Right now, there’s a 60-foot center console bound for the Middle East in the paint booth at Stephen Miles Design in Owensboro, Ky. The 60-footer tops the designer/painter’s prior largest powerboat canvas—a Mystic C5000 catamaran in Trinidad—by 10 feet. But anyway you look at it, that’s a lot of boat to paint and a long way to come for a guy who started his career in 2009 painting radio-controlled model boats in the 60- to 92-inch range.
The ace powerboat paint man is finding the balance between art and commerce. Photo courtesy/copyright Halsey Fulton.
Miles, who began painting for Outerlimits in 2014, chuckled at the disparity and—in his typical Southern gentleman fashion—downplayed the challenges of designing and executing graphics on the massive center console.
“It’s really not that bad,” he said, then laughed softly. “I guess the biggest challenge is moving the boat around the shop because it’s so big, but other than that it’s been pretty easy. It’s actually a very light, foam-cored epoxy center console.”
These are busy times for the 44-year-old guy behind Stephen Miles Design, which has joined the ranks of Boat Customs, The Art Of Design and Visual Imagination as one of the top powerboat painting shops in the country.
To date, Miles and his team have painted seven Mystic Powerboats M4200 luxury performance center consoles. Photo courtesy/copyright Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
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