Marlow-Hunter sailboats: a powerboat builder's 2012 relaunch of the Hunter sailboat brand
Marlow-Hunter is the name Hunter's sailboat line took on after a 2012 ownership change: the identity of the company founded by Warren Luhrs, rebuilt by a powerboat builder who bought it out of bankruptcy and remade its construction process around his own composite-building standards. What that relaunch produced was less a new company than a familiar production-cruiser lineup carried forward under different ownership, in the same Florida factory, to a different build standard.
Origins and ownership
Marlow Acquisitions, led by Marlow Yachts founder and president David Marlow, bought Hunter Marine Corp.'s operating assets, along with selected assets of Mainship Corp. and Luhrs Corp., in a sale approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey. Press accounts differ on the precise corporate chain behind that filing: Yachts International traced it to The Luhrs Marine Group's Chapter 11 filing in May 2012, while Soundings named the parent as Morgan Industries Corp., which it reported filed Chapter 11 on April 30 ahead of the court-approved, July 10 sale. Either way, Mainship and Luhrs had already stopped production that January; Hunter alone kept running at its Alachua, Florida plant, where it also built boats for Gemini Catamarans.
At 69 at the time of the sale, Marlow — chairman of the Palmetto, Florida-based Marlow Yachts, and a builder who built his own powerboats in China — promised he would not send Hunter-Mainship-Luhrs jobs overseas, leasing the Alachua plant to keep production in Florida. He retained Hunter president John Peterson and the existing manufacturing team, announced an aggressive R&D push aimed at making Hunter the world's top recreational sailboat manufacturer, and said he would focus first on Hunter and Mainship, "taking them to the next level," while maintaining Hunter's existing relationship with Gemini. By 2014, trade press described the resulting operation as two divisions under one manufacturing arm — Marlow-Hunter for the sailboats, Marlow-Mainship for the trawlers.
The designers
Glenn Henderson, whose design work on earlier Hunters carried into the Marlow era, continued as a partner rather than a new hire: he's credited alongside David Marlow for the Marlow-Hunter 31's hull, which Canadian Boating described as extending themes from Henderson's previous Hunter and Marlow-Hunter designs, with the deck and interior instead reflecting Marlow's own design team in Alachua. Henderson likewise designed the Hunter 40, again with Marlow's input, according to Cruising World.
Construction through the eras
Since taking ownership in 2012, Marlow set out to bring Hunter's build quality up to the standard of his own Marlow power-yacht lineup, Canadian Boating reported. Marlow described his own process as centered on composite construction — Kevlar inner and outer skins over closed-cell foam — built with a proprietary vacuum-bag resin-infusion method he said saved building time while strengthening and lightening the hull. Canadian Boating's review of the Marlow-Hunter 31 detailed how that philosophy reshaped Hunter's layup: balsa wood coring gave way to Nida-Core, a polypropylene honeycomb the publication called lighter than balsa, stronger, and immune to moisture and rot, while woven fiberglass cloth was replaced with multi-directional knitted cloth for more consistent glass-to-resin ratios. Kevlar augmented the fiberglass in the bow and hull bottom for collision resistance and wrapped completely around the hull at the chainplates, and vinylester resin ran throughout the boat rather than just the hull bottom, finished in an Oyster White, 100 percent NPG-Isophthalic gelcoat. Canadian Boating also noted a detail carried over from Marlow's powerboats: a drainage design that routed all water to a common drain and sump rather than letting it collect in the bilge. Reviewing the Hunter 40, Cruising World found the B&R rig, with its swept-back spreaders and no backstay, standard across the modern Hunter range.
Lines and generations
The rebuilt company marked its relaunch at the fall 2012 U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis with a new name, a new owner, and a new 40-foot sloop timed to Hunter's 40th anniversary — the brand's "Life Begins at Forty" promotion ran through the 2012-2013 boat show season. Cruising World reported that the Hunter 40 gave the lineup an updated look, one sales director Greg Emerson said more models would follow. Marlow-Hunter's owners' club marked its 35th annual rendezvous in 2014 and its 20th Spring Rendezvous in 2016, evidence the relaunched brand sustained an active ownership community for years after the sale. Across that span, Marlow-Hunter's range spanned two general bands built out of Alachua: small trailerable sailboats and midsize to large cruising models.
Who Marlow-Hunter is for
Marlow-Hunter suits buyers drawn to Hunter's production-cruiser DNA — roomy, easy-to-handle boats built for family and coastal use — but who want that familiar formula reinforced by the tighter composite-construction standards that arrived with new ownership. Factory warranty coverage during the early Marlow years reached well beyond a single year on the hull itself, a signal of the confidence behind the reworked build.