Gulfstar Yachts

Tampa Bay, Florida builder founded in 1970 by Vince Lazzara, a co-founder of Columbia Yachts, once his non-compete with Columbia's new owners had expired. It began with beamy, low-cost cruisers whose hulls doubled as trawlers or motorsailers, moved upmarket in the mid-1970s with lead ballast, teak interiors and Ted Hood designs, and built the Sailmaster and Sailcruiser motorsailers in the 1980s; about 2,500 boats in all. Viking Yachts bought its assets in 1990, and the Lazzara family went on to found Lazzara Yachts.