Change. 1 Change your Space. 2 Change your Mind. 3 Change the World.

Naturally, all of the following numbers for Powerboat Adventures are basically guesses. However these "guesstimates" probably err on the low side. The home base property in Nassau was purchased from a late friend of mine and I am assuming that at this stage, Powerboat Adventure (as they appear to claim in their promotional materials) has purchased Ship Channel Cay - the island on which their destination facilities are located.

Their equipment includes 3 "top of the line", heavily customized, 40 ft. "go fast" boats - each with (4) 250 hp. outboard engines - not to mention a fair number of replacement engines and other assorted equipment - for the boats, the home base facilities and the island destination. It is likely then that the equipment capital cost guesstimate, like the other guesstimates, is on the low side.

With the high likelihood of hurricanes in the Bahamas, and the type of operations Powerboat Adventures runs - involving high speed powerboats - feeding and swimming with sharks and stingrays etc. - insurance premiums (both in regard to assets and personal liability) are likely to be very high. As described on the "Location" page, sales commissions are very high in Nassau and take an enormous chunk out of gross revenues from the get go.

Maintenance and depreciation costs, on all this equipment, will be a significant aspect of the operating expenses - as this type of operation (with this type of boat) provides a high degree of wear and tear and damage to boats, engines and equipment. High speed planing boats (being pushed to their limits) suffer extremely high G force impact stresses - which no amount of high tech engineering and materials can absorb for long periods of time - thereby necessitating frequent repairs and replacement. That is simply "The nature of the beast"

There will also be significant maintenance and depreciation costs on both the home base and the private island destination. Operating "round the clock" generators on the island is in itself a very costly exercise. Serious water making capacity for the island also does not come cheap - in terms of capital investment and operating costs. Last I checked, there were no clear mountain streams on Ship Channel Cay - nor anywhere else in the Bahamas.

On top of these costs, fuel (at very high Bahamas prices) for 3000 thirsty horses (not to mention the " round the clock" generators on the island) will take a large bite out of revenues. With Bahamas having some of the highest utilities prices in the world overheads at the home base in Nassau will also represent a significant cost.

Then there is the cost of keeping a care taking and maintenance crew on the island at all times and a serious maintenance and repair crew at the home base facilities in Nassau. Wages and salaries are just about the same as in the U.S. and the numbers of boat crew, service staff and maintenance staff are quite high. Heading the list, are 3 or more more licensed boat captains.

Bahamas prices for all supplies from fuel and spare parts to food to beer are very high - as virtually everything is imported and there are very high duties on many items. In reference to the above, Nassau, Bahamas currently ranks # 36 in the world

(out of 276 cities worldwide) in regard to "highest cost of living". Panama City, Panama currently ranks #234 and our operations base in David will offer substantially lower overall costs than those in Panama City

Powerboat Adventures:

Guesstimated home base investment 0.5 million $ U.S.

Guesstimated equipment investment 1 million $ U.S.

Guesstimated destination investment: 2 million $ U.S.

Guesstimated total capital investment 3.5 million $ U.S.

Guesstimated annual operating costs 1 million $ U.S.

Panama Adventure Tours:

Seeing as. unlike Powerboat Adventures, our one boat is, for all intents and purposes, self sufficient, virtually our only capital investment will be Grand Illusion and the equipment aboard her - except, perhaps, for a vehicle of some kind. This, plus the fact that there are no hurricanes in our operating area and we don't plan on any feeding and swimming with sharks and rays (simultaneously anyway) means that maintenance, depreciation and insurance costs will all be far, far lower than those of Powerboat Adventures -

Grand Illusion is powered by a total of 260 hp. (in the form of 2 low maintenance, low wear and tear, long lasting, very fuel efficient diesel engines - compared to 3,000 hp. for Powerboat Adventures' boats (in the form of 12 fuel guzzling, high maintenance short lived, gasoline outboard engines. The difference in operating costs, regarding this aspect of our operations alone, is truly staggering.

As of today, Gasoline prices in the Bahamas are roughly 250 % of the price of diesel in Panama and the total fuel consumption of the Powerboat Adventures operation (including fuel for the destination generators) will probably be about 20 times that of Panama Adventure Tours. With the higher fuel costs in The Bahamas, this works out to about 50 times higher fuel costs for Powerboat Adventures - not to mention a lot of ammunition for Panama Adventure Tours - in the battle for eco conscious customers.

Taking into account that Powerboat Adventures has a maximum guest capacity twice that of Panama Adventure Tours (only because we choose to limit our capacity to 24 persons) and that both operations will cover roughly the same distance on their tours. The fuel cost per passenger mile for Powerboat Adventures will be roughly 25 times that for Panama Adventure Tours.

Imagine, for a moment, an airline, operating under that sort of handicap, trying to interest the public in a share offering - and saying "Oh, by the way,our fuel cost (per passenger mile) is 25 times higher than that of the competition." The idea is clearly totally absurd. Now imagine the reverse situation and you will, perhaps, get an inkling of the somewhat frustrating nature of our efforts to raise capital for Panama Adventure Tours - and similar past projects.

Imagine, the former airline also adding "Oh, one more thing, the Airline authorities

only allow us to fly 150 days a year". Again, imagine the reverse situation. and it surely is clear that it would be a miracle if any individual, after devoting years of futile efforts - towards persuading individuals to see the above absurdities, did not, in fact, turn into a "Crazy old man".

Wages and salaries in Panama are about 50% of those in the Bahamas and our staffing requirement will probably be roughly 70 % less. Supplies, such as spare parts & replacement gear and food & beverage will probably run about 50 % less in Panama than in the Bahamas.

The area around David is the "bread basket" of Panama - so we can count on having excellent fresh produce (including wonderful strawberries, oranges, and superb coffee - at very low prices. In addition, unlike Powerboat Adventures, we will have virtually unlimited access to the freshest possible sea food - at the best possible price - namely free.

Rough total capital investment (Grand Illusion): $350,000.00 U.S.

Rough annual operating costs $400,000.00 U.S.

Revenues, profits and R.O.I.

Powerboat Adventures has always claimed that they could carry 18 guests on each of their (3) 41 foot center console "Go fast" boats - each powered by (4) 250 h.p. outboards. As one who has spent an awful lot of time fishing on a virtually identical boat (with one of my fishing buddies in Nassau) this always seemed to be stretching it a bit. No doubt, one could pack 18 person aboard (and, if you could pack them aboard, 1000 horsepower could probably get a small herd of elephants up on plane) - but, would the guests (or the elephants) seated well forward, live to tell the tale?

So, let us round off the maximum capacity to 50 persons - at $200.00 U.S. per person - providing gross daily revenues of $10,000 U.S. Back when I was in Nassau, reliable sources indicated that Powerboat Adventures ended up operating an average of 150 trips per annum.- not because of lack of bookings - but because of lack of suitable weather windows. Using this figure, the maximum total gross annual revenues comes to 1.5 million $ U.S. Subtracting the guesstimated annual operating costs of 1 million $ U.S. will provide an annual profit of O.5 million $ U.S. - or a 14% annual R.O.I.

This, of course, assumes that, when the tour does operate, it operates at maximum guest capacity. This is unlikely - seeing as, in the Bahamas, the roughest seas (and, therefore, the most cancellations) coincides perfectly with the "high season" (December - March) when the greatest number of upscale visitors are in Nassau.

Bearing in mind that Powerboat Adventures tours are approximately 3 times the price of competitive tours in Nassau -and that the low season visitors are usually on a budget, projecting an average of 80% capacity would appear to be generous. this reduces the gross annual revenues to 1.2 million $ U.S. providing an annual profit of $200,000.00 U.S. - or an annual R.O.I. of substantially under 1%.

Clearly, this is not exactly a mind blowing return on investment. However, with very strict cost controls, (which, as an excellent and knowledgeable businessman, I am quite sure Nigel applies) this return on investment might be edged up to somewhat more respectable number. It does seems very unlikely, however, that it would ever creep into double digits.

In fairness to Powerboat Adventures, it should be pointed out that much of their capital investment is in the real estate at their home base and destination. It could be argued that these asset are likely to be continually increasing in value and, therefore, are not required to produce a cash return.

Panama Adventure Tours:

Like our unusual tours - on our unusual catamaran - in an unusual area - our pricing strategy will also be fairly unusual. We intend to set our average year round prices (there will likely be some adjustment for high and low seasons) at a level that will provide a 100 % return on investment - when operating at 100 % capacity. It would appear that this price is low enough - to provide us (in combination with a halfway decent, online and offline, marketing effort) a very good shot at achieving our target of 100% of maximum operating capacity.

Based on our current (rather rough) projections, this price works out to be $115.00 U.S. As mentioned earlier, we will not be paying any commissions, so this figure also represents our net revenues. We have previously presented a (hopefully) irrefutable argument that our "Product" will be far, far superior to that of Powerboat Adventures - which will be nearly twice the price. It would seem then that, if our marketing personnel can "walk and chew gum - at the same time", they should be able to come close to the 100% figure.

While some may raise their eyebrows at the idea the we intetend to operate at 100% of capacity, this is really just a knee jerk reaction. Assuming we had chosen to accommodate a maximum of 48 guests on our tours (which Grand Illusion is perfectly capable of doing - and which would usually be the minimum passenger number on this szie catamaran) and we were projecting operating levels at 50% of max capacity, this would presumably be seen as "reasonable". This is clearly a totally irrational way of looking at the operation.

In the same vein, were we to project that (sticking with our original choice of 24 person maximum capacity) we would be operating at 50% of max capacity, we would need to raise our prices significantly to project a decent degree of profitability. This price increase would, quite possibly, have sufficient negative effect on our sales - as to prevent us from reaching our targeted 50 % of maximum capacity - and, most likely, would preclude any chances of reaching 100 % of maximum capacity.

In this regard, it should be noted that, despite the fierce direct competition, virtually all cruise lines operate at 100 % of maximum capacity - or very close to it - or in some cases (believe it or not) above 100 %. With virtually no direct competition and very low prices (based on our projections of operating at close to 100 % of maximum capacity) we should, in fact, be able to achieve these projections in a very short time frame.

To get back to revenues then: Excluding, for the sake of this comparison, our multi day tours which generate significantly higher revenues, financial projections for Panama Adventure Tours are as follows:

With an average per person tour price of $115.00 U.S. the maximum daily gross revenues (24 persons) comes out to $2,500.00 U.S. (rounded down) We will virtually never be shut down by weather conditions - but, to be conservative, let us stipulate 300 operating days per annum.

This will provide annual gross revenues of $ 750,000.00 U.S. Deducting the rough annual operating costs of $400,000.00 U.S., leaves $350,000.00 U.S. - or an annual return on investment of 100% - a tad higher than that projected for Powerboat Adventures - in the best of circumstances. In the event of some unforeseen calamity reducing our ocupancey levels to 40%, our R.O.I would be reduced to about 10 %.

Powerboat Adventures (Bahamas) vs. Panama Adventure Tours

1 Opening statement 2 Location 3 the Product 4 Marketing 5 Finances 6 Closing arguments

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Powerboat Adventures (Bahamas) vs. Panama Adventure Tours

1 Opening statement 2 Location 3 the Product 4 Marketing 5 Finances 6 Closing arguments

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Links to provisional web pages for Panama Adventure Tours

Powerboat Adventures (Bahamas) vs. Panama Adventure Tours

Very, very extensive, dated, disorganized, peripheral info. about our operation

* Rupert Holmes - "Escape" - better known as "The Piña Colada Song".

Concise info. about - our boat - our operation - and our investment offer.

Recent Google ranking (all pages) for relevant search terms