Nautical
Well-Known Member
What a trip, fabulous weather, incredible hospitality and some stunning boats chucked in.
Overall impression was it was quieter than other years (hardly surprizing) but a good number of serious buyers. One broker commented that this was great, nearly everyone that came on board was a genuine potential client, whilst he only took half the viewings of last year he still sold the same amount of boats albeit at 10% - 15% less than hoped for.
For me I guess the fact that all this (one of the biggest shows in the world) was absolutely free to the public, just wander on off the street and away you go was a brilliant idea in current climes. The organisation was good, the food from the vendors was pretty good, all fresh and cooked in front of you, lots of interesting things to see and then wander accross the road and crash out on golden sandy beaches and catch some sun while some lovely looking girly served you cocktails !.
On the boat front, have to say what surprised me most was the level of build of most US or their Taiwanese owned yards were putting out. Compared to Euro build they seem to build everything as if it were going into battle. The weight of your average fishy boat or express cruiser seems to be on average 20% heavier, I am talking about the bigger stuff rather than fire 'em' out the door production boats. Sporty handling on your average US buyers mind doesn't seem to figure that much unless you are into poker run style of thing, they seem much more concerned in will this thing take a bashing and will it fall apart.
Anyway a few snaps of what was about.
Lots and lots of trawlery stuff, in fact dozens and dozens of them. One chap explain the proliferation oif these was that US boaters generally travel much further than Euro boaters, with many wintering in Florida and then sail back up to the North east cruising grounds for the summer. You see a lot of secondhands of these things around and they do have lots of hours on them.
Fishing boats on a grand scale feature everywhere with many having monster 2000 hp motors to get you well offshore in double quick time.
This was Nortech's first venture into sport cruisers or Express cruisers as they call them, this one had twin Cat C32's and surface drives for wrap factor ten speed
A nice newly launched Palmer Johnson
Lots of these hum dingers, lord knows what power units some of these had but if it doesn't reach 100 mph people won't even look at them.
Lazzara's latest offering the 92, really trick this boat, lots of very innovative stuff that I'll let MBY inform you of, I liked it a lot.
Oh, and if you want to know what $4m + of stand costs.....
Mind you I think they pulled a blinder cus it is actually built on a barge which they tow to each of the shows of which 90% are reached by sea, no set up costs , no pull down costs, no stand building that gets knocked to bits afterwards having cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It will probably cost them less in the end. just rock up and plug in, very swish inside too.
One for Hurricane I think....
and absolutely dozens of these centre console sports fishers with monster motors on the back
And of course if that doesn't get you there fast enough this will.......
Overall impression was it was quieter than other years (hardly surprizing) but a good number of serious buyers. One broker commented that this was great, nearly everyone that came on board was a genuine potential client, whilst he only took half the viewings of last year he still sold the same amount of boats albeit at 10% - 15% less than hoped for.
For me I guess the fact that all this (one of the biggest shows in the world) was absolutely free to the public, just wander on off the street and away you go was a brilliant idea in current climes. The organisation was good, the food from the vendors was pretty good, all fresh and cooked in front of you, lots of interesting things to see and then wander accross the road and crash out on golden sandy beaches and catch some sun while some lovely looking girly served you cocktails !.
On the boat front, have to say what surprised me most was the level of build of most US or their Taiwanese owned yards were putting out. Compared to Euro build they seem to build everything as if it were going into battle. The weight of your average fishy boat or express cruiser seems to be on average 20% heavier, I am talking about the bigger stuff rather than fire 'em' out the door production boats. Sporty handling on your average US buyers mind doesn't seem to figure that much unless you are into poker run style of thing, they seem much more concerned in will this thing take a bashing and will it fall apart.
Anyway a few snaps of what was about.
Lots and lots of trawlery stuff, in fact dozens and dozens of them. One chap explain the proliferation oif these was that US boaters generally travel much further than Euro boaters, with many wintering in Florida and then sail back up to the North east cruising grounds for the summer. You see a lot of secondhands of these things around and they do have lots of hours on them.
Fishing boats on a grand scale feature everywhere with many having monster 2000 hp motors to get you well offshore in double quick time.
This was Nortech's first venture into sport cruisers or Express cruisers as they call them, this one had twin Cat C32's and surface drives for wrap factor ten speed
A nice newly launched Palmer Johnson
Lots of these hum dingers, lord knows what power units some of these had but if it doesn't reach 100 mph people won't even look at them.
Lazzara's latest offering the 92, really trick this boat, lots of very innovative stuff that I'll let MBY inform you of, I liked it a lot.
Oh, and if you want to know what $4m + of stand costs.....
Mind you I think they pulled a blinder cus it is actually built on a barge which they tow to each of the shows of which 90% are reached by sea, no set up costs , no pull down costs, no stand building that gets knocked to bits afterwards having cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It will probably cost them less in the end. just rock up and plug in, very swish inside too.
One for Hurricane I think....
and absolutely dozens of these centre console sports fishers with monster motors on the back
And of course if that doesn't get you there fast enough this will.......
Well the story I got was they stopped counting at $4m , bit of a sore subject I gathered, started out at a certain figure and just grew and grew. I was told that they also dropped a clanger and didn't get it built to US coastguard standards so have had to get special dispensation to use it for public access but more work is needed for future use.
