Shred-it

Shredding documents before filing for bankrupty

Comment from Samurai.com

Dan's experience with Apex USA is almost as bad as mine. 
I have an Apex A10 Lite inflatable that had the outer layer
of rubber start to peel off of the tubes at less that 4
years of age.  Since there is supposed to be a 5 year
warranty on the fabric, I started working with my dealer
on a warranty claim.  He tried for several months to get
Apex to do something with no results.  I finally met
Georges Dherlin, president of Apex, at the Miami Boat Show
in Feb., 2005, and discussed the problem with him.  After
my dealer sent pictures of the problem, Georges agreed to
replace the dinghy.  I would have to ship the old dinghy
to Apex USA in Annapolis at my expense, however. 
I shipped the boat to Annapolis and the story suddenly
changed - Apex would not replace the boat, but they
offered to sell me a new one at a discount which was more
than I paid for the boat when it was new.  So I was out
the cost of shipping and without my dinghy for 3 months
while this was going on.  My experience with Apex USA was
very similar to Dan's throughout this entire process. 
They were not at all helpful.  Apex USA is owned by
Intercoastal, Inc. which is owned by Apex Inflatables in
Costa Rica.  Georges Dherlin is the president and co-owner
 with his brother Roger.  Georges has not returned numerous
 phone calls or answered any of my emails.  The manager of
Apex USA will only say that Georges is "out of the country"
 and that he "only works here". 

I finally got my dinghy shipped back to me at Apex's
expense (it cost me over $200 to ship it to Annapolis), 
but it had a tear in one of the tubes from shipping. 
It was hard to tell if it was a packing or handling
problem, but I reported it to Apex USA within several
hours of receiving the boat.  Their attitude was lack of
interest and that it was my problem.  My dealer fixed the
tear at no charge to me. 

My local dealer, Suncoast Inflatables, has tried to help,
but there isn't a lot they can do short of eating the boat.
The warranty is with the Apex factory.  The function of
Apex USA seems to be simply to sell boats in the USA and
insulate the Apex factory from their customers. 
They certainly weren't any help in my warranty claim. 
I finally have my boat back after 3 months, but I'm still
out more than $200 in shipping and have a dinghy that has
the outer layer of rubber peeling off of the tubes and an
additional patch.   

Bottom line:  I think Dan is right on with his evaluation
of Apex.  I certainly would not buy Apex again.

Terry Clark
Carolina - Mainship 34
Punta Gorda, FL

Comments from Tradeonlytoday.com

The miss deeds of the Dherlin brothers George and Roger are finally coming to light and thankfully so. My experience with a 1 year old A-12 was a totally water saturated transom core. The use of junk plywood for the core material and not one fitting beaded caused a failure. As a marine industry professional of 34 years I expected Apex to stand behind its product and honor its warranty. Not so, numerous phone calls and emails from myself, my insurance agent and the Miami dealer to Apex Inflatables Costa Rica headquarters, resulted in no response whatsoever. It is obvious that the George and Roger Dherlin had full knowledge of their miss deeds and the incredibly poor construction evidenced by the many testimonials and the recent Broward County bankruptcy hearing. Apex Inflatable’s and The Dherlins’s should be banded from doing business in the U.S., they are a blight to the world of business and boating.

Charles MacMahon

Fort Lauderdale, FL

From boattest.com

Some years ago we bought an Apex tender and used it for years, getting to know the product and the company’s service and how the company treated its customers in the process. Our Apex was low-priced, cheaply made, slowly fell apart, and when the Annapolis office home office was called, often there was no answer and when there was, we couldn’t get spare parts needed. At least two of the corporate entities swirling around the Apex name have been in litigation and one has gone bankrupt.

On the “Apex” website the address of “Apex Boats” is a Miami P.O. Box. The website also says that Apex is still in business and has a “bigger and better” booth at the up-coming Miami Boat Show.
The home office of Apex for over a decade used to be in Annapolis. But then things changed. From Jan 19 issue of Soundings Trade Only (the leading U.S. boating industry trade magazine and e-newsletter) it was recently reported that— "Intercoastal Inc…[A name redacted.—Ed.] filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Maryland. Additionally, two of the principals of the company - Georges and Roger Dherlin - filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy as well. According to court documents, the filings took place Dec. 31.
"Annapolis, Md.-based Intercoastal has less than 50 creditors. It has estimated assets of under $50,000 and estimated liabilities between $100,000 and $500,000.
"The debtor estimates that after "any exempt property is excluded and administrative expenses paid, there will be no funds available for distribution to unsecured creditors."
"Neither the Dherlins, nor their lawyer, could be reached for comment this morning.

[Another Court Case]
"Doug Armstrong, of Armco Manufacturing, which manufactured hulls and other products, told Soundings Trade Only the filing follows three years of litigation between his company and the Dherlin brothers. "At a trial held Jan. 4-5 in Broward Co., Fla., the Dherlins' manufacturing company, Yacht de Costa Rica, was found to have committed fraud, theft by conversion and deceptive and unfair business practices under Florida law, Armstrong said. "He said he was awarded slightly less than $1 million from Yacht de Costa Rica. "As soon as we get relief from stay we will go right back against the other three entities," Armstrong added. "They stole my manufacturing company. I had an agreement with them that they were going to build product
for me and I sent my entire factory [to them]," Armstrong said this morning. "I closed my factory in Fort Lauderdale and shipped everything to Costa Rica because they were going to do it, plus I paid for all of the freight and I sent them additional money and they just never did anything."

Rendova No More
Indeed, all of the above is true. Doug Armstrong was making truly high-end inflatables and was trying to do a good job of it. The name of his brand was Rendova. Now you know why that brand is not around any more.
A few days later after the bankruptcy story appeared, Soundings Trade Only published a clarification of the first story. This story, in part, read--
"A story in the Jan. 19 edition of Trade Only Today may have misled readers regarding the status of Apex Inflatables.
Apex is not filing for bankruptcy. We regret any confusion that may have been caused by the original story."

More Confusion
The folks at Soundings, like virtually everyone else in the industry always thought “Apex” was owned by the Dherlins of Annapolis. We certainly did, as well. So it seems that there are several different corporate entities, all doing different things with Apex inflatable boats, and Apex is safely ensconced in Costa Rica, or Miami or someplace else such as in a P. O. Box.
The leading international boating trade magazine and e-newsletter, International Boating Industry (IBI), also covered the bankruptcy story. In its article it said, “Intercoastal president Roger Dherlin signed the petition” for chapter 7. Then IBI explains how it is that nearly everyone could become confused about who is doing what—
“Dherlin told IBI that Apex Inflatables will not be impacted by Intercoastal's bankruptcy filing. ‘We want to make sure that people know that Apex is not filing for bankruptcy,’ said Dherlin, who now works for Apex.
‘In fact, we're alive and well. We are closing down the distribution centre in Maryland because Intercoastal got into trouble. But Apex is a completely different company.’
We hope it is all clear now – Apex did not go out of business...and the management is the same.