As the decades piled up, so did Hatteras' successes. Well, all right, there were a couple of blips. For a brief time, Hatteras actually licensed an Australian builder (Riviera) to build boats under the Hatteras marque for sale "down under." That seems to have been quietly swept under the carpet – along with the sailboat. Sailboat? Oh, yes. Only three of the Hatteras 65 Sail Yachts were made. It was a handsome yacht, built solidly in the Hatteras tradition, but ...

 But, then, there also was the introduction of the Long Range Cruiser. Only 158 were made, but they were so well made they have engendered a cult of devoted owners.

In 1984, a high-rolling investor named Irwin Jacobs appeared (loomed, some would say) on the scene. Jacobs had a company called MinStar, which owned, among other things, Wellcraft. In his own words, Jacobs recounts his involvement: "I first noticed Hatteras at the Miami Boat Show in 1984. We had a boat called the Californian under the Wellcraft umbrella and that was our answer to the big boats ... 53-footer, I think it was. I went over there with our people and I said, now this is a fine boat and I don't think we can compete in this world unless we have this company." Jacobs' eyes twinkle. "I proceeded to try to buy it from AMF and they not only weren't co-operative, they were downright rude. So I bought AMF and sold off everything except Hatteras."

 Bryant Phillips, now the senior vice president for sales and marketing, adds his own take on the story: " At the time, Irwin was known in the business press as 'Irwin The Liquidator,' so when he took over our company, a lot of naysayers outside of it were concerned that he would come in, suck out the profit, and leave us for dead. His record proves he did the exact opposite: he turned around and invested not only a great deal of his personal capital but an unmatched amount of enthusiasm, as well."

 Dave Parker, who had become one of the patriarchs of the marine industry, retired in 1985 and was succeeded by Alton Herndon, an industrial engineer by training, who had joined the company in 1969 and worked his way up to operations manager at the New Bern facility. For the next 11 years, Herndon, who understood profoundly the culture developed by Slane and Parker, held the reins through some very good times and the near death of the industry by the poisonous luxury tax. Under Herndon, Hatteras continued to grow, including the introduction of the custom yachts program.

 Corporate change is inevitable, however, and Herndon eventually was succeeded by Jim Farrell, who was president for a year before he was replaced by current president Bill Naumann, who for the past two years has been imposing his own style on the company. "If you've walked around here and kicked our tires," Naumann notes, “you'll notice that we have spent a lot of time and effort and tried hard to make this a team, not a collection of individuals. We've always had a lot of good people working at Hatteras but they were kind of independent agents who did the best they could with what they had and did what they thought was right, but when we added all the pieces together, the puzzle didn't always come out right. So, we've spent a lot of time in the past two years fostering teamwork. It's starting to yield big results. We've had a tremendous increase in productivity and a lot of that is related to the fact that people are now working together and not just alongside of each other."

   "We went on and built that first boat because we didn't know we couldn't do It. " -Ray Myers

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