Boating Industry Canada

Boating Industry Canada was at Mars Metal in late February to see a later and visibly different version of the Southern Winds 100 keel. This is a fabricated steel fin section with a 45,000 lb. lead bulb attached. We watched as a crane loaded it into a container for shipment to Capetown, South Africa via ocean-going freight.

production are plainly important customers for MarsKeel, it’s really the naval architects and designers of parts like the specialized America’s Cup winged keels that come from around the world to Burlington, looking for the knowledge and skill to pull off such a championship design.

When Kevin Milne and his father started Mars Metal, they specialized in cast lead. They have competitors, but apparently few equals.

The take-away here is that in the face of the rise in value of the Canadian Loonie from $0.70 US to parity, when other companies are suffering…and when the price of lead triples as it has done in the past three years…and when the huge US market slows down dramatically …the internationally recognized expertise at MarsKeel keeps the orders coming in and the shipments going out.

We all know that the market may

slow down by 10% or even by 20% but recently, we have seen unrelenting strength in the higher-end market.

Custom yachts continue to be commissioned and built and the goal for your company, as it is for MarsKeel, is to be the business that is so in demand by that resilient high-end market, that slowdowns in the mass market business do not bring the company down.

In fairness too, Mars Metal is not that large a business, and owner Kevin Milne can be flexible and responsive to those rapid market changes.

A key way they have done this is to start MarsShield, another division that makes lead shielding for x-ray facilities. Another diversification is producing lead products for use in nuclear power generation.

Mars specializes in lead but they have taken their skilled workforce into new areas that require their specialty – lead fabrication. With access to CAD/CAM techniques and systems, this company can tackle a wide range of non-marine manufacturing and fabrication to minimize the negative impact of those occasional marine industry downturns.

Marine is still half the business but with other new products coming on, a 20% downturn gets moderated significantly – then again, the skill and specialization seems to be protecting Mars from the economic slowdown that is hitting some other businesses.