Need a new lid
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06-23-2014, 08:13 PM
#5
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Joanna (parts) was out all last week with a family emergency so she is running way behind on getting to people. I had called last week and spoke to others but Joanna and I spoke a couple of times today. She probably needs to catch up.
06-23-2014, 10:26 PM
#6
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Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Sarasota FL
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They shouldn't have let Gail go. Not putting down Joann but Gail was awesome. I went to the Factory to pick up some Gel Coat for my Fever. Gail walked me all over the plant. The building covers over 200 acres. The place is huge. She took me to her office were the sales used to take place so I could pay for the Gel Coat and a couple other things I bought. It was really sad. Her office was a desk in the middle of the sales office. There were cubicles to seat at least 20 sales associates in that room. The phones all still rang when a call came in but other than that the desk were all empty. The whole factory was really sad to me. You walk threw and you can see the assembly line and were they used to build a mass amount of boats. The wiring harness room was all still in tact and one person could put together a whole wiring harness for any boat you wanted too. Just follow the diagram and size wire to follow. I think the interior room was the saddest of all for me. They had every pattern they ever made or cut from all piled up along the walls all the big pieces hung on racks. I was told they were working one getting all the patterns on disk for computer but for the time being anything older than 2000 had to looked up on fish plate and that would put you in the area of the pattern and then they would just dig threw the stuff until they found the one they wanted. Gail told me that this process would take days sometimes. Depending on what you wanted made price had a lot to do with them taking the time to find the pattern for you or not finding. They had two older black women who did all the sewing for the two new boats they were building while I was there. The carpenters also did the interior installations too. I don't believe that all together there was more than 20 people working in the whole place. I guess the good thing was the ones working had all been there longer than 15 years. The fiberglass man had over 20 years there. I ask him while he poured my quart of Gel Coat. So when things seem to take for ever and when you have to call repeatedly to get something ordered now you have an idea of what's going one. They had a ton of refurbish jobs going when I was there. Most were insurance jobs from boats messed up in super storm Sandy. That was the most of it. The windshield shop was pretty awesome they had a laser cutter and once you programed the windshield you wanted this thing would cut all the pieces of the plexi glass at one time. It would cut it in the most efficient way to save material. Then it would go up the line were a robot would grab it heat it and bend it all at the same time. It could put as many as 5 different bends and arches in a piece of quarter inch plexy glass all in one motion. Then it would rap and cover it at the end of the line so it didn't get scratch up and the installers would remove the film after installation.
06-24-2014, 06:58 AM
#8
I didn't know Gail, but I've had nothing but great experiences with Joanna. Always very responsive and very helpful. It's very sad what happened to that company. I can only imagine what it must have been like in its heyday. I was at the OuterLimits factory back in December and that was just an awesome experience. Would have loved to see Fountain in their prime.
