TF Gang at the Miami Boat Show Lunch

It's always great to meet Forum Members to connect faces with names. A small group of of met over at Miami Beach Marina where Chip and Julie "Anode" were staying aboard for the Boat Show, and they offered us a beer. I don't remember much about it after we headed over to Monty's, but the next morning I found these pictures on my camera. Guess we must have had a good time.

Thanks guys for posting. Since Larry put up the pictures you must have all found your way home. It appears little time was wasted at the show. Sorry to miss it this year. Maybe next.

Great boat show!

Looks like a fun group and a great time. I noticed not much mention of the boat show. I guess with that much beer, boat shows don't matter!!

Thanks for the pics!

Love the can work!!

Oh Yeah....the Boat Show.

The Trawler Port display this year was down from last. Krogen made a good showing with their new 44AE and 52. GB was there with a 48 Trawler and a big Eastbay. Nordhavn had a 47 and 62, Fleming had one, Garcia had their 54" (a new trawler) with a full displacement hull. Leopard had their 39 and 47 trawler-cats, Nordic Tug had a 34 and Helmsman had their first 38 showing. The traffic and trouble one had to go through to see these few boats was considerable in the face of the hundreds of Motor Yachts and go-fast boats. Somewhere in the maze were supposed to be two other new power-cats built for Marine-Max, but I couldn't find 'em. Ranger Tugs and Cutwater were both inside the Convention Center and really grabbing a lot of attention from the usual rows and rows of cabin-cruisers, center consoles and sport boats.

Cruise-Air did a much larger display this year for their roof-top AC units sporting salt- resistant components. Leir had their propane outboards hanging on the back of a few of the dinghy displays, and at least one Marine electric motor builder was there, but I didn't really see much in the way of notable ground-breaking innovation. Most of the refreshing ideas I saw were in builders design efforts to get the most out of a given space. For those, you have to climb aboard the boats with a tape measure and a camera. Color changes, reflective surfaces, light, and thinner (but stronger) walls made for subtle changes to add inches to interiors that were noticeable. I suppose the world must be running out of teak forests, because the turn toward other woods (especially Cherry) was really evident among quality and economy builders alike. Regardless of product opinion, it was good to see Helmsman and Garcia with two previously-unseen trawler-like boats for Miami.

In Electronics, there were pretty good boat-show prices on everything, but Garmin dropped the numbers a lot on 500 and 700 series plotters a day before the show. Disappointing were the un-knowledgeable crews hired to handle the droves of people. We (and three other customers) were grossly mis-quoted the pricing for the Garmin 7215 by $1500, had a relatively disinterested guy doing a boring demo over at Raymarine, and a overly-green rep with Simrad that simply didn't know enough about his product. There were too many people and probably too little time to really train them. We did better at the retail dealers. My two cents.

When looking at the photos above, I'd like you all to know that Healhustler is a master of Photoshop.

I've been working the show, mostly hanging out at the Lehr outboard booth and sending customers up to my booth.
I saw a little inflatable designed to fish in very shallow water. It looks ideal for hunting bonefish and redfish. You can power it with a small outboard or a trolling motor and you can row it facing forward like they do for river fishing in the west. It is designed for two people. The aft seat is an ice chest and the forward seat is inflatable. The deck is a high pressure inflatable that you can stand on. I think the designer had fly fishing in mind for this boat.

I talked to the guys at the Delorme booth about their Inreach 2 way satellite comunicator. I like that you can actually cominucate with it by using your smart phone to compose text messages which are sent through the Iridium satellite network by the Inreach.

Lehr propane outboards were showing something I thought was very clever. They will soon release an electric start 9.9 outboard. What's so new about that? The battery is under the engine hood! They did a very neat job of mounting a tiny Lithium Iron battery that really spins that engine.

Viking Life Raft was showing a yacht sized raft that was self righting. That is a feature that has only been available in large SOLAS approved rafts up until now.
They make them in 4, 6, and 8 person sizes.

I saw a bicycle with really fat tires. They looked like motorcycle tires and I think they were meant to use on sand. The other thing I liked about the bike was that it was available with an electric motor, battery and Rod Holders!

Monday is the last day of the show, bargains will be available! Nobody wants to take merchandise back to the store.

HopCar said:

Monday is the last day of the show, bargains will be available! Nobody wants to take merchandise back to the store.

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Yeah..I'm getting ready to leave for the show now. Visiting Hopcar's booth today (in the last possible minute) is probably the only way to get a big discount out of him.

Thanks for sharing this!!! Looks like y'all put a good dent in the beer supply!!!!!

"Looks like y'all put a good dent in the beer supply!!!!! "

Baker, Don't forget what I said about Healhustlers mad skills with Photoshop.

I'm headed to the show now as well. We've got our Cuban coffee machine in the booth and a pretty girl to make the coffee.

HopCar said:

Lehr propane outboards were showing something I thought was very clever. They will soon release an electric start 9.9 outboard. What's so new about that? The battery is under the engine hood! They did a very neat job of mounting a tiny Lithium Iron battery that really spins that engine.

Click to expand...

Interesting! How is the batt recharged?

Walt, there is a charging system built into the engine. I don't know the details of it. I did ask what charger to use if it went dead and was told a regular 12 volt charger would work with it. We cranked the engine a lot of times over the course of five days with no recharging and at the close of the show it was still spinning the engine with no slow down. I was very impressed.