Behind the Build: Formula Boats
The Family Factor
A behind-the-scenes tour of Formula’s Decatur, Indiana facility reveals the real magic behind the builder’s new 457 CCS.
1,800 horses are spurred out of the barn as the 457 CCS banks hard to starboard. Dire Straits’ 1985 hit Money for Nothingblares from the JL Audio system and its, count ‘em, 21 speakers, three 12-inch subwoofers and five amplifiers.
Listen here
Now that ain’t workin’ that’s the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it
Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free
Money for nothin’, chicks for free
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Music cranking, engines screaming, the boat’s metallic gray paint glistening under the South Florida sun as we approach 50 knots … it’s as Miami a moment as you could ever experience. This too, is the same stretch of offshore water where Formula founder Don Aronow tested the original model, the 233, 62 years prior. Built in Miami, the original model boasted a deep-V hull and the performance to propel it to numerous wins on the national racing stage.
South Florida and Formula Boats would be intrinsically linked in the more than half century to follow but that’s not where the boats are built anymore. Today they’re born 1,281 miles northwest of where I cut those hard Florida turns: Decatur, Indiana, population 9,900. When arriving in Decatur you’ll pass a Tractor Supply, Kroger, a pancake house and Richard’s Restaurant with its large roadside sign boasting a $7.99 dinner special of chicken-fried steak and tots. You’ll drive past a lightly trafficked suburb and a cemetery (who doesn’t love quiet neighbors?) before arriving at a modern 575,000-square-foot factory that seems to sprout from the ground like the corn in the fields surrounding it. Every year, 250 boats roll out of that factory and down that unassuming street in middle America.
My guide through the modern boatbuilding plant was Product Design Coordinator Ron Gephart and what made him perfect for the task at hand was not his intimate knowledge of each boat’s design (thoughtful) or build process (robust and confidence-inspiring) but the fact that he was born and raised in Decatur. Moving from department to department he knew every … single … person. He knew who was newer to the job, who was nearing retirement after a 35-year career; he knew that the husband of a woman in laminations worked for Formula for a spell and that the guy who rode by with materials on his bicycle is a second-generation Formula employee. He pointed out a mother/daughter duo working side-by-side in upholstery and the two brothers working together in silent lockstep to raise a deckhouse. “Yeah, there are a lot of siblings that work here,” Ron explained.
Minutes later he stopped to chat with another employee about the week’s upcoming MLB match-ups. “This is my brother, by the way,” Ron said with a smile. Formula truly is a family business.
“We think having family work together here is a positive, plus, how can we deter it when me and my siblings and now the third generation of our family all work here?” said Formula’s president Scott Porter, who works alongside his siblings Grant, Ted, Jean and Wayne. “I think dad always said, you’re kind of tougher on your own family members than you are on your closest friends. So, we get really good effort and family values.”
Dad, in this case, refers to the patriarch of the Formula family, the late Vic Porter. And while it was Aronow who launched the brand, Vic was its longtime steward, especially after becoming the company’s sole owner in 1979.
Enduring Legacy
The shadow of Vic Porter looms large throughout Decatur, but it’s especially present within the walls of the factory. During my tour, I walked past a workstation where an employee neatly pinned up two photos. One was a nice shot of him and his wife on vacation and beside that was Vic Porter’s obituary. I stopped to take in the symbolism; I’ve never met anyone who felt such a connection with their boss that they felt moved to hang their picture in their workstation.
For Vic, and later, the next two generations of his family, working in the boat business wasn’t preordained, it was the result of an entrepreneurial spirit and happenstance. Born in 1931 and raised in tiny Decatur, Porter was a serial entrepreneur long before that word was invented. He worked as a volunteer firefighter, he sold real estate, he sold mobile homes and then owned an ice cream store and ice cream truck. Incredibly, I saw said ice cream truck—completely restored to its original vintage—near a brand new center console tucked away inside the factory; it was restored as a gift some years earlier.
A short stint selling boats led Porter to believe that he could build a better mousetrap. He began building small dayboats with three employees in a converted ice cream locker—humble, and cold beginnings for a man who would grow Formula into an internationally renowned builder. It’s his working-man roots that play a big role in how he became so revered amongst his employees. The second factor was the personal care he showed to everyone who worked for him.
“My grandfather, he spent a lot of time here before his passing,” said Vic’s grandson and third generation Formula staffer Josh Porter. “I don’t think he ever really retired, but he would come in most days up until close to his death and would walk the factory floor and continue talking to employees and just making sure that they knew that they were valued and to make sure they understood that what they do matters. I think he left a great legacy and was known as a great leader within the company and a servant leader. He often gets brought up in meetings; somebody will raise their hand and say, ‘Well, this is a question that Vic usually would ask, but I’ll ask it.’ So, his legacy lives on. His presence is still felt.”
When asked if he felt any pressure growing up to join the family business, Josh explains that while the door to work for Formula was always open, he never got pushed through it. For a time, he actually pursued a career in aeronautical engineering, even earning a degree in the field from Purdue. But eventually he missed the soul and charm of Formula and he found his way home where he now applies his engineering knowledge making their new hulls fly. In many ways, Josh’s return to the company would seem like destiny; he has countless happy memories from inside the walls of Formula. “I remember coming here when I was in Boy Scouts and building Pinewood Derby cars, that would all happen right here,” he said. “This was our workshop. My earliest memories of being at the factory go back even farther though. That would be in elementary school when we had our grandparents’ day, when they get to come visit and take you out to lunch. I remember once I had grandma and grandpa take me to the boat factory for lunch. That was a big deal for me then.”
When the prodigal son came back to work for Formula, he would be starting out on the cutting room floor.
“I spent the first two months on the factory floor.” Josh said. “I did a rotation through the entire factory just seeing every workspace and what it looked like. And then I spent a good amount of time with our prototyping team on the new boat we were building at the time to see what that looked like. And then I finally came into the office and started doing engineering work.”
During his rotation through the many departments, he said engine installation was his favorite; the engineer in him liked lending a hand and seeing the boat’s systems connect to the outboards or sterndrives. Before long he would find himself again manipulating CAD drawings and helping to layout the framework for the builder’s largest project to date, the 500 SSC. On boats like the 457 that I tested, he had a hand in manipulating the angles, depth and position of the hull and its steps to ensure they’re constantly evolving while maintaining their race boat DNA.
Pedigree of Performance
Despite the newfound perspective I gained from traveling 1,000 miles inland, I still couldn’t shake the question of how a builder, so far from the ocean, can be so in tune with how boats are used today. For example, on the 457 they’ve incorporated innovative doors on both sides of the console aligned with the helm. At the push of a button, they open to deflect the wind flow that typically buffets anyone seated behind the helm. It’s a feature that changes the entire experience.
The reason for such thoughtful design elements is extensive testing by the company’s sportfishing team—one of the most enviable jobs at Formula. Where many boatbuilders are reticent to get their new models dirty or banged up, an opposite approach is embraced by the Formula sportfishing team, which competes in countless multi-day tournaments in all sorts of sea conditions. These long stretches living aboard, cooking aboard, spilling—and then cleaning—blood from the decks is how, according to the company, they’re able to bring back notebooks filled with design tweaks to make their boats stand out.
Among these “born-at-sea features” in the new 457 is storage for a Seabob that comes with a paint scheme to match the boat, a clever aft grill with a foldout cutting board and built-in utensil storage, dual transom doors with a fold-out step in the gunwale for easy boarding from a bulkhead and a massive power-out cooler in the cockpit that holds 180 …yes, 180 cans. There’s also a power-up windshield, 24 phone chargers, 36 cup holders and a partridge in a pear tree. In short, this thing is fully loaded with features today’s boater would appreciate—all put together by a passionate and hardworking congregation from the Midwest.
Prior to my stay in Decatur I thought of Formula as a family boat. I think of a slip mate that I had last summer who spent every weekend aboard with his family and the countless other families I’ve watched parade through new models at boat shows. After my visit I still associate Formula with family, only now, that includes the 500 employees who consider themselves part of the family business. I rolled out of Decatur with a newfound respect for not just how Formulas are built, but for the culture that’s been created and cultivated by the men and women building each boat.
This article originally appeared in the August/September 2024 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
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