Commentary

Matt Trulio

Regardless of how many key people you know in the high-performance powerboat industry and no matter how long you’ve known them, you are always on the outside as a journalist covering the market. Whether you’ve covered it for seven days or 17 years, as I have, that doesn’t change. No matter how well you think you have learned or think you know about their world, you are not—technically speaking—really in it.

So I keep that firmly in mind as I write this commentary from my cramped seat 36,000 feet somewhere above the middle of the country as I head toward the 2012 Miami International Boat Show. (If you want the perspective of true insiders, check out Jason Johnson’s “State of the Industry,” series, which ran on speedonthewater.com in January.)

But that distance, that I am not really “in” their world, is a good thing when it comes to having anything remotely connected to an objective perspective on it.

My take on the state of the high-performance marine industry is simple: It’s still tough out there. Gradually improving, but tough, as in tough enough to weed out a few more players even as things gradually improve.

My optimism is guarded, which is why I say gradually improve, because I talk to engine builders such as Mike D’Anniballe at Sterling Performance, who tells me his rebuild business is alive and kicking but his new-engine orders barely register a pulse. I talk to dealers such as Scott Shogren of Shogren Performance Marine, who tells me—and told you in Johnson’s excellent series—that his used-boat sales outnumber his new-boat sales “20 to 1.”

And while that’s great for folks selling used boats and boat owners freshening up their engines, boat builders don’t pay their bills on used-boat sales and engine rebuilds. New-model orders fuel the industry.

For all intents and purposes, the production-built go-fast powerboat market is dead. I want Baja, Donzi and Fountain to recover and succeed as much, perhaps even more, as anyone not drawing a paycheck from them. But the fact is those companies aren’t just getting sued for $61 million, they have filed for bankruptcy protection (the second time around for Fountain) and their court-appointed receiver has petitioned the Business Court of North Carolina for a sale of assets. (The filing is sealed, so no details are available in the public record.).

I’m not saying they can’t make a comeback. I’m saying it’s a long shot. I would love to be wrong.

The custom go-fast boat market has fared better in the past three-and-a-half years, but hardly without struggles. When I talked to Terry Sobo of Nor-Tech in late fall, he was concerned, to put it mildly, about the lack of new-boat orders. When I caught up with him a few weeks ago, he was buzzing with news of orders for new boats. And I heard the same thing from several other custom builders, all of whom agreed that while fall is traditionally slow and things traditionally pick up in the New Year, new-model orders in January 2012 were better than they were in January 2011.

On this, I trust them, because if the last three-and-a-half years has brought any positive change to the high-performance marine industry it is the death of posturing.

What am I talking about?

Three and a half years, ago I would call Builder A and ask him how it’s going. He would say, “We’re doing great, but I hear Builders B, C and D are about to go under.”

Then, being a diligent reporter, I would call Builder B and ask him how it’s going. He would say, “We’re doing great, but I hear Builders A, C and D are about to go under.”

That, my friends, is posturing and that—plus that my head wanted to explode after those two worthless phone calls—was the reason that calls to Builders C and D were unnecessary.

Now when I call Builders A, B, C and D they all say the same thing: “It’s tough. I think things are getting a little better, but it’s still tough.”

Another thing they all say? “We will never get to where we were.”

Tough but gradually improving, never to return to its peak—those are the things I am told by people on the inside. And those are things that ring true to me as someone on the outside.

Bob Teague

After days of missed calls and endless phone tag, I’m thrilled to announce that Bob Teague has agreed to join speedonthewater.com as a contributor. The principal of Teague Custom Marine, a well-known high-performance engine, rigging and parts outfit in Valencia, Calif., Teague was Powerboat magazine’s technical editor and lead test driver for decades before the magazine was discontinued—for the second time—in December 2011.

Teague’s first article for the site will cover the challenges high-performance marine engine builders will face in 2013, the first year of mandatory nationwide compliance with the strictest emission standards in history. No custom engine builder is in a better position to address this topic than Teague.

Like fellow contributor Jason Johnson, Teague is a former co-worker of mine from Powerboat magazine—I worked closely with him testing more than 700 boats in my 16 years with the magazine. Like fellow contributor Rich Luhrs, Teague is among the most knowledgable and—at times—controversial figures in the industry, and he will be an “at-will” contributor, which means he will write when the spirit moves him. Like Johnson and Luhrs, Teague is a respected and cherished friend.

Also contributing to speedonthewater.com is former Powerboat magazine blogger Tank Sears—yet another friend. His first news story for the site, “Desert Storm Preview: Bigger, Badder—And Longer,” appeared earlier this week. In April, Sears will provide real-time coverage from the Desert Storm.

So with the exception of Luhrs, everyone currently contributing to speedonthewater.com is a Powerboat alumnus. And I couldn’t be happier about that. Working with people you respect on a professional level and enjoy on a personal level is a rare and wonderful thing.

That said, we are not and will not become a digital version of the magazine that was a big part of all our lives. Sure, our experiences at Powerboat inform what we do now to some degree. But as a daily news and features content site, speedonthewater.com is a completely different animal. We have an opportunity to create something unique and we’ve already begun.

Putting the band back together? Absolutely. But the music will be different. It already is.

I started this site two years ago from scratch and it’s grown steadily. But I have to admit, it’s nice to have help. Especially from a few really talented friends.

A fond farewell: The last pair of new Mercury Racing 1075Ci engines found a great home in this 44-foot-long, 139-mph Outerlimits.

In 2011, more than 600 articles appeared on speedonthewater.com. Some offered good news and others offered not-so-good news, but one thing is certain about 2011: It was anything but a dull year in the go-fast powerboat world.

What follows are my picks—each with its own link to the original piece—under six headings for this year’s top stories. Of course this list, like all such selections, is inherently subjective, for what rates as significant for me may be insignificant to you. And with more than 600 stories to choose from this year, I know I missed more than a few.

But with that said, I offer the following:

1. Versus

With the as yet unfiled Gratton Family to File Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Super Boat International and First Capital Sues American Marine Holdings and Liberty Acquisitions for $61 Million you could make a strong case for 2011 as “the year of the big lawsuit.” Regardless of the outcome, each is likely to have a profound impact on its respective world.

2. Center Console Mania

I’ll save those folks who like nothing better than to belabor the obvious the trouble: Center consoles aren’t new. But custom high-performance builders including Cigarette Racing Team, which was ahead of the curve when it introduced the 39’ Top Fish several years ago, Marine Technology, Inc., Nor-Tech, Statement Marine, Outerlimits, Sunsation and others getting into the center console game is new. And with purpose-built catamaran and V-bottom go-fast boat sales hardly booming, the expansion of these companies into another product segment is more than a good thing. It's survival.

3. Buried Alive, Dug Up and Buried Alive Again

If it did not affect real people—meaning loyal readers and dedicated staff—the saga of Powerboat magazine in the hands of Bonnier Corporation would be almost comical. The "We're off!" ... "No wait, we’re on!" ... "On third thought, we’re off now!” drama is a sad and rather undignified ending for a magazine that, love it or hate it (and there always was plenty of both for Powerboat) was iconic.

4. A Reign of Power Ends

Mercury Racing changed the game and left other engine builders playing catch-up when it introduced the supercharged 1075SCi engine in 2004. The company changed the game again when it released the quad overhead cam turbocharged 1350 in 2010 and created an 1,100-hp version of the same engine platform a year later. That effectively was the end of the line for the 1075 that once set the standard for reliable and manageable high-performance boat engines, which in their final installation demonstrated what made them so very impressive in the first place.

5. Just Finish the Damn Thing Already

Type Sterling 1700 into the “Search” function on this site and you will get 17 story results. (I don't have the time or energy to list them all here—that's why this site has a "Search" function.) That’s what happens when you follow the story of an engine, from development to installation and testing (well, sort of) for more than a year. The turbocharged Sterling 1700 has been at once an exhilarating and exasperating story—thanks to a series of epic delays and a glacial in-boat testing pace—for more than 13 months, but there is light at the end of tunnel. Sterling principal Mike D’Anniballe has offered to have me on hand for the final dial-in of the first pair of 1700s in a Skater 388, and while I’m not ready to make flight reservations just yet I’ll be there when it happens.

6. OK, So Maybe the No. 1 Was Overkill

After an Ilmor 725-powered Outerlimts SV43 set a new Around Long Island Record last summer, Mike Fiore and the crew at Outerlimits decided to offer a Don Aronow Limited Edition graphics package for the sit-down 43-footer. And the furor that ensued on the offshoreonly.com message board was as over-the-top and entertaining as any in recent memory. For sure, Fiore and company underestimated/miscalcuated the sacred connection between Aronow and Cigarette Racing Team, the most famous of the boat companies he founded, and the devoted following it created. Then again, they didn’t suggest raising taxes, banning religion or proposing a national boat care system. Without question, the story was this year’s “tempest in a teapot.”

May the new year deliver everything you hope it will—and more. One thing is certain: When it comes to the go-fast powerboat world, speeonthewater.com will continue to bring you the news in 2012.

Matt Trulio

I am done waxing nostalgic about Powerboat magazine, the publication for which I wrote for 16 years before it was purchased earlier this year. Been down memory lane, said my fond farewells, wished the new publisher, Bonnier Corp., success and asked loyal readers—the coin of the realm in the magazine business—to give the new publisher “a chance.”

And now with Bonnier’s decision to kill the magazine—again—I find myself a little embarrassed and a lot pissed off, hence the rhetorical question in the headline above.

Here’s what I want to do first: Apologize to Powerboat readers for asking them to give the new publisher a chance.

It doesn’t matter that I was really asking you folks to give the editor Jason Johnson and technical editor Bob Teague—two of my best friends and most respected colleagues—a chance. I went out on a limb thinking that, at the very least, the new publisher would deliver the six-issue run it promised for 2012.

Read more: Commentary: Is This Any Way to Ruin a Magazine?

Matt Trulio

About a week ago, one of the photographers I work with on speedonthewater.com and Sportboat magazine sent me a link to a thread from a message board. From what I could gather, you had to be a high-performance powerboat photographer to participate in this thread. And you had to be really pissed off at one or more of your fellow shooters for such egregious offenses as “posting on another photographer’s thread” and “whining.”

I have to admit I was entertained by it, much in the way I used to be entertained by schoolyard girl fights. (Come on, guys, who didn’t love those?) In fact, I haven’t been that entertained since Ndamukong Suh’s last press conference.

But gentlemen—and because I’ve worked with a lot of you I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt—please knock it off. Next time you want to slam a fellow photographer in a public forum, take a deep breath and step away from the keyboard. And if you come back hours later and still feel like slamming your competitor, take another walk. Take as many walks as you need until the urge to blast away is gone.

Read more: Commentary: Go-Fast Boat Photographers Need a Group Hug

Matt Trulio

Here’s a recent email from my best friend in the high-performance powerboat world, a guy who has a ton of experience driving really fast boats:

“Maybe I am getting old, but the loss of three racers this weekend really dampened the sport for me.  I guess the ‘speed and danger’ really came into perspective when you watch how quickly it all changes in a blink and how ‘there is no tomorrow.’

“Not ready to take up sailing but have to admit that the High Speed Rush is sort of dampened.”

I couldn’t agree with him more, and I have a feeling he’s not the only hardcore go-fast boat guy feeling this way at this moment. So maybe this moment is worth holding onto for a while.

Even in a sport where death is a potential outcome and the people involved presumably know and accept that risk, the recent loss of offshore racers Bob Morgan, J.T. Tillman and Joey Gratton during the Super Boat International Offshore World Championships was completely unacceptable. Only luck prevented two more racers from suffering the same fate on Sunday, which to me at least, indicates the problem of safety in offshore racing is systemic.

I don’t want to get into that topic. Rich Luhrs already provided an informed big-picture perspective on that subject in “Commentary: The Price of What,” which appeared on this site a week ago. I have nothing to add.

But if three racers perished with “protective” canopies over their heads, what chance do people have in open-cockpit high-performance pleasure boats running similar or greater speeds in the same kind of catastrophic event?

Read more: Commentary: Ripples from Key West

Rich Luhrs interviews Billy Frenz.

Some years ago I wrote an article titled “Triumph and Tragedy at Key West” for a boating magazine. The subject was a tremendous racing show punctuated by the tragic accident which left Tom Gentry in a vegetative state ending in his death many months later. Maybe this one should be titled “Tragedy and Tragedy at Key West”.

First, let me start by saying that Joey Gratton was a respected friend of mine and I have great affection for his family. I admire only a handful of people and Joey was one of those, for he combined true racing skills with a friendly, classy, and professional point of view. He was also a wonderful family man and my prayers and condolences go out to Priscilla, Brock and Blake. I did not know Bob Morgan or J.T. Tillman nearly as well as Joey and my comments in no way are meant to single out his death over theirs. All three represent unspeakable losses and unending sadness for their loved ones.

That said, I am both saddened and wearily frustrated by the tragic week at the World Championships.

Read more: Commentary: The Price of What

Matt Trulio

A couple of weeks ago, Jason Johnson, my former boss at Powerboat magazine and current editor of the recently resurrected title, and I caught up over a couple of beers during a pre-game 49ers versus Browns tailgate at the old-school stadium atrocity known as Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Johnson, who lives 500 miles south in Ventura, actually has 49ers season tickets and treks up for every home game. Such is the life of an NFL fan whose closest big city is Los Angeles.

Johnson brought me the new issue of Powerboat—for the record I think the team there did a great job with the relaunch—and that started us down magazine memory lane. (OK, so maybe we had a few beers rather than a couple.). I worked for Powerboat for 16 years, which makes Johnson a short-timer with just seven years under his belt, but we definitely know a lot of the same characters who have been involved with what is an iconic go-fast boat publication.

Read more: Commentary: Bring on the Magazines

Cigarette's 39' Top Gun Open performance center console.

I’ve been told that the “Occupy Movement” is to liberals what the “Tea Party” is to conservatives. I don’t know if that’s true—it seems reasonable enough—but I do know this: All it takes to start a movement is passion and a cause.

So here’s mine: Occupy center consoles. And I’m plenty passionate about it.

Why? Because the near-term survival of  high-performance powerboats might just depend on it.

No one, particularly in the high-performance world, is saying that center consoles are “new.” Companies such as Yellowfin and Contender have been building them for the hardcore fishing crowd for years. Back when they still had a pulse, Fountain and Donzi embraced the center console segment, and that segment carried them in the past few years when sportboat sales evaporated.

Nor-Tech's 390 center console.

Read more: Commentary: Occupy Center Consoles

Reggie Fountain and members of the Liberty Associates and American Marine Holdings groups in better times.

Just for fun, let’s imagine there is no conflict in Washington, N.C. Let’s pretend management remains solidly in place and committed to the Fountain, Donzi and Baja brands, production is in full swing and there’s plenty of money in the bank.

Would any of the brands be thriving?

No.

Too easily forgotten as the Washington drama unfolds is that demand for high-performance powerboats, especially production-line-built high-performance powerboats, has plummeted in the past three-and-a-half years. And I mean plummeted.

Four of five years ago, finding a new Fountain on the water was easy. Now, it’s an exercise in “Where’s Waldo?” Play the game with Baja and it gets even harder.

That’s not to say that custom go-fast boat companies have escaped unscathed. Once-dominant players including Eliminator and Dave’s Custom Boats have endured well-publicized struggles—and they’re the lucky ones. I known of one venerable company that has built three new boats in the last three years, which as bad as that seems beats going out of business, as several other builders have.

Custom builders east of the Mississippi have fared better, but not much. I talk with at least one of them every day, and the best word they have for the state of high-performance boat market, minus the expletives they use to modify it, is “challenging.”

The only “fix” is a healthy economy, and that’s going to take time. In the current economy, a high-volume production line business model simply doesn’t work for the go-fast powerboat market. It won’t work until people have more disposable income. It won’t work on either the dealer or consumer side until credit eases. The desire may well be there, but the demand and the ability to make it a reality is not.

That’s why “production” builders like Formula are building boats to order and why, as Formula’s chief executive officer, told me not long ago, “People are going to have to wait for their boats.”

Like everything else, it’s going to take time.

What could be more fun than getting behind the wheel of one of the world's best-known performance boats? Nothing. Photo courtesy/copyright Tim Sharkey/Sharkey Images.

Several years ago, I got a call from renowned offshore racing throttleman Jerry Gilbreath. Gilbreath, who was throttling a 39-foot Marine Technology, Inc., catamaran called Reliable Carriers with the boat’s owner, Tom Abrams, in the Super Cat class, wanted to teach me how to drive the big cat. In turn, he proposed that I write a story for Powerboat magazine about the experience. I pitched it to Brett Becker, my editor at the time, who agreed to the assignment. I think he knew I would have brooded and grumbled endlessly—two skills I’ve developed well over the years—if he’d said no.

Reliable Carriers was a great boat and Gilbreath was an amazing teacher, but the truth is with a helmet on my head, a full-canopy over it, six-point restraints pinning me to my bucket seat and nothing but flat water in Sarasota (Fla.) Bay and even in the Gulf of Mexico, the experience actually wasn’t nearly as exhilarating as I’d expected it to be. Don’t get me wrong, it was a privilege and it was fun. But it wasn’t the rush I thought it would be.

So when my good friend Bob Christie, the owner of Speed Racer, a well-known 44-foot MTI catamaran with twin 1,000-hp Potter Performance Engines called me and said, “Hey, how about you drive Speed and I throttle for the Miami Boat Show Poker Run,” I was happy to accept. But I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal.

Read More: Driving Speed Racer

Matt Trulio

They say—whomever “they” are—that the news doesn’t take a day off. As it happens, they’re right and I was reminded of that when I caught up with John Walker, the former president of Donzi, Fountain and Pro-Line last Saturday for the story “American Marine Holdings: ‘Shut down production for a couple of weeks’” that went live on speedonthewater.com that day.

The day before, I’d spend the better part of the morning trying to decipher a business-speak press release, which I used for the basis of the “Liberty Out at American Marine Holdings” article that ran that afternoon.

At least there was an actual story behind all the rumors that have been flying around of late, though to tell the truth Friday’s press release was so sudden that it even surprised high-level people within the Liberty and American Marine Holdings groups.

The last industry story I’d pursued in a swirl of rumors, “Hledin on Skater: ‘We are not sold’” turned out to be nothing more than swirling rumors. And it was a pleasure to put them to rest.

How do these things start? In the case of Skater, the likely culprit is a bad game of telephone in which, “Did you hear about the new Skater dealership?” becomes “Did you hear Skater was sold?”

Read more: Commentary: Wild Week in the Go-Fast Boat World—And It’s Only Tuesday

Joe Cibellis and Joe Sgro set an event record in this 43' Outerlimits. Can offshore endurance events provide a brighter future for offshore racing. Photo courtesy/copyright Tim Sharkey, Sharkey ImagesT

The Second Annual Don Aronow Memorial Around Long Island Marathon race was run successfully last weekend. A wonderful tradition is indeed reborn having survived two years against odds that were somewhat stacked by competing racing organizations.

After a shaky start based on an initial lack of entries, six boats finally queued up to take the starter’s flag. At the end of the day, a 43-foot had set a new course record, and a four-engine Fountain held bragging rights on the outboard side.

Joe Cibellis and veteran offshore racer Joe Sgro gave as good as they got in the Outerlimits by recording an eye-popping 3 hour and 5 minute time on the 271-mile course. Powered by Ilmor 725 hp engines with matching drives, the pair eclipsed Stu Hayim’s one-boat record of 3 hours and 7 minutes and Bill Sirois’ older race record of just under 4 hours set with a dual 400 hp Mercruiser/Bertram in 1966.

Read more: Commentary: Endurance Event Presents a “New Model" for Offshore Racing

Joe Cibellis and Joe Sgro piloted this 43-foot Outerlimits to a new around-Long-Island record. Photo courtesy/copyright Tim Sharkey, Sharkey Images

Reporting good news about the high-performance powerboat world is easy. Finding it these days, however, is not. A go-fast boat is the last—and I do mean the last—thing anyone needs. And in the toughest economy since the Great Depression, that makes it the first thing to go. Exactly what “go” means, from owners simply selling their boats to letting them sit for the season, tends to vary. But the result is the same—nothing happening—and that’s bad news for the high-performance boating world.

So excuse me if I’m a little pumped up about last weekend. Because a lot happened in our world in just a few days. And all of it was very, very good.

Read more: Commentary: Why Last Weekend Rocked on the Water

What would Newby do? Well, in this photo of the Powerboat magazine crew in 2007, he'd position himself between two female staff members on the photo boat tower.

Tom Newby, the Powerboat magazine photographer who died in a helicopter accident during a shoot on Sept. 11 four years ago, had one question that everyone who ever worked with him remembers.

“What’d you do that for?”

There were two reasons you didn’t relish hearing that from Newby. First, you knew you were in for a laughing, merciless critique of something you’d done. Second, he was usually right. He was kind of a pest that way.

That’s because, despite the inherent second-guessing nature of Newby’s favorite question, he thought about things. And then he thought about them some more. Newby went to bed with a plan and woke up with a plan. From shooting a Powerboat magazine cover to making the perfect Martini—or what he believed with fanatical certainty was the perfect Martini—Newby had a plan.

More often that not, it was a really good plan.

It got to the point where we decided to have “What Would Newby Do?” (WWND) bracelets made as a practical joke. (“He thinks he’s god, anyway,” someone in our group joked at the time.) He didn’t live to see the bracelets, but Vicki Newton, his girlfriend and former Powerboat magazine publisher, had them made after he died. I wore mine until it broke about two years ago.

Come Sunday, Tom Newby will have been gone exactly four years. I saw him an hour before he died. I saw him an hour after he died. In both states, he looked great. That was the other aggravating thing about him. He always looked great.

More relevant to the high-performance powerboat world, his photos always looked great. Those photos and Newby himself inspired photographers Robert Brown, Jay Nichols and Tim Sharkey, who in no particular order are the top three shooters in the game.

“Tom Newby is my inspiration every time I pick up a camera,” says Sharkey. “He was the best of the best photographers. I hope someday to get to his level, but without a doubt he set the bar very high.”

Sharkey met Newby for the first time after the Atlantic City Poker Run during the post-run dinner. Newby had shot the run earlier in the day for Powerboat. Sharkey was a participant—he owned a Checkmate powerboat—not a photographer.

“It was my wife’s first poker run, “ says Sharkey. “When we met Tom at the dinner, he shot an image of my wife and me that we will cherish forever.”

Nichols, on the other hand, never met Newby. But that didn’t matter.

“Looking back at my early days around the performance boating world, I am sure his work influenced me in many ways I never realized,” says Nichols. “The images of these beautiful beasts in the glossy pages of boating magazines were a big part of my early attraction to the scene. Today, I view Tom’s iconic images as a measure of what is possible.”

And then there is Brown, or “RB” as everyone at Powerboat called him.

Brown and Newby worked side-by-side at many, many Powerboat magazine photo shoots. They behaved like brothers, meaning they loved each other and bickered constantly—their favorite chosen subject being politics. Put Newby in the Al Franken role and Brown in the Rush Limbaugh role and you get the idea.

Brown tried to speak at Newby’s memorial. He managed a few words but had to stop. Losing a family member, even one you dub “Mr. Perfect”—a nickname for Newby that stuck—will do that to you. But now, on the subject of working with Newby he is at no loss for words.

"The list of photography-related techniques I learned from Tom is very long,” says Brown. “Precision-marking and keeping track of rolls of film while going sideways at 80 mph in a helicopter with no doors was one of Tom's art forms that I gladly stole from him. And when photography went digital, we were giddy at being able to look at the back of our cameras and adjust our images to something we liked.”

What didn’t Brown like about working with Newby?

“That’s easy,” he says. “When he said, ‘What’d you do that for?’ We all dreaded hearing that from him.”

Welcome to the parade: Buying or selling a high-performance boat usually takes more than one party—and one boat—nowadays. Photo copyright/courtesy Tim Sharkey/Sharkey Images.

Scott Shogren, the owner of Shogren Performance Marine in Waukegan, Ill., was on a roll. We were talking car to car, meaning he was driving somewhere in Illinois and I was driving somewhere in California, via mobile phone about the less-than spectacular state of the high-performance marine industry. The conversation was fast and funny, wide-ranging and, between the two of us launching one F-bomb after the next, mostly unsuitable for print—even digital print.

“I’m not in the boat business,” said Shogren. “I’m in the deal business.”

That comment actually shut me up, which is no mean feat, for a moment. Shogren loves high-performance boats. He really does. That hasn’t changed. But the industry has, and the days of someone walking into his showroom and buying a new or used high-performance boat in one simple transaction are gone, at least for now.

“Two-, three- and four-way deals are normal now,” said Shogren. “You’d be amazed.”

A few weeks later—today actually—I caught up with Terry Sobo, the director of sales for Nor-Tech Hi-Performance Boats in Cape Coral, Fla. During our conversation, which was a lot like the one I had with Shogren minus the F-bombs (it was too early in the morning for those, I think), I mentioned what Shogren had said about the deal business. Sobo laughed and agreed.

“It’s almost like being in a major league sport,” he said. “You can’t just make a trade, you have to line up all the planets and trade three or four players. Sometimes, you have to sell two or three used boats just to sell one new one. You have to be very creative, and everything is against you. Financing is tough, and existing boats are worth half of what their owners usually think they are. You don’t want to offend anybody, but you have to be creative to get the deal done.”

So what does this have to do with you? Simply this: If you’re selling your high-performance boat, be prepared to deal and get creative. That’s coming from two of the best people at making such deals in the industry.

They’d love it to be more simple. They’d love it to be the way it was. But it’s not.

If you didn’t expect there to be litigation between Reggie Fountain and Fountain Powerboats, Inc., in Washington, N.C., after Mr. Fountain’s departure in late 2010 from the high-performance boat company he founded, you were kidding yourself. It wasn’t just bound to happen, it was going to happen and it did on March 3, 2011, when Mr. Fountain filed a lawsuit against Fountain Powerboats, Inc., in the Superior Court of Beaufort County, N.C.

At the heart of the complaint were two central issues. First, Mr. Fountain alleged that Fountain Powerboats, owned by Liberty Associates, had withheld $75,000 of $100,000 he was owed for design consulting work he did for Westport Shipyard on a 50-foot yacht. The second issue in Mr. Fountain’s complaint was what he claims are personal effects and belongings such as trophies and photographs that were being withheld by Fountain Powerboats. In lieu of the return of those articles, the complaint stated that Mr. Fountain would accept $250,000 “or such amount shall be determined by the court as damages.”

Read more: Commentary: In Fountain Versus Fountain, Only the Lawyers Are Sure Winners

Special guest Zach Ellingson (left) helps organizer Nolan Ferris with the stage presentation after the run. All photos courtesy/copyright Sharkey Images.

Next time someone gives you a load of self-righteous grief about your gas-guzzling, air-fouling, eardrum-splitting high- performance boat, please send him or her my way. Because while your boat may well be all those things, your community—meaning performance-boat owners around the country—pays it forward in a way like no other. These days, it’s hard to find any kind of organized go-fast boating event, especially in the poker-run realm, that doesn’t have some kind of charitable component.

The most recent example of the performance-boat community’s downright habitual devotion to charity happened last weekend at the 7th Annual Swamp Run on Lake Oneida in upstate New York. (The run earned its name for its sometimes cloudy water and abundant aquatic plant life.) More than 60 performance boats entered the run and, by all accounts, a good time was had by all.

Read more: Commentary: Smoke on the Water Sparked the Swamp Run—And the Fire Keeps Burning

Even photographer Robert Brown's 30-foot photo boat (shown here at Maverciks big-wave surf spot) has radar for nighttime running.

Last night, I work up at 3 a.m.—OK, so technically that’s morning but you get the idea. I stared out the bedroom window at the manmade lagoon in back of the house my family and I are renting this week in Stinson Beach, Calif. It was so dark that I couldn’t tell where the dock ended and the water began.

Unable to get back to sleep, I walked to the front of the house and stared at the natural lagoon. It was so dark that I couldn’t see any of the small islands where, the morning before, I’d kayaked with my kids and a few close friends to watch hundreds of seals.

Still not quite ready for another shot at sleep, I walked to the ocean—it’s about 300 yards, give or take, from our doorstep. Thanks to white sands of Stinson, I could see where the beach ended and the ocean began, but beyond that the ocean was as black and impenetrable as the starless, cloudy night sky.

I went back to bed and fell asleep thinking about the darkness. I woke up about three hours later ago thinking about it, too. And it occurred me that the absolute last place I’d want to be at night is in a high-performance boat. And if I absolutely had to, I’d want to be running at not much more than idle speed.

Read more: Commentary: There Is No Too Slow at Night

Offshore racing is spectacular. But it won't grow unless is unifies and streamlines. Photo courtesy/copyright Tim Sharkey.

I swore I was never going to write this commentary again. In 16 years with Powerboat magazine, I think I wrote one version or another of it a half-dozen times. I thought that was more than enough. Fact is, I feel like I’ve beaten the topic to death. It’s boring.

But there’s this persistent friend of mine who, whenever he’s spies me online, asks me via instant message when I am going to use my voice to “help save” domestic offshore racing. I really like this guy—he’s a grassroots, P-5 class racer who’s been at it for much of his adult life. He’s not rich and he’s certainly not famous. He races because he loves it. He’s passionate and persuasive; so persuasive, in fact, that against my better judgment I am writing this commentary, one more time.

Read more: Commentary: Only Unity Can Grow Offshore Racing

Shore Dreams provides free performance-boat rides to mentally and physically challenged children and adults.

The performance-boat community has a giant heart. From Desert Storm out West to Jammin’ on the James in the East, just about every go-fast event you can name has a charitable component.

The annual Shore Dreams event in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey, however, is one of the few performance-boating happenings that is completely dedicated to helping others. For one Saturday in July each year—this year’s event is July 16—Shore Dreams offers free go-fast boat rides for mentally and physically challenged children and adults. What’s more, the daylong event has become a carnival, complete with games and food. That gives the families and friends of those who go for the boat rides a break, if only for a few hours.

At present, Shore Dreams still needs more boats and their owners/drivers to provide enough rides—more than 700 kids and adults went for boat rides last year—for everyone. As incentive, speedonthewater.com will publish an article next week with a short profile of each boat and its owner—complete with an owner-supplied photo of the boat—that participates in the event.

Interested performance-boat owners should contact Dave Patnaude, president of the New Jersey Performance Powerboat Club, at 848-210-6253.

Willie Schaefer, a man "who would put as much effort into your boat as his own."

We scattered an unsung hero’s ashes in the boat yard he loved …

It was a simple ceremony on June 10, 2911, at K&K Outboard on Long Island, New York. There was a lot of good-natured ribbing and some heartfelt words from his family.

You probably never heard of a fellow named Willie Schaefer. On the other hand, K&K was the racing birthplace to a bunch of racers including Barry Cohen (of Ghost Rider and Barcone fame), George Linder, The K&K Ghost boats, Pete, Ken Sr, Ken Jr, and Jeff Kalibat, Jim Grillo and yours truly. Willie had a hand in helping all of those people and many others.

Read more: Willie Schaefer: Celebration of a Grassroots Racer

Photo courtesy/copyright Florida Powerboat Club.

Last weekend’s Sunny Isles Offshore Challenge appeared to have it all: an endurance race from Miami to Bimini and back on Friday, a poker run on Saturday and an offshore race on Sunday.

South Florida sunshine every day. South Florida parties—complete with live bands—at the killer Gulfstream Park Racetrack and Casino venue—every night.

Dennis Rodman. (OK, so I’m not sure the once-great Detroit Piston—you may recall that at one time Rodman had more rebounds than piercings—is that big a draw, but at least he livens things up.)

The only thing the Sunny Isles Offshore Challenge didn’t have? A good turnout. The Miami-Bimini run had nine registered boats, the poker run had seven and the offshore race had 23.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Event organizers Brad Schoenwald and Larry Goldman were expecting 5,000 to 6,000 people at the Friday and Saturday night parties. Instead, despite television commercials, billboard advertising and being featured on the most popular morning radio show in South Florida, they got 1,200 to 1,500.

“I am still baffled by it,” said Schoenwald. “Miami just seemed dead and despite all the promotion we did, the people just didn’t come out.

“And with a couple of exceptions, we all didn’t get any support from the local high-performance marine community,” he added. “That baffles me, too, because ultimately the event benefits them.”

Still, while Schoenwald said that support from local businesses in the industry would have helped, that’s not the biggest challenge for the event. Timing is. He and Goldman realize that it needs to happen earlier in the year, sometime between late-April and early- to mid-May before the owners of seasonally kept performance boats move those boats back to the Northeast for summer.

Unfortunately, the solution is not as simple as just changing the dates. Schoenwald and Goldman have to consider conflicting events such as Desert Storm, arguably the largest go-fast boat happening in the world, and offshore races under various sanctioning bodies. And timing around those events, problematic as it can be, isn’t even their biggest hurdle.

“We have been tied to City of Sun Isles Beach annual birthday celebration dates,” said Schoenwald. “One third of our sponsorship money comes from the city. If we just change the dates, we lose that funding. We don’t have enough local industry support to replace it, so we need it.

“Plus, we have to contend with timing around environmental impact issues,” said Schoenwald. “No one has more power than the ‘turtle people.’”

Despite this year’s disappointing attendance numbers on all fronts, with the exception of “beach density,” Schoenwald said the show will go on next year and likely on a different—meaning earlier—weekend. He’s already working on it.

“We had a great meeting with the city yesterday,” he said. “There will be an event next year. How it will be structured is yet to be determined, but there will be an event.”

Related Stories on speedonthewater.com

Sunny Isles: OPA Race Wrap-Up

Sunny Isles Poker Run Recap: Happy 20th Birthday Florida Powerboat Club

Sunny Isles Beach Offshore Challenge: On Site for the Weekend

Sunny Isles Weekend Update: Day 1 Interviews

The first Liberty-built Baja will be a 26' Outlaw.

Of the three brands owned by Liberty Associates—Baja, Donzi and Fountain—in Washington, N.C., the one I’m most eager to see make a huge rebound, the one I see as most critical for the entire go-fast boat industry, is Baja. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pulling for the success of Fountain and Donzi lines, but to my way of thinking, Baja matters most.

Why? Very simple. Baja made its fortune as an entry-level brand. Sure, the company offered 36- and 38-footers, and even one semi-custom 40-footer. But the truth is the company sold more single-engine sport boats from 20 to 30 feet long than any production builder in go-fast marine history. Affordable—at least relative to other brands—models that presented solid values, that was the book on Baja.

“Whenever someone completely new to the market asks me what to buy, I always say ‘Baja,’” Bob Teague of Teague Custom Marine told me years ago. “It probably won’t be their last boat, but it’s a good first boat to find out if they actually like high-performance boating.”

Right now, the market doesn’t exactly lack for big-buck custom catamarans and V-bottoms. But affordably priced single-engine production-built sport boats, with the notable exception of Checkmate? Outside of the aging pre-owned market fleet, pickings are slim.

“Companies like Fountain were built on their single-engine sport boats like the 27’ Fever, but they went away from that,” Scott Shogren of Shogren Performance Marine, a former Fountain dealer in Waukegan, Il., told me earlier this week. “That was a shame. The industry has done a horrible job of attracting new customers.”

 “If there is going to be a resurgence in high-performance boating, it’s got to come from the entry level,” Paul Ray of Ilmor Marine in Plymouth, Mich., told me during the 2011 Desert Storm event on Lake Havasu in late April.

According to Johnny Walker of Liberty, the first new Baja—a 26’ Outlaw—built under the Liberty banner will make its debut at the Baja Owners Club event in Knoxville, Tenn., in July. In a previous speedonthewater.com article (read the full article) Walker said 12 Baja models had been ordered, far from world-beating numbers but a decent start.

Obviously, it will take more than the availability of affordable, entry-level production sportboats to jumpstart the go-fast market. By all accounts, consumer credit has to ease considerably for would-be buyers of those models. But when that happens, the inventory needs to be there. Not the glut of inventory the market had to choke down during the past few years, but enough to give newcomers to the performance-boat market a few reasonable options.

So I’m hoping for a Baja comeback. Because the industry dearly needs it.

Rich Luhrs airborne in an English Milesmaster hull with a T2 outboard in 1974. Photo courtesy of Darren and Rich Luhrs.

Well , here goes nuttin’ ! First, I would like to thank Matt Trulio of speedonthewater.com for taking a chance on “another writer still wrapped up in his truth.” There are lots of acknowledged “experts” in the field of powerboating and, surely, he has his pick. I guess everyone is entitled to one mistake in this lifetime.

Matt asked me to write a series articles for this site and I  jumped at the chance. Years ago, the leading performance boating writer in history, Hank Weiand Bowman, was killed at a race I entered. I read everything he wrote while growing up and always wanted to follow in his footsteps. My efforts here are dedicated to his memory and I hope to make him proud.

By way of introduction, I came by my performance boating credentials honestly. In fact I was quite fortunate to have grown up in, and with, the sport as we know it today. I began racing outlaw hydros as a kid in the late ‘50s and graduated to Outboard Performance Class (OPC) marathon racing when I was only 17 years old. I was lucky enough to enter events like the Hudson River and Around Long Island Marathons, before expanding my racing geography to include the Orange Bowl Regatta in Miami and regional and national events throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Read more: Commentary: On Board with Speedonthewater.com