and SUVs based in Sant'Agata Bolognese. The company is owned by the Volkswagen Group through its su ...

V-12's, which caused some problems to the design of the boat due to their size. Overall the boat cost $300,000 with each engine amounting to between $60–$70,000.

Starwind division

In the 1980s, Wellcraft started a

sailboat A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails and is smaller than a sailing ship. Distinctions in what constitutes a sailing boat and ship vary by region and maritime culture. Types Although sailboat terminology ...

division, called Starwind. The division operated until about 1984, producing a line of small sailboats, including the Starwind 19, Starwind 22, Starwind 223 and

Buccaneer 18 The Buccaneer 18, also called the Buccaneer dinghy and the Gloucester 18, is an American planing (boat), planing sailing dinghy that was designed in 1966 by Rod Macalpine-Downie and Dick Gibbs (naval architect), Dick Gibbs as a one-design Saili ...

centerboard A centreboard or centerboard (US) is a retractable hull appendage which pivots out of a slot in the hull of a sailboat, known as a ''centreboard trunk'' (UK) or ''centerboard case'' (US). The retractability allows the centreboard to be raised t ...

boats.

References

External links

* {{Starwind Wellcraft