The Steelhead Marine Story...
From Dan Thain, founder of Steelhead Marine, Ltd.
Dan's "First Timer"
Dan Thain has always had a love for boats. His sailing experiences began at a young age of 14. After rigging up a rowboat with leeboards a makeshift wooden mast and sail he sped off down Lakelse Lake in northern BC, Canada.
However, his first "sailboat" experiment ended up with the mast toppling over, the leeboards breaking off and Dan needing to flag down (now somewhat embarrassed) a tow back home.
This may have been Dan's first lesson in the school of "build it right the first time." From then on Dan was hooked on figuring how to make things work or improve them.
Steelhead Marine's current list of yacht cranes & marine products were born out of a strong desire to make things better. I guess I'm always looking for ways to improve things. I've never been satisfied with products that were just "good enough."
In 1987 while working at Cooper Yachts in BC, I started a small business at home building aluminum fuel tanks... the beginning of Steelhead Marine. At first, I went to work serving the marine industry building aluminum and stainless steel products like fuel tanks, radar arches and yacht hardware.
I grew tired of having to be the low bidder for aluminum and stainless steel fabrication. I found little "upside opportunity" for improving design with these products. I went back to my marine roots and looked deeper into the lines of yacht cranes being offered. No significant design change had occurred in a long time. The cranes were large, heavy, very expensive and took forever to deliver. When I was building yachts I'd found all this extremely frustrating. Even though these frustrations were affecting everyone in the business, no one had made anything better.
It became clear to me that there had to be a way to make a better crane that could be simpler to deal with. The new crane had to be lighter, stronger, easy to install — yet could be produced and delivered more quickly. I wondered if the answer might be in high tech materials.
In 1997 I found some of the missing ingredients to the puzzle of improved crane design. The answer was in the principles of aeronautical engineering — using lighter, stronger, more durable materials and a better process to build. I brought in an aircraft engineer to help me design a prototype using these ideas.
We analyzed the structures we would require for the desired reach and load... always keeping in mind stronger materials and reduced crane weight. We tested and perfected a linear winch system that contributed to a unique and flexible design that reduced stress on the boom nose and allowed for retracted storage. Retracted storage worked to reduce by one third the stowed crane length versus other cranes in its class. This allows our cranes to be mounted where other cranes can not fit.
We learned to use only AM Steel rope on all our cranes rather than stainless cable. AM Steel is lighter weight, 40% stronger, doesn't splinter and can track on smaller sheaves than cable. AM Steel rope can easily be shortened while still installed on the crane, a big improvement over cable which has to be removed.
We developed an easy-access manifold for convenient servicing, a shear-transfer collar, which allows for mounting at different deck angles. Our ultimate design enabled all the components to be shipped with the standpipe so it just bolts together for a simpler installation. Throughout the design process, we did destructive tests, FEA analysis and 3-to-1 safety factor testing.
We developed our CT (custom telescoping) 4-function cranes — a whole new type of technology. These cranes handle bigger loads and generally have a telescoping boom. In CT construction we began using high-tech stainless steel alloys to increase lift strength by up to 35% while reducing total crane weight by up to 50% when compared to typical crane models.
Today our full line of Steelhead cranes is a result of nearly a decade of constant improvements resulting in the best cranes available on the market. Our team of highly skilled tradesmen bring their skills and experience in machining, fabricating, product assembly to production, product support and sales. The Steelhead team is essential to the success and integrity of the products we create.
I still love working everyday to improve our products and deliver them with great service to our customers. I get great delight out of knowing that yacht owners and yacht pros enjoy a better yachting experience using Steelhead Marine products and services.