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What Happened to Island Packet Yachts?
July 5, 2026 · 14 min · 47K views
What this video covers
Island Packet Yachts has built over 2,500 boats from its Largo, Florida factory since 1979, when founder Bob Johnson — a mechanical engineer with an MIT master's in naval architecture and marine engineering who had previously designed missile structures at McDonnell Douglas — started the company with molds for a 26-foot centerboard sloop called the Bombay Express, a classified ad in Cruising World, and a kitchen table for a sales office.4:06 Johnson's defining engineering contribution was a full-foil keel using NACA airfoil sections borrowed from aerospace, delivering the tracking stability and gentle motion of a traditional full keel with less than five feet of draft while generating hydrodynamic lift at speed — a direct counter to the IOR-driven fin-keel trend dominating the late 1970s.7:22 Construction used a one-piece, hand-laminated solid fiberglass hull-and-keel molding with no keel bolts, triaxial knitted laminate, and a proprietary gel coat system called Polyclad backed by a 10-year osmosis warranty.7:53 The Island Packet 31, introduced at the 1983 Annapolis Boat Show, sold 262 units and anchored the brand's reputation.5:32 By 2016 the company was in financial trouble; dealers Daryl and Leslie Allen acquired it in January 2017, restarted with 13 employees, and introduced the Island PACKET 349, which won Cruising World's 2019 Domestic Boat of the Year.12:48 The Island PACKET 439 won Cruising World's Best Full-Size Cruiser in 2021.13:00 New boats now start at $399,000.13:24 Staying deliberately outside racing-rule trends proved a durable competitive position across 45 years of production.
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