Nordhavn Yachts

https://nordhavn.com/

In 1973, Jim Leishman and Dan Streech met and formed a friendship while both were working at a yacht brokerage/dealership in Dana Point, California. Both had a love for the sea and had already accumulated thousands of offshore sailing miles. Dan had cruised for one year aboard his family’s 54-foot Alden yawl, Malabar VII, and Jim had made a passage to Hawaii as well as local cruising on his family’s sailboat.

When the dealership closed in 1974, Jim and Dan together with Joe Meglen formed a small brokerage in Dana Point, which would evolve into the present day Pacific Asian Enterprises. In the first years, the business was comprised of general yacht brokerage and the importation of the venerable CT boats from Taiwan. In 1976, PAE began importing another line of boats from Taiwan called the Transpac 49. Over an eight-year period, the company imported, sold and delivered 35 Transpacs.

Both the CTs and the Transpacs imported during the 1970s represented the early days of Taiwan boat building and considerable effort was required to bring those boats up to acceptable quality levels. Coming from an engineering and boat maintenance background, Jim, Dan and Joe and their small crew worked on the boats personally but more importantly, worked with the Taiwan builders to make the improvements and changes necessary to raise the quality of the boats. This set the stage for the next phase of their business. 

By 1977, a trend had emerged that saw two classes of boats coming out of Taiwan. The better boats were being provided by the yacht developers whose talent, skills and fortitude would enable them to control a yacht from conception to design, marketing, sales and service. The developer would own the all-important molds and tooling while the Taiwan builder would act as a sub-contractor and builder only to the yacht developer. This allowed the developer to set and control the specifications, quality, pricing and marketing program.