Buoyed by the success of its M4200 luxury center console—26 reportedly have been sold and 14 have been delivered—Mystic Powerboats of DeLand, Fla., is planning to unveil a 38-foot version of its 42-footer at the 2017 Palm Beach International Boat Show in March. As they did with the M4200, Mystic’s owner and founder John Cosker and Scott Sjogren, the owner and founder of global Mystic dealer Shogren Performance Marine in McHenry, Ill., had a meeting of the minds when it came to the company’s second center console offering.

Scheduled to debut in March 2017, the M3800 will incorporate the best of the M4200 in a smaller package (click image to enlarge). Images courtesy/copyright Mystic Powerboats.

“Our challenge now is twofold,” said Sjogren. “We are maxed out on production with the M4200. We are only going to build 12 of them a year. Each one takes more than 3,000 hours or four months to build and we finish one each month. The good news is that John has enough staff to build more products. We just don’t have the tooling.

“We went to a lot of consumer shows last year with the 42,” he continued. “And one of the things we learned—we’re always there to learn, just as we did with the prototype 42s at the Miami Show two years ago—is that the 42 is too big for some people. It’s a very big boat for its length. And there are a lot of people who don’t want triple or quad outboards. They want twins. The biggest objection we heard was size, not price. We have had a lot of people tell us they love our boat and would love to have one if we built a smaller one, so we are.”

With that in mind, Cosker designed the new 38-footer, which has a 10’5” beam (just an three inches narrower than the beam of the M4200) and only 3” less freeboard, to “be able to run 70 mph” with twin Mercury Racing Verado 400R outboard engines, according to Sjogren. (The M3800 also can be ordered with triple engines.) Sjogren added that he’s already received orders for the new model. And there’s more coming.

“Listen, the C5000 and C4400 catamarans are part of Mystic’s legacy and they’ll always build them,” he said. “But outboards are the future. Right now, we are going exclusively with Mercury Marine and Mercury Racing outboards, and we have no plans to change that. Mercury has been excellent to work with. Building the center consoles allows John to use his design and engineering technique and take all of Mystic’s boats to the next level.

“At some point in the next couple of years, John will introduce a single-outboard M-series luxury center console, probably in the 29-foot range,” he added. “That will give Mystic a greater range of products, from ‘entry level’ to the M4200.”

While completely new hull and deck tools are being created for the M3800, Cosker said he has retained all the best of elements of the M4200 in the new design.

Cosker designed the boat primarily for twin-outboard applications, though it can be ordered with triples.

“The boat is only three and a half feet shorter, the gunwale height is three inches shorter and we lost a little floor space—the walkways are just a little shorter and narrower,” he said. “We tried to fit all the same stuff into a smaller boat, which is the beauty of doing it on a computer. I kept the bow section of the deck and hull essentially the same because the boat has such a nice, dry rough-water ride. From there, I just designed new steps in the hull for the shorter boat and changed it up for two outboards. The seating in the cockpit and ahead of the console is more or less the same.

“The M3800 is just going be a little smaller and more nimble,” he added.

According to Sjogren, both the M3800 and M4200 are now also being offered with a recreational fishing package. The M3800 on display at the Palm Beach Show next March will be outfitted with that package. We will have a M4200 & M4200 fish displayed the month before during the Miami International Boat Show.

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