It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since the relentless, talented, innovative, fearless, fun-loving founder of Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats—Mike Fiore—died at the age of 44 from injuries sustained in an accident at the 2014 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Missouri.
Paul and Mike Fiore share a classic father-and-son moment at the Miami International Boat Show in 2008. Photo courtesy Outerlimits
At the same time, when you look at what has taken place in the performance boat industry throughout the last 12 months—let alone how eventful things have been at Outerlimits between delivering several new V-bottoms, starting a new 44-foot center console and wrapping up its first 39-foot pleasure catamaran—it’s easy to see where the time has gone.
I was at the Shootout when the accident happened on August 26, 2014, I attended the memorial service in California a few weeks later and I’ve covered several of the fundraising efforts put forth by the people whose lives were touched so very deeply by Fiore, including a snowmobile gathering in January and two memorial poker runs this past weekend in Ontario, Canada and New Jersey (click the links to read the stories). Yet it still seems unreal that Fiore is no longer with us or that none of us will be sharing a laugh with him at the Performance Boat Center party the Thursday before this year’s Shootout.
and then