Luhrs and Mainship to relocate
MILLVILLE, N.J. – Mainship Corp. and Luhrs Corp. will relocate their operations to Luhrs Marine Group’s existing Millville, N.J., production facility, announced John and Warren Luhrs in a statement today. Beginning in January, Luhrs and Mainship models will be manufactured concurrently with Silverton and Ovation units, they added.
The relocation of Mainship and Luhrs will entail the closing of their St. Augustine, Fla., plant. The transfer of tooling will commence immediately, according to the company.
The decision was made by the Luhrs brothers after an 18-month critical evaluation of the production and cost efficiencies that would be realized by the centralization of the Power Boat Division in Luhrs Marine Group’s southern New Jersey manufacturing facility, the company explained. Hunter Marine – the group’s fifth company, located in Alachua, Fla. – as well as UK-based Luhrs Marine Ltd., will continue their present operations at their existing locations.
“We had been studying the benefits to our product lines, our present and future boat owners, and to our employee ownership by combining production, product support, sales and marketing responsibilities that have, historically, been autonomous,” Warren Luhrs remarked. “John [Luhrs] and I – together with Rick Cerami, chief executive officer of Luhrs Marine Group and our general managers – concluded that our companies will be significantly strengthened by the centralization of design, engineering, manufacturing, parts fabrication, purchasing, and customer service at our Millville plant. The decelerated economy, in combination with our previous planning, has enabled us to implement our relocation and centralization planning and become a stronger group of boat-manufacturing companies.”
The company expects “enormous efficiencies” as a result of the centralization – most notably in design, engineering and in purchasing.
“Centralizing the design and engineering responsibility for all four powerboat lines at the Millville facility will not only enlarge the pool of exceptional talent available to Luhrs, Mainship, Silverton, and Ovation; it will encourage a sharing of technology among lines and models so that every Luhrs Marine powerboat will enjoy an increase in utility, performance, and comfort,” said Cerami. “It’s also easy to understand how Luhrs, Mainship, Silverton, and Ovation will be able to control and, in many cases, contain the cost of raw materials and equipment.”
Forty years ago, in December 1969, the Luhrs brothers acquired Silverton Sea Skiffs – a Toms River, N.J.-based powerboat builder. The brothers’ “roots,” in actuality, extend much farther back in boatbuilding: to the 1930’s, when their father, Henry Luhrs, began producing wooden sea skiffs in the coastal town of Morgan, N.J.
“We didn’t intend that this first major step in the Luhrs Group’s ‘Plan for the Future’ would coincide with the 40th anniversary of the group’s beginnings in New Jersey,” John Luhrs concluded. “But we think our father would be pleased.”
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