Here’s the most common response I get when I tell people I write about the world of high-performance powerboats for a living.
“You mean those Cigar boats?”
“Actually, the name is Cigarette,” I explain. “And Cigarette is just one brand of high-performance V-bottom. There are a bunch of them. Heck, there are even high-performance catamarans. But, yeah, they pretty much all get called ‘Cigarette.’”
Here’s what comes next.
“I thought catamarans were sailboats.”
There are two paths I can take at this point. The easiest is to ask, “So, what do you do for a living?” because after thirty years in journalism I know that most people like to talk about themselves. The second is to explain the differences between catamarans and V-bottoms in the go-fast boat world, which, as it happens, is what I’m getting paid to do here.