Catching Up With Fountain, Harris And Ross—Talking Fountain Certified – Speed on the Water
Christmas is still a couple of days away, but it’s already been a good one for the Fountain Powerboats power-trio of founder Reggie Fountain, Jr., chief operating officer Jeff Harris and owner Fred Ross. Yesterday, they announced the launch of “Fountain Certified,” the Washington, N.C., company’s in-house renovation and certification program for pre-owned Fountain sportboats and center consoles.
With the Fountain Certified program, Reggie Fountain, Jr., Fred Ross and Jeff Harris have created a high-performance marine industry first. Photo courtesy Fountain Powerboats.
Fountain Certified is patterned after similar programs in the luxury automotive world such as BMW Certified but is the first of its kind in the high-performance marine industry. Given the volume of Fountain offerings still on the water—and often bought and sold online—the program makes perfect sense.
Earlier this week, I caught up with Fountain, Harris and Ross via a Zoom meeting the day before the news of the program broke on speedonthewater.com. Here’s what they had to say.
Fountain Certified is an intriguing program for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it’s never been done before in the high-performance powerboat world. What was the genesis of it?
Ross: With all the used boat we take in on trade at Big Thunder Marine, we know that as boats age problems arise. So how do we create something that helps buyers know they are getting a quality piece of hardware? How do we help them buy a used boat with confidence? That’s how Fountain Certified came to be.
Last summer, we had a customer buy a new Fountain center console from us at Big Thunder. He traded in a 47 Lightning with triple 700s. He had spent a bunch of money having its stringers and transom redone. When we inspected the boat, we found that the stringers were still wet.
No one can stop the hands of time of time but we can refresh boats to the highest quality. But only our guys can do that properly—I’ve bought cars through BMW Certified and Mercedes Certified and their people know what they’re doing. Likewise, Jeff worked for Reggie from the start. Jeff understands the boats and his guys know what it takes to do the work properly.
Fountain: Fountain Certified is one-stop shopping for Fountain renovation. Jeff has all the right people available and everything we need to do this right way. You know, to celebrate my birthday Jeff and his crew refurbished Fountain Executioner hull No. 1. To look at it now, you would think it just came across the assembly line.
What do you see as the program’s greatest value?
Harris: The value is going to be that you know, as a buyer or seller, the boat has been through an independent inspection by the people at Fountain Certified, which already has its own facility near our headquarters, and that whatever repairs are needed have been made by our people and we have put our stamp of certification on it. If the repairs we recommend aren’t made, we won’t certify it.
The whole certification program will be based off inspections and repairs. If it doesn’t meet ours standards or isn’t brought up to those standards through the program, we won’t certify it.
Fountain has all the knowledgeable craftspeople and resources it needs to the make its pre-owned boat-certification program a success. Photo by Mark Spencer copyright Fountain Powerboats.
Will the Fountain Certified program carry warranties?
Ross: We will give warranties on the work that we do. If we replace the stringers, for example, they’ll have a 24-month warranty. Fiberglass work will carry a two-year warranty. Warranty length depends on the item repaired.
The new Fountain Certified website will also carry listings for boats that have gone through the certification process. That’s another benefit offered by the program.
Harris: We have seen pre-owned Fountains bought and sold through every avenue on the Internet. It’s constant. By the time an owner posts a listing and people begin to see it, there are four listings on top of it. We are hoping the Fountain Certified website will become a place where used Fountain models can be bought and sold with confidence so that people who visit there know they are getting the best possible value.
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