OK, it’s a bit late even by West Coast standards, but before I hit the rack and disappear for the weekend, I would be remiss if I didn’t relay the finer points of the chat i had with Terry Sobo of Nor-Tech Hi-Performance Boats earlier today from the Holiday Isle Resort at the Miami Boat Show Poker Run. Sobo, the director of sales and marketing for the Cape Coral, Fla., custom performance-boat company cut against the traditional go-fast grain and took Nor-Tech’s new 39-foot-long center console V-bottom (Nor-Tech builds high-performance V-bottoms and catamarans) to the run. And for Sobo, who financed the boat’s tooling himself, the ride down to Islamorada was gratifying.

“We had eight people on board with all their gear and a full load of fuel, and we still ran comfortably at 68 mph,” Sobo told me a few hours ago. “At wide open, the boat with triple 300-hp Verado outboards got .8 miles per gallon. At 60 mph, it got around 1.5 mile per gallon. The boat is efficient, but the way it rides in rough water is its most impressive peformance characteristic.  We were completely comfortable, all the way down.”