Twelve days after Hurricane Florence made landfall on the North Carolina and South Carolina coasts Iconic Marine was in the midst of recovering from relatively minor damage. The builder of the Donzi, Fountain and Baja performance boat brands is located just east of Washington, N.C., and lies directly on the banks of the mile-wide Pamlico River mouth, about 40 miles from the open water of Pamlico River Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.
We spoke with Iconic COO Joe Curran on September 26. Curran said power was restored to the Iconic facility on September 19.
“The Pamlico River here is not prone to flooding like some of the other rivers in the region,” said Curran. “We did get quite a storm surge and ended up with about six inches of water in all of the buildings. We had generators in place and were ready to start cleaning up once the storm had passed, and once the power came back on we were up and running.”
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Curran said that almost every building in historic downtown Washington was flooded, and that the storm impacted almost every employee at Iconic.
“We have one employee who lives in New Bern who lost everything,” said Curran. “Right now we have about three quarters of our staff in to work as others are dealing with personal storm-related issues. It has been a disruption and a distraction. There’s a crew tearing into the offices right now. But compared to some areas down here we are in good shape.”
Curran said Iconic is now focused on cleaning up and resuming production, and getting ready for the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, October 31 - November 4, where it will have an expanded presence on land and in the water after taking some space previously occupied by Sea Ray. Iconic will debut the new 40-foot 6-inch Donzi 41 GT powered by a pair of Mercury Racing Verado 400R outboards. Curran adds that his team is working on a second Donzi 41 GT with triple 400R power.
Curran also told us that another attempt by Iconic to set a new APBA/FIM Unlimited Vee Bottom speed record – currently 180.464 mph set 2014 by Brian Freehand in a 43-foot Outerlimits SV 43 – with its Fountain 42 Raceboat has been pushed back to January, 2019.
“We want to wait for cooler weather,” said Curran. “Right now we are focused on recovering from the storm and getting more of our new projects into production.”
