Arima Boat Sales Weather Recession -- Firm's New Reach For Sport Fishermen From Asia Gives It A Wider Market Base

AUBURN

There's an adage about pleasure-boat sales people in Japan, who may pay several social visits to a prospective buyer's home before making a sale, says Juichi Arima.

If the wife invites the sales rep to tea, the sale is nearly won; if the wife extends a dinner invitation, the boat is sold.

It's his intimate knowledge of Japanese deal-making that Arima says will help him sell his boats in his native country. He has lived in the U.S. for 30 years.

"I'm kind of familiar still with the customs of Japan," says the wiry, 55-year-old industrial designer. "Communication is very easy, and dealers are more comfortable with me and with my (boat) design."

While the recession has eaten into boat sales nationally, 12-year-old Arima Marine, of Auburn, has held its own.

While sales are down from early last year, they were higher in the first two months of this year than they were during the same periods in 1989 and 1990.

Part of Arima's strength is its product: small, stable Fiberglas power boats made expressly for sport fishing in lakes and the ocean. Part of its strength also is its clientele: salmon and bottom-fishing fanatics, mostly older and many retired; people hurt less by the economic slowdown.

But it's Arima's new reach to Asia that will give the company a wider base to draw from, a hedge against rolling recessions.

In most respects, Arima is still a local company.

Its market has been the West Coast, including Alaska and Hawaii, with 60 percent of its $3 million annual sales by boat dealers in the Puget Sound region.

The small factory here employs 30 people, who turn out about 400 boats a year.

Boat-making is a primitive industry, Arima says. This is not like building cars; it's all done by hand. Fiberglas hulls are hand-laid, hand-painted, hand-drilled and hand-assembled. In a separate room above the factory floor, workers sew canvas tops. The whole place smells of glue and Fiberglas.

Arima had sold a couple of boats to Japanese customers, when he enlisted the help of his brother, in Tokyo, to make a concerted effort at selling there. His brother, an experienced salesman, helped arrange a display of two Arima boats at the Tokyo boat show, in February.

Dealers from Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and other Pacific Rim countries flooded the show, perhaps the biggest of its type in Asia. Arima says his brother developed signs that said, "Japanese-designed, American-made," for the boats. Dealers and boat enthusiasts expressed interest, he says.

Arima says American pleasure boats are better-built than those in Japan. U.S. Coast Guard regulations are stricter than those in Japan, he says, so that American boats have more flotation foam, making them less likely to sink if a hole is punched in the hull.

Arima, who designs all his boats, studied at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, in Michigan, and worked for the New York design firm of Walter Dowin Teague Associates Inc. Walter Dowin sent Arima to the Northwest to work on designing jetliner interiors for Boeing, a job he held from 1967 to 1969.

In 1969, he formed his own consulting company and worked for various boat builders, designing boats and marine radios. But he realized that if he formed his own manufacturing company, he could reap continual profits from his work; not just be paid on a project basis.

Since starting Arima in 1980, he has built more than 3,300 boats. His designs are similar to Boston Whalers; wide and filled with lots of foam that make them hard to tip and sink.

They are built specially for fishing, with lots of nooks and crannies for stowing bait and fish.

Arima fishes for salmon in Puget Sound and for mahi-mahi in Hawaii. Fish prints and paintings stare down from his office walls.

Arima says his boats have unique hull designs that make them more fuel-efficient and more powerful, with smaller engines. Their size, from 15 feet to 19 feet, make them transportable and easy to store in the garage.

Sport fishing is a growing fancy in Japan, as in the U.S. Since the Tokyo Boat Show, Arima sold two boats in Japan and shipped six more over to be sold there. He also sold four to a Malaysian dealer.

It's too soon to tell, but Arima hopes to sell as many as 30 boats a year in Japan. The first dealer who sells 10 of his boats will get a visit from Arima. It's customary, after all. "I would go on a social visit to pay respect," he says. "With a smoked salmon from Washington state."