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O'Day has added five more models to his bathtub navy, including the Rhodes 19 (a 19-footer designed by Architect Philip Rhodes), which, at $3,000, may eventually outsell the Day Sailer. His company sold 250 boats and took in $300,000 in 1958. This year, he expects to sell 1,800 boats. The only trouble with all this growth is that apart from a modest $12,000 profit the first year, O'Day Corp. has lost money every year since, largely because O'Day knew a lot about sailing selling but less about business.
In 1961, the operation was overhauled; stockholders moved convivial George O'Day up to the chairmanship and brought in efficient Lyman Bullard, 41, a former textile executive, who has pared the payroll, streamlined the assembly line and installed cost accounting. This year, as a result, O'Day Corp. expects to make a $90,000 profit at last; there was a happy champagne celebration at the company's Fall River, Mass., factory last week when the 1,500th Day Sailer and the 1,000th Rhodes 19 both were hauled out of the plant. "From here on, it's downwind all the way," enthused George O'Day.