Lon Bubeck

Lon was born and raised in the Los Angeles area. Being from Southern California, his youth included trips to Catalina, water-skiing, and building a stern paddle wheel vessel to a design by he and his father. After graduating high school, Lon attended San Diego State College for four years. At that time, sailing was popular in the social imagination of America and he started to think that sailing around the world would be a fun adventure.

After college, Lon moved to Santa Cruz and lived a relaxed lifestyle for seven years, making a living as a repairman, jack-of-all-trades type. In that time, he became proficient in mechanical + electrical repairs and installations, along with building and fixing most anything that he got paid for. Living in Santa Cruz offered him access to sailing and he got more involved in the sport, still fascinated by the idea of sailing around the world.

He learned boat handling, coastal and celestial navigation and, in 1977, began sailing full time. When Lon first started traveling on boats, he gave away most of his worldly possessions and stuck his thumb out, hitch-hiking across the pacific on yachts. Within a year, he was being paid to skipper yachts not only because he could navigate but also because he was proficient at fixing and maintaining onboard systems. He spent 1977 through 1980 sailing from California to Europe. Returning to California late in 1980, Lon told himself he would settle down and live in one place for a year.

Six months later, he broke that promise and found himself flying to Taiwan to investigate the yacht building industry there. That trip resulted in Lon becoming involved in a yacht construction supervision job in Taiwan and a long distance delivery of the vessel upon its completion. He spent the next five years either working in Taiwan doing yacht construction, project management or delivering new boats to destinations such as Abu Dhabi, Hawaii and San Francisco.

In 1985, Lon got the idea that rather than producing good boats for others to import to the U. S., he would import them himself. He obtained a dealer relationship with a couple of builders in Taiwan, joined up with a financial partner in Long Beach, moved there and lost a bit of money when the new boat market went through a severe recession over the next five years.

In that period, Lon became a yacht broker to supplement his meager income from new boat sales. In the intervening years, yacht brokerage has become the bulk of his business and experience. Prior to joining Denison Yachting's Long Beach team, he was an owner/partner in Flying Cloud Yachts, past president of the California Yacht Brokers Association, and on the Certificate Advisory Council of the Certified Professional Yacht Broker program.

Over the past 30 years, Lon's interest in all aspects of yachting has only continued to grow. Thirty plus years of selling boats has given him an in-depth understanding of all aspects of the industry and he feels privileged to have a life that involves his passion for boating. Lon welcomes the opportunity to share his interest and knowledge with his clients and friends.