CS / Tartan (Chris)

Chris - I keep wanting to talk to you about CS's. My last boat was a CS 30 and I am still on their weblist. The owner, Paul Tennyson, recently (a year or so ago) put the molds for a couple of the boats up for sale. I think it was the 36 Merlin and the 40 but I could be completely wrong . I never heard anything on that list about Tartan was this a recent development? Paul West '80 Cal 39 Adventure Kwest In a message dated 7/14/2010 5:31:31 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, ch… [at] gmail.com writes: One point of correction Mike. CS is owned by Tartan Yachts for the last couple of years now. CS died in the mid 80s. Tartan revived the brand, Rumour has it that CS will emerge as their racing division and Tartan as their luxury cruising line. Friend works there as PM so if I got this wrong.....blame him..:) /ch

Four years ago an unmarked rock in the channel leading to the CYC on Lake Erie (our ditch harbor) split open the keel of my buddies E-35MK2 that we were delivering to St. Catherine's ON. We stayed there for three weeks, and were treated like royalty with cars and apartments being offered while we stayed on board in the parking lot waiting for transport. CYC is one of the premier clubs in the US as we later found out and its claim to fame is that it has produced more olympic racers/champions then any other club in the States. We came into port clueless as to where we had landed. A most interesting place to break down. It was expensive however despite the massive discount we received thanks to one of the board members who cut the rates in half I believe. One of the lads we met worked at Tartan Yachts at the time and explained that Tartan had acquired CS what remained of it and was planning to turn it into the racing division. Looking at the main site after posting, its seems that it did not materialize but Tartan describes its dealerships as Tartan & CS Dealers. So what is really going on there I have no clue...and the information is at least three years old so the acquisition was or is at least that old if not more. CS made wonderfull boats. The CS22 put them on the map both for design and build quality. Two years ago I was lucky enough to acquire the same CS22 that was the fleet champion in Toronto for most years that the fleet existed there. My third one. The owner had died and the boys had no interest and the boat was now setup for cruising in Midland ON....an undiscovered jewel of an area to sail. You gotta check it out at some point (area is known as 30 Thousands Islands area) I just finished selling off that boat as well as another parts boat to a friend who will undertake the restoration process. Too many trailer sailors but I could not let that boat go. So its now in good hands and I have the CAL-20 & 29 that I always wanted. CS had a long production run in Canada and internationally. Interestingly enough one of the selling hot spots for CS was Lake Winnepeg where most serious sailors would only buy CS. There remains a strong following on Lake Ontario between St. Catherine's all the way around the lake to Kingston. They are all over priced however as Canadians in general have not caught on that the market has collapsed in the States for classic plastic and still demand outrages amount of money. So they sit with for sale signs on them take at least three years to sell as most of us travel to the States to buy our boats, CS or other for about half what the boats are in Canada. You could make a good living at this until the new harmonized tax kicked in 1 July. Now we get taxed at 13 percent on just about everything. This has totally killed the importation market into Canada as well as sales of domestic and foreign boats which if not covered under the free trade agreement (ie: made in the US..and pls dont get me going on that deal...basically you own all our natural resources now, nuf said on that topic) you must pay an importation tax that can run as high as 23 percent pending on the country of manufacturing. A worst case scenario is 36 percent tax on the documented price. Now here is the rub, if they (customs) dont believe you for any reason, they evaluate the boat based on the red/blue book value not what you paid for it, hence all my documents were notarized. Learned that one from importing a CAL-20 for 300 bucks with all the papers in place from the Mass Maritime Institute. They assessed the boat at 3K Got lucky as the inspector was a sailor..."hmm project ah!. sorry man, but she (the officer at the wicket) is not a sailor" When you kick in the marketing programs that pander a boat under 40 ft is simply not sail worthy, the general perception is that you have to be loaded to own a sailboat which of course is not case at all. Hence nothing is moving up here, sales are drastically down and the same scenario of the 70/80's is now happening up here but for different reasons. I am not aware of any Canadian manufacturer that is still operational and building sailboats, powerboats yes, sail no, which is interesting. All sales are offshore and in Europe and the mid East mostly. The rules are wacky and constantly changing up here. Kinda like HS down below the boarder. Nothing is static. For example, a few years back (dont know the case now) I had an old BMW motorcycle that was serviced at McBrides in Toronto on one occassion. Being a chatty lad and McBride's being a rather famous CDN instituion we got into the usual sales banter...turned out that at that time it was cheaper for an American to buy a new German BMW in Toronto and have it shipped to any US destination then to buy one in the States. Same applied to the Mid East. McBride's sales were more then half to folks outside the country as the airport Pearson Int'l is a 30 minute drive and new Beamers already came crated from Germany. They made a killing while that loop hole existed. About all I know of CS and a minor rant....:) Best regards....ahhh sorry for getting off topic a bit. Its been a long day here. /ch

Thanks for the heads up on Tartan and CS. I have always liked Tartan and the S&S Designs. My Best, Mike From: chris123 <ch… [at] gmail.com> To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com Sent: Wed, July 14, 2010 9:17:28 PM Subject: Re: [Cal_Boats] CS / Tartan (Chris) Four years ago an unmarked rock in the channel leading to the CYC on Lake Erie (our ditch harbor) split open the keel of my buddies E-35MK2 that we were delivering to St. Catherine's ON. We stayed there for three weeks, and were treated like royalty with cars and apartments being offered while we stayed on board in the parking lot waiting for transport. CYC is one of the premier clubs in the US as we later found out and its claim to fame is that it has produced more olympic racers/champions then any other club in the States. We came into port clueless as to where we had landed. A most interesting place to break down. It was expensive however despite the massive discount we received thanks to one of the board members who cut the rates in half I believe. One of the lads we met worked at Tartan Yachts at the time and explained that Tartan had acquired CS what remained of it and was planning to turn it into the racing division. Looking at the main site after posting, its seems that it did not materialize but Tartan describes its dealerships as Tartan & CS Dealers. So what is really going on there I have no clue...and the information is at least three years old so the acquisition was or is at least that old if not more. CS made wonderfull boats. The CS22 put them on the map both for design and build quality. Two years ago I was lucky enough to acquire the same CS22 that was the fleet champion in Toronto for most years that the fleet existed there. My third one. The owner had died and the boys had no interest and the boat was now setup for cruising in Midland ON....an undiscovered jewel of an area to sail. You gotta check it out at some point (area is known as 30 Thousands Islands area) I just finished selling off that boat as well as another parts boat to a friend who will undertake the restoration process. Too many trailer sailors but I could not let that boat go. So its now in good hands and I have the CAL-20 & 29 that I always wanted. CS had a long production run in Canada and internationally. Interestingly enough one of the selling hot spots for CS was Lake Winnepeg where most serious sailors would only buy CS. There remains a strong following on Lake Ontario between St. Catherine's all the way around the lake to Kingston. They are all over priced however as Canadians in general have not caught on that the market has collapsed in the States for classic plastic and still demand outrages amount of money. So they sit with for sale signs on them take at least three years to sell as most of us travel to the States to buy our boats, CS or other for about half what the boats are in Canada. You could make a good living at this until the new harmonized tax kicked in 1 July. Now we get taxed at 13 percent on just about everything. This has totally killed the importation market into Canada as well as sales of domestic and foreign boats which if not covered under the free trade agreement (ie: made in the US..and pls dont get me going on that deal...basically you own all our natural resources now, nuf said on that topic) you must pay an importation tax that can run as high as 23 percent pending on the country of manufacturing. A worst case scenario is 36 percent tax on the documented price. Now here is the rub, if they (customs) dont believe you for any reason, they evaluate the boat based on the red/blue book value not what you paid for it, hence all my documents were notarized. Learned that one from importing a CAL-20 for 300 bucks with all the papers in place from the Mass Maritime Institute. They assessed the boat at 3K Got lucky as the inspector was a sailor..."hmm project ah!. sorry man, but she (the officer at the wicket) is not a sailor" When you kick in the marketing programs that pander a boat under 40 ft is simply not sail worthy, the general perception is that you have to be loaded to own a sailboat which of course is not case at all. Hence nothing is moving up here, sales are drastically down and the same scenario of the 70/80's is now happening up here but for different reasons. I am not aware of any Canadian manufacturer that is still operational and building sailboats, powerboats yes, sail no, which is interesting. All sales are offshore and in Europe and the mid East mostly. The rules are wacky and constantly changing up here. Kinda like HS down below the boarder. Nothing is static. For example, a few years back (dont know the case now) I had an old BMW motorcycle that was serviced at McBrides in Toronto on one occassion. Being a chatty lad and McBride's being a rather famous CDN instituion we got into the usual sales banter...turned out that at that time it was cheaper for an American to buy a new German BMW in Toronto and have it shipped to any US destination then to buy one in the States. Same applied to the Mid East. McBride's sales were more then half to folks outside the country as the airport Pearson Int'l is a 30 minute drive and new Beamers already came crated from Germany. They made a killing while that loop hole existed. About all I know of CS and a minor rant....:) Best regards....ahhh sorry for getting off topic a bit. Its been a long day here. /ch

I guess C&C will be the performance/cruiser brand as Tartan and C&C have been under same ownership for a while. ----- Original Message ----- From: pw… [at] aol.com To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 11:08 PM Subject: [Cal_Boats] CS / Tartan (Chris) Chris - I keep wanting to talk to you about CS's. My last boat was a CS 30 and I am still on their weblist. The owner, Paul Tennyson, recently (a year or so ago) put the molds for a couple of the boats up for sale. I think it was the 36 Merlin and the 40 but I could be completely wrong . I never heard anything on that list about Tartan was this a recent development? Paul West '80 Cal 39 Adventure Kwest In a message dated 7/14/2010 5:31:31 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, ch… [at] gmail.com writes: One point of correction Mike. CS is owned by Tartan Yachts for the last couple of years now. CS died in the mid 80s. Tartan revived the brand, Rumour has it that CS will emerge as their racing division and Tartan as their luxury cruising line. Friend works there as PM so if I got this wrong.....blame him..:) /ch

OK...my apologies...C&C and CS are two different CDN firms obviously. I was rambling on about CS not C&C. It was one of those days...got it all wrong. http://www.tartanyachts.com/dynamic/sales_landing.aspx with apologies. /ch