 Hi and welcome to School of Hustle, I'm your host Sarah and this is the show where we chat with everyday entrepreneurs about everything that goes into starting a new venture. In 2019, 67 million domestic and international travelers spent a total of 44 billion in New York City. This spending directly supported nearly 300,000 jobs in the tourism industry alone. And today I'll be interviewing one of my favorite sightseeing activities in the city, it is Classic Harbor Line and is a yachting company that offers a wide range of experiences to tourists and locals alike such as sunset sails, architecture cruises and much much more. They started in 1994 in Newport Rhode Island and since then has expanded into four cities throughout the United States. And today I'd like to welcome the man who started it all, it is Rick Scorano. It is a pleasure to have you here. Well thank you, I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you about it. You know I was literally on this exact boat about three days ago with my parents. I think Classic Harbor Line is such a wonderful experience in the city and I've talked about you guys so much on my YouTube channel so it's such an honor to finally meet you who started the company in 1994, 25 years ago. I'd love to just hear a little bit about your background and why you decided to get into this. Well even, I mean as kids we grew up on a little camp in upstate New York and we had, we were just playing with boats all the time. And brother John was just always on the sailboats all the time and so it just just evolved. He was just fanatical about it from the time he was a little kid. He was drawing pictures of schooners when he was in the first grade. Wow. And so he's designed everything that we see here and just about everything that we operate. Really? So are all of your boats designed by him and built by your company? Yes, I mean we salvaged an old wood boat that was gonna probably wind up getting cut up if we didn't a couple years ago but we operate nine boats and we're operating ten boats. Nine of them are designed and built at our yard and they're all designed by John. Well they're so beautiful. I think you guys call it a 1920s style yacht. Is that the correct terminology? Yeah I mean for the for the Manhattan's that's what we're talking about. Similar to the old commuters that the ultra-rich used to get to their upstate or Long Island estates and that type of thing. The schooners are more like 1860s, 70s pilot schooners. They were really taken after the the pilot schooners were just very cool because they were they were designed for being seaworthy and fast. They didn't have to carry goods they didn't have to they had to get out to the sailing ships first so they'd be going out like 600 miles to get to get their pilot on board because if they didn't get their pilot on board they didn't get paid so it was a real competition and it evolved into the pilot schooners that are so uh which is such very interesting fast well-designed boats and that's that's really how schooner america came along and how and the schooner america is that one right there right yeah yeah okay the big that's a quasi replica of a boat that was built in 1854 and sailed to europe across the ocean and then beat every boat the brits could put up against it so you pull your designs for boats from history it sounds like well the design not so much but the profile and the look of it if you look at the under body of america say it's totally different than what was built in the 1850s with newer materials and technologies we can we can do a lot more to make it more practical totally i mean coming on to this boat or really any of your boats i actually had my 30th birthday on one of their boats so uh you just it's so cozy and it's so luxurious and i think that's the thing that stands out and and you guys offer multiple experiences you have tours like the architecture tours which are beautiful you have um uh bar um you've previously had brunches and and cheese tastings and things like that and so it's such a well-rounded experience and it's something that other boats don't offer so i know that you're you and your brother loved sailing but where did you come up with the idea of let's go further than just sailing let's actually make this an experience for people yeah well uh one of one of the incentives for me to to build a power boat and to circumnavigate manhattan was my experience on circle line and uh karen and i did it on new year's day once and since then it's just been a tradition since 2005 on one of our own boats when we first built a power boat down here but we wanted to do it in a different way i mean i love the experience and on the circle line but we've always been sort of a niche and our niche is just this traditional style in a much more intimate atmosphere yeah so you're not on a on on what some folks might call a real headboat with uh you know it's it's more yachty it's more comfortable it's more intimate and it's just uh really a much nicer feel i think and a nicer experience for folks a hundred percent agree with that and that's why i always go to here instead of your competitors so you can i mean i can imagine that uh boats are quite expensive so when you're starting a company around boats there's a lot of funding that goes into that so how did you how did you fund this venture of yours this dream of yours to create this incredible company well it was great difficulty i said that was the hardest part about boat building was getting the funding or at least for us it has been particularly um i mean we focused on wooden boat building for the first 20 years of the company and so um it was really until the early 2000s when we started working with the different metals and when i say uh wood a lot of composites involved it's not your traditional wood built wooden boat building right in fact the types of boats that we build and the way that we build them there's less maintenance on them than the aluminum boats or the steel boats that are around substantially actually that's surprising to me that wooden boats have less maintenance yeah well the way we build them uh in the 70s it was really developed what was considered cold molding but it's a it's a way of structurally building a wooden boat but it yet it's sheathed with uh with resins and a non-structural layer of glass so that you could just put like an automotive finish on it wow it sounds like you know a lot about the boat making process i to be real with you i actually thought that you you all bought these pre-made and then you just did the cruises so i'm even more impressed now that you built all of this because it's the most beautiful boat i've ever been on oh thank you um so how did you end up getting the funding then for building all of these well we we had been working uh first off we we the first boat that we built we we went high and dry looking for funding to do it the boat that we put a new port in 1994 and we wound up working with the local bank that had become familiar with us from other uh projects where they had funded the uh the long term but not not for us right but they knew us and they liked us and they trusted us and it was a it was a local bank out of Hudson okay and uh they just uh they helped us out so you got a bank loan and that's what started the funding yeah they actually allowed us to essentially uh because we didn't we didn't have any funding on our own right at the time it was probably a little unique and perhaps uh a little bit over the top for the banker to allow us to use our own profits from building the boat to consider to to be considered the the uh the the deposit on the boat like the 20 20 or 30 percent or whatever was required so sounds like you really took a risk because you didn't have oh everything was up on yeah no everything was uh everything was committed and how did you handle making a risk like that I think a lot of people they want to do something like what you did but they're they they have this fear that prevents them from actually just trying it and signing a loan or applying for a loan and getting that loan and saying I'm going to pay this back with the profits it takes it takes a lot to be able to do that so you must have known that you were going to make it work right so did you have a a business plan already ready well we certainly created a business plan and and we made the numbers look good because so you never you never know for sure I mean certainly it's a business there's no guarantees you're going to be able to pay it back but um uh it it you take a shot at it you look at the numbers can we get this many people on and charge them this much and we're not going to keep coming and is the business going to grow and actually the first business in Newport it took us years before we really showed a profit and weren't we're continually subsidizing the business to keep us there and per per boat it's probably the most profitable right uh venue that we operate in and with New York I mean you don't just have the cost of maintaining a boat you also have the dock charges which are substantial so you started in Newport and then did you expand to New York we started in Newport in 94 and um yeah I was an upstate kid so I looked at downs I looked at New York City and I always said I'm hey somebody asked me where I'm from I'm from upstate New York not New York City but uh you know in the late 90s I started coming down here and some folks started really encouraging us to come down and uh where Newport was very possessive the folks there the competition was very possessive of their turf when we came here we had mentors coming out of the woodwork the competition actually said when I was going to Chelsea Peers they said why don't you come down to North Cove if everybody's down there together we'll draw more people it'll grow the business we'll grow the little industry of ours a little bit more yeah so it was that was a totally new experience for me and I just I was thrilled with New York City I mean so people were really welcoming here absolutely yeah see New Yorkers aren't all mean everyone always says we're mean we're not no that's wonderful to hear big so how long did you have to um how many years did you have to work in Newport before you could fund New York City's venture because the dock charges alone I know how much they are in North Cove uh are tremendous so you really have to it's a very calculated risk coming here to New York City but I'm glad you were welcomed so nicely that's great well and Chelsea Peers was growing at the time and they were very welcoming and um you know it's kind of like I suppose the uh the art world in a way where they're trying to build up an area and they'll help subsidize a little bit Chelsea Peers has always been a wonderful landlord and back then our they were very generous in helping us get started that's great so it's uh it's grown since then and I think they were very happy that they worked with us the way that they did back then because it's been good for everybody absolutely so let's talk a little bit about marketing because you know you now you've made the boats you've expanded into multiple locations we know how you funded it how do you get the name out how do you market it do what tactics do you use well I mean to me uh really the best uh form of marketing is has is and has always been the folks that get on the boat and and what they do and say when they get off the boat and today with social media that's so much more important the event of reviews was really big and back we started working with a company ticketing company in around 2004 I suppose there was one of the first ones they didn't exist oh I'm fairly confident they didn't exist the company was called Zerv and they've since gone out of business but they they really saw the light with reviews and were way ahead of the curve on it probably you know before people were heard a trip advisor yeah and reviews it was 16 17 years ago and it really caught on and and they they pushed for the reviews and so we would have like thousands of reviews out there nobody else would have any with this they were there it was really wonderful but it was a great lesson and a great uh just just a great way for us to to find out what we're doing right what we're doing wrong and you know we just paid very close attention to those reviews because it was really a tool for the company as well as a sales tool it's the best feedback you know even if positive reviews are great right that's what we all strive for but but reviews that have suggestions are actually really helpful in improving your business model how did you come up with the name for Classic Harbor Line uh well Classic Harbor Line wasn't actually the original name we started here as Chelsea Excursions but then we then when we in 2005 when we built Manhattan we decided we were moving beyond Chelsea Excursions and it was now going to be we were going to we were going to really make an attempt to increase our little fleet here in New York we felt we could and so we needed another name and uh suppose it was uh process of elimination and finding the one you you didn't like the least or something I don't know I guess it could be that for sure uh the uh the boats have a classic appearance to them yep and it's just um yeah it just kind of followed up that uh that was the most desirable one we could come up with I wanted to get into licensing and certifications that you need because I imagine with um running a company like this you need to be Coast Guard certified you need to have all different types of qualifications for everyone that works on this boat and then to make sure that the boat is safe as well so how do you go about that what do you need to get started if you want to get into this type of industry yeah well it's interesting because it really has evolved from running one or two boats to now when there's up to a hundred part timers here not necessarily a hundred employees many of whom are part-time uh in the summer and uh so uh crew training is really critical but in just in terms of the actual licensing it's all about the Coast Guard for us and we've been working with them for 10 years before we built a boat that we're going to operate ourselves so we're very familiar with the requirements yeah and so yeah it's um so if someone's new to it though where would they find the requirements that they need like the Coast Guard website maybe yeah I mean certainly on the Coast Guard website uh and there there are organizations passenger vessel association is a wonderful resource uh to uh to to be involved with and and very supportive you're always out to see what's the scariest thing that's ever happened have you ever had any close calls and you don't have to say necessarily with classic harbour line it could be just all of your life sailing offshore has had some interesting experiences yeah my actual first offshore experience was on a little 24 footer that we sailed from uh Biscayne Bay to the Bahamas oh nice and uh a little boat and uh these heavy northern winds tend to go clockwise so when it went clockwise and it came down to the south after blowing hard out of the north into the Gulf Stream which travels north and creates havoc yeah we said well this is a time to go because we've been waiting for about a week yeah and we got out there and it didn't do what I was supposed to do it counter clocked and came back out of the north and uh it was a miserable time but we had a similar experience uh a few years ago bringing America up from Key West where we got caught out in uh what was in near hurricane 60 70 knot winds and how big were the waves they're up to there was funny there was a Noah ship uh that we afterwards we pulled into Jacksonville and they said that the winds were up the seas were up to 30 feet oh because when you get out in the Gulf Stream and you get the winds counter to the seas it gets gets pretty nasty out there yeah so it's just a rough night a very very rough night but it put us put the put the put old America here into a real sea trial that uh that's the one that got stuck in there and it was it was a wonderful thing it didn't make a sound it was just it was scary because it was very dark and blowing and big winds but it was the boat didn't creak it just all right well you know it's solid very so your boats are not going anywhere if it can survive those type of winds and those uh waves um hiring people is challenging for a lot of companies um you've managed to do it very well and clearly you said you don't take credit for some of the ideas of the excursions like the sushi sale um but how do you hire the right people that come up with great ideas that complement your strengths well it happens over the years but i will say that our general manager here Sarah has been with us since 2001 okay and she got her captain's license with us and she took over managing the business really uh around 2003 as the day to day because i'm up in Albany at the boatyard yeah and um i'm quite certain that uh along with uh others in our team that have been here with for for years and years i'll give them the credit for that and i'm very grateful to have them because it's uh it's really uh uh you know it's it's all about having the right people it totally is and that's something we've heard consistently with school of hustle episodes how important it is to choose the right employees this year has brought about um challenges that most companies never imagined they would experience i work in the tourism industry i own a tour company i understand what it's like um to suddenly have everything pulled out from under you you operate classic harbor line which relies a lot on tourism so how has classic harbor line adapted it to this new environment that is hopefully temporary well it has it is a struggle and um you know one of the things that uh when we first came to new york we thought we're going to have a little tourism business like we had in newport it was all local that supported us and we couldn't afford advertising here basically so it really did evolve through local local folks and word of mouth before there was a lot of social media um so in dealing with it now where it has evolved in a lot of our business uh a much larger percentage of our business i don't want to say for the first decade we were here i was saying 90 percent of our business is local try to try state area really and um it has evolved since then and uh we do have or did have a lot of international and and national tourists from all over the country as well but um it's uh no i mean it's it says it's really a survival mode i put us almost in the category of the restaurants where basically um it's it's uh we're we're back to relying on local New Yorkers to help us out here again so that's our that's our focus and uh hopefully uh i'm sure we'll we'll get through it you'll get through it i mean if it's anything like what i saw on saturday the boat was not overly full because it was safe amounts of people um but it was enough and i was really impressed that in this environment you still had that type of support and there's so many people on that boat that i just heard them talking so you know you can tell where someone's from um you can tell someone's in new yorker and a lot of them were new yorkers people from long island and people like that and i think this is the time that we all need to support our community and and get out and and try things that are just in our own backyard so i really do encourage um anyone that lives in new york or new port or boston or key west your four locations to check out classic arboline they're i mean look at this it's beautiful right what's next for you guys uh well you know 2021 is going to be a year of recovery so we're we're always thinking about it we have more boats on the drawing board that we'd love to build and uh so we're we have plans but uh they're they're definitely on hold for probably the next season or so for sure for sure yeah i understand that you know really appreciate the uh the idea that you're coming and joining us and uh are an enthusiastic supporter very enthusiastic i'll have to pay more attention to social media and check things out i i rely heavily on our crew for that and i i don't worry about it i don't per take well that's that's what you excel in okay thanks so that's all for this edition of school puzzle keep up with us on all of our episodes on youtube apple 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