Today was the first time I spoke with Terry Sobo, the longtime sales and marketing director for Nor-Tech Hi-Performance Boats, since the endearing losers from the north side of Chicago—the Cubs—outplayed our beloved St. Louis Cardinals and knocked them out of the playoffs. (For those of you who don’t follow Major League Baseball, Cardinals/Cubs is one of the sport’s biggest rivalries behind maybe the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.)

Nor-Tech had several center console models on display during the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Missouri. Photo by Jason Johnson

The chatter about whether we root for the Cubs, a team that hasn’t claimed a World Series title since 1908, to win it all was brief—mainly because the wounds were still fresh and also because we had business at hand.

Sobo informed me that the North Fort Myers, Fla., company would have a formidable display of its 34- and 39-foot center consoles at the upcoming Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show (Nov. 5-9). He said a pair of 340 and 390 models will be in the water at the H/I dock and a fully loaded 392 Super Fish with quad Mercury Verado 350 engines will be in the convention center alongside another 34-footer.

Although Nor-Tech was hoping it could show off its 45-foot center console, the first model isn’t ready and Sobo is expecting to make a big splash with the new 450 at the Miami International Boat Show in February.

In the more immediate future—as in the week following the Fort Lauderdale show (Nov. 10-16)—Sobo and company will take off from Miami for Key West as part of the Florida Powerboat Club’s annual Key West Poker Run.

“We’re doing a lot of the same things, as in we’re a sponsor of the run, we’ll have boats up front at the docks and we’ll also have one on display in the poker run village,” he said. “I don’t know how many of our customers are doing the run, but there are a lot of them. Everything from the center consoles to the big cats to our 50-foot V-bottoms. I’m sure it’ll be a great time as usual.”

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