Dave Cherubini
Keeping the family business above water

By Maeve Kelly

Dave Cherubini has been breathing the sea air for as long as he can remember. He’s centered his life’s work – building yachts in a cavernous workshop at the Riverside Marina – on his family’s commitment to craftsmanship and the allure of the water. Their yacht building business has a history as stormy as the waters they charter, but Cherubini, now company president, says he’s made a lifelong commitment to his family’s boatbuilding tradition.

“I was 13 when I started working for the company,” he says. “I was probably fired a dozen times.”
Despite those earlier firings, Cherubini took the helm of the company about eight years ago, and now his workshop typically holds three or four boats in some stage of construction – one might be suspended from the ceiling, the others, resting in molds on the floor. A dozen employees keep the daily yacht operation afloat these days, but Cherubini is quick to note that it hasn’t always been smooth sailing.

David Cherubini and his staff at Cherubini Yachts build handcrafted boats

The company’s inception came from Cherubini’s uncle, John, who dreamt of owning a boat after he retired. A designer by trade, his uncle drew a boat blueprint and enlisted his brothers – a crew of craftsmen and builders – to bring his concept to life.

After two years dedicated to the project, John finally set sail into retirement.

But a seed had been planted. John’s brother Frit and nephew Lee took out an ad in National Fisherman, a general marine publication, which included a sail plan, mailing address and specific information about John’s design. Much to the family’s surprise, interest in their prized creation was immediate. Fellow boat lovers wanted their own version of John’s new yacht.

“Not long after we placed the ad,” Lee says, “a pile of letters came rushing through our big brass mail slot.

“Overall, we received about 200 letters. We sent out responses to six of the most serious. My mother would type up the standard equipment lists and include other details like cost. At this point, we didn’t have any literature or brochures to promote our new business.”

So with a key classic boat design, intrigued clientele and the combined efforts of each family member, the Cherubini Boat Company was born.

Since its modest beginnings, the business has expanded to produce five boat models: Cherubini’s classic 1930-style speed boats, other speedboat models called the 20, 24 and 25, and two sailboat models, namely the 44 and 48. The number indicates the length, in feet, on the boat’s deck.

A single boat takes about two years to build and requires up to 20,000 hours of manual labor. The family equips each boat with modern technology and custom designs the details to meet a buyer’s personal specifications. They cater to clients all over the country and world, but most of the interest comes from the New England area, where families are already surrounded by a deep American yachting tradition.

A Cherubini Classic 20" boat

Good luck has often carried the Cherubini family through the years. But just about every business has its periods of both good and bad fortune, and the Cherubini Boat Company was no different.

In 1990, a year marked by the birth of a federal luxury tax, the business began to suffer. For almost ten years, the family could only find restoration jobs and was forced to put a hold on new yacht-building projects. In the mid-1990s, Lee founded the Independence Cherubini Company to replace the floundering Cherubini Boat Company; but even this new venture suffered from a decline in consumer interest.

“Our business thrives on the consumer confidence index,” says Lee, who was company president at the time. “If you have millions of dollars and are set financially, but are unsure of your investment, you won’t buy a boat. Sometimes there is just too much lack of confidence in what’s going on in the country.”

In 2003, the struggling business finally went defunct. The Cherubini vision came to a standstill.
David Cherubini was disheartened by the downfall of this once-stable enterprise, and remembers stopping by the plant one fall day to pick up his boat and pack up his things.

“As I was walking around, I was shocked to see all of these templates in the dumpster. These were templates from years ago, when the company was first starting out. I couldn’t let them go to waste. All those years my family spent building the business would have just been thrown away.”

Cherubini salvaged the templates and brought a few of them home. Not long after his doleful trip to the plant, he started receiving phone calls from previous clients. The callers were looking for the Cherubini Boat Company, but couldn’t reach anyone on the office phone.

Suddenly, he had an epiphany. Cherubini realized he had to resurrect the one tradition that had defined the Cherubini family for decades: the prized business that had sustained brothers, uncles, cousins and sons for so many years.

He made one crucial decision.

“I bought up as much of the company as was left,” he says. “I decided to preserve the family boatbuilding tradition.”

Building the company again, from the ground up, required a lot of dedication and manpower. Luckily, this large Italian family had more than a few hands on deck. Longtime supporters of the former company fueled the fire with new projects, and the Cherubinis were soon returning back to work as usual.

Today, the company is known by the shortened moni- ker Cherubini Yachts. As always, the family business employs siblings, cousins and close family friends. In keeping with classic traditions, the Cherubini boats of today retain timeless and old-school designs. Although com-pany founder John Cherubini died in 1983, new projects have always included his key design elements.

“We’ve always tried to create something that would be ageless and devoid of current trends,” says Dave. “We never want our boats to go out of style.”

“In a way, the designs also work to protect the owner’s investment. The boats will become family heirlooms for second and third generations.”