RE-POWERING
with
t had to happen sometime. Finally, after 15 years as our tender, and a full 20-year operational life, my outboard had seen its final days. Splash, my 13-foot Boston Whaler, would need a new source of propulsion. So I began to look around, and it was a 20-horsepower Yamaha outboard that caught my eye. Besides being the right power fit, the engine had a secondary feature that really made sense: The power tilt would be a time-saver and a back-saver, too. So this year was the year. But I wanted to be 100-percent certain that the Yamaha was the engine for me. After all, if I could expect to own it for a decade and a half, like my last one, it was an investment I simply didn’t want to mess up. Enter Spellman’s Marine… I knew that the Spellman family had a sterling reputation on Long Island. Bud Spellman Sr., the companies founder, has been workings with small boats on these shores since 1958, when Elvis was doing the “Jailhouse Rock” and Dwight Eisenhower was president. Three generations of the Spellman family had been involved, and still were involved, in running the business. They have three
I
locations on Long Island, two in Hampton Bays and one in Freeport, and expansion was in the cards. I contacted Kent and Buddy, the owners, and they told me to come on in. I had done some research on their website but knew there had to be more to the story. It all began in the least likely of places. Bud Spellman started the business by selling parts from the shelves of his toy store, Hobbyland, which many folks in the region still fondly recall. He’d seen the explosion in recreational boating in the years following World War II and figured he could be a part of it. As so, kids who bought Dennis the Menace and Little Lulu dolls from Bud in 1958 now buy Grady White boats from Brian, Bud’s grandson. The business changed over the years, as Hobbyland faded away. Six of Bud’s eight kids still work at Spellman’s, and what they bring is consistency where it matters most, in customer service. While the business has changed, how business is conducted by the Spellman’s has not. I experienced that personalized service firsthand. Kent, Buddy and Brian assured me that rather than force the most powerful, most expensive engine on me, they wanted to know
36
CAPTAIN’S SEASIDE GUIDE 2013
www.captainsguidemagazines.com