Grady-White's Shelley Tubaugh and Christian Carraway Discuss Exciting Advances in Technology and The Ultimate Boating Experience

PartsVu Xchange Talks Boating chats with Grady-White Vice President of Marketing Shelley Tubaugh and Product Designer Christian Carraway to discuss how advancing technologies and progress in engineering and material science are facilitating a lot of exciting boat design progress. Tubaugh, who has been with Grady-White for 33 years, and Carraway, who has been with the company for ten years, share insights into Grady-White’s integrated boating experience and how they create The Ultimate Boating Experience, including managing boating safety and the complexity of boat operations.

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Christian, when you look back over the last ten years, where have the most significant areas of progress been?

Christian: I've been in the industry for ten years, so I'm really looking back to the beginning of my experience in the market. What's wild to me is how big things have gotten, especially outboard-powered boats. Over the past ten years, boats have grown in scale, and the horsepower has had to grow in tandem. The technology to control these boats has advanced rapidly over just the last six or seven years. We see this with the advancements from Yamaha, such as joystick control, autopilot, and SetPoint features.

Have larger horsepower engines provided Grady more flexibility? Increasing the engine horsepower allows you to create bigger outboard-powered boats, correct?

Christian: Yes, it’s all driven by the market. People want bigger boats, and they don't want to compromise or sacrifice any of the performance. To get that, we've worked with our vendors. We're exclusive with Yamaha, and they're an incredible partner. As our boats have gotten bigger, their motors have gotten bigger. It's all worked out really well for the consumer.

Providing an integrated boating experience has become a big marine industry focus. What does an integrated boating experience mean to Grady-White?

Shelley: We work hard with our partners to ensure that everything works together. We start the product development process with a vision of what we want to provide to our customers and then we work with our supplier partners to develop products that meet that integrated need.

For example, our Canyon 456 required working closely with Yamaha to make sure the engines are well-suited to powering the boat and align to charge the batteries needed to run all the complex systems like air conditioning, the sea chest, and electronics. These features must have the right platform and are all integrated. Working with our partners, our goal really is to deliver The Ultimate Boating Experience.

I've seen a lot of changes. I remember the days when Grady-White didn't hang the engines on our boats. We would ship boats to our dealers with some pre-rigging, and the dealer did everything else. And today, when it leaves here, it's a much more complete package. It's more like a house in some ways because of the electrical systems, hot water heaters, color TVs, stoves, refrigerators, freezers, and all of that. These are very complex systems, and we have to work closely with our partners to integrate it all for our customers.

Christian: As Shelley was saying, everything has to work together. Boats aren't getting any more uncomplicated— everybody has this craving for more creature comforts and more features. They want the boat to do more and have to do less themselves. However, making complex systems and features work incredibly simply greatly enhances the ownership experience. It's integrating all the systems that allow you to have the best of both worlds. You can have all the features you want, and the boat's still just as easy or almost as easy to operate as when it didn't have those features.

Grady-White is well-known for providing customers with a lot knowledge resources. What are some of these resources?

Christian: Our network of incredible dealers, Naples Boat Mart as just one example, and our factory customer service representatives, are here for customers throughout their entire ownership experience.

Additionally, our Captain Grady app puts the knowledge of Grady-White dealers and customer service agents in the hands of customers with how-to videos, checklists, and other important information available for immediate and convenient access.

Customers can access the app from their tablets or mobile phones, and it includes not just boat operation information but tips for docking your boat, how to tie off your boat - all sorts of tips and tricks.

Shelley: The Captain Grady app is an onboard tool that can be with our customers 24/7. It can help troubleshoot a problem, the owner's manual for both your boat and your engines are included, and it is customized for the owner's specific model. The Captain Grady app contributes a great deal to the integrated boat experience.

Grady-White is also well known for its commitment to safety. What are some of the most important areas of marine safety, and how has Grady-White responded?

Shelley: From the beginning, Grady-White has always adhered to National Marine Manufacturers Association's (NMMA) standards which are also tied in with the American Boat and Yacht Club (ABYC) standards. We also are firmly committed to setting a good example. Our team members wear personal flotation devices (PFD) when they go out on photo shoots and test drives. Our photography for our brochures and website shows safety features and safe operation.

We work closely with Sea Tow and Boat US to encourage customers to take educational classes. Also importantly, we design safety into every aspect of the boats themselves. Our boats are filled with foam flotation, which makes them unsinkable. The hull design and how our boats handle overall increase their safety.

Christian: We spend a lot of time listening to our customers and leveraging our own experiences on the water to increase the safety of not only future models but our current model line. Each year when we start designing next year's model, we consider what we can do to make the boat better and safer.

We build in safety features. For example, our boats have true self-bailing cockpits. All of our live wells and fish boxes drain overboard and don't rely on batteries, float switches, pumps, or anything mechanical. I tell customers all the time - our bailing is fueled by gravity, and if we ever have problems with gravity, we all have bigger problems than a sinking boat.

Obviously, operators need to think about safe boating operations. But, when it comes to the boat itself and how it is designed, we never want our customers to have to think about safety.

The technology that has come out in the last five to ten years from Yamaha and other industry leaders also contributes a great deal to safety - driving and docking a boat is much simpler. This simplicity adds a lot to operational safety.

Grady-Whites are known for their comfortable ride, in large part due to their hull design. Could you talk about this a little more and some of the other features that make Gradys so comfortable?

Christian: Our SeaV² hull design is another one of those elements that has been around for a while, and it's proven itself to be superior to anything else on the market. We've gotten a lot of feedback from our customers, so we know the design is very well received. To me, the hull is one of the most essential parts of any boat design - I like to compare it to a house. The foundation of the house is critical to its stability. In the case of our boats, we start with the SeaV² hull, and we build all of the other features and characteristics from there.

Grady-Whites also tend to bit beamier than other boats on the market - all 37-foot boats are not created equally. To go back to my house analogy, we calculate square footage - length times width to express the space within a house. But to consider the size of a boat, typically, only length is factored. However, a 37-foot Grady will be about two feet wider than most other 37-foot boats on the market. When you consider the entire 37-foot length, that extra two feet of width ends up being a lot of additional space.

Shelley: Grady-White's bow flare is designed to cut through the ocean in a manner that makes the waves peel back so that it’s truly a soft, dry ride. Also, we have enough stability at the back that the ride is nice and easy when you settle down to troll or cruise. It is an award-winning hull that won the J.D. Power award in the marine industry.

Some of the other features that make Grady-Whites even more comfortable include:

• More cup holders
• Extra storage
• Fish boxes that are bigger and refrigerated with a thermostat control
• Bigger storage and freezer boxes
• Foam build-up on cushions to make them functional, comfortable, and U.V. stable
• High-level of thought applied to all features

A Grady-White just feels different. The minute you step onboard, everything fits together, and when you ride on one, it feels solid, comfortable, and safe. Those are words that our customers have said over and over. Even though they may not know exactly what causes that feeling, it’s all those elements that we worked so hard to put together.

What do you think is next for the Marine industry?

Christian: If you look at how much technology has changed over the last ten years versus the previous 100 years, it's on an exponential growth curve. The technology we have now is just the beginning from a control standpoint. For a less experienced captain, this means getting on a boat and worrying less. Whether it's something on the boat you've got to turn on and off or physically driving and docking the boat, the technology is rapidly developing to make the boats even easier to operate.

We also design safety into the very designs of our boats. We do our best to train everybody and give everybody the knowledge and expertise they need, but we do anything we can build in safety.

Shelley: There continues to be a lot of opportunity for integration as technology advancements allow more and more systems to work together seamlessly. There will be a greater opportunity to make boat operation and management increasingly easy so that people can use their boats even more often. I think this pandemic has taught many of us that being able to go outdoors, experience nature, and enjoy the peace you get on the water is hard to get anywhere else. The more people can do that, the better our quality of life.

Where are some of your favorite places to boat?

Shelley: I love to boat on the Pamlico River because there are many uninhabited places. You can go anywhere and just ride up and down the river, or you can find a little secluded beach and hang out there. Or, sometimes we jump in the boat and take it all the way to Ocracoke Island and hang out there for the weekend and come back. I've been on a Grady-White boat in many different places, and all of them are good.

Christian: There's a benefit to being in Greenville, NC. If you follow the Tar River, it opens into the Pamlico Sound. If you follow this sound, it opens into the ocean, past Ocracoke in the Outer Banks. So, with the Intracoastal Waterway, we could go north or south and get anywhere from where we are, which is really neat. They're all different boating experiences.