^{Photography by MeanStream Studios.}

Since its humble beginnings in owner Steve Potts’ garage, Scout Boats has been designing and manufacturing world-class, innovative luxury boats for 30 years. Although they started by building 14- and 15-foot boats, they now construct boats up to 53 feet long, each packed with yacht-like features.

Scout Boats has quickly become recognized as a premium brand for anglers and watercraft enthusiasts alike. Now with a whopping 460 employees at its four manufacturing facilities in Summerville, South Carolina, Scout Boats ships about 1,200 coastal fishing boats per year to customers throughout the U.S. — including the West Coast, Gulf Coast, Great Lakes and Hawaii — as well as internationally.

As saltwater is commonly referred to as one of the harshest elements on Earth, most Scout Boats are pristinely painted and designed to age gracefully in saltwater. To achieve the finest — and most protective — finishes, Scout Boats reached out to a Georgia yacht refinisher a couple of years ago for a recommendation of a paint booth manufacturer. Upon receiving the best feedback about Global Finishing Solutions (GFS), Scout Boats purchased a smaller GFS paint booth to paint their line of small boats and engines.

In February 2019, Scout Boats released the much-anticipated 530 LXF, the company’s newest 53-foot luxury sportfishing flagship. This impressive vessel required a larger paint booth to accommodate painting such a large boat. To safely and efficiently accomplish this task, Scout Boats purchased a 75-foot, GFS Large Equipment Paint Booth from Sam Torrey of Southern Fluid Systems. The design of the paint booth actually enables the boats to cure faster, which is a big benefit for the business.

“We had some special requirements in having a heated drying cycle to cure paint more quickly,” Potts said. “Otherwise boats would be sidelined for an extra four or five days when curing with ambient temperatures.”

With increased throughput leading to a booming business, Potts and his team are hoping to fill more gaps moving forward, with larger, 42- to 53-foot models. The Large Equipment Paint Booth will certainly be a bait station for their flagship in South Carolina.