rak rua

This is the age of 'negative stories'.
'Tank' summarized a few positives but the forum seems to attract a lot of negatives, usually the same ones like...

Industry is stuffed
Pontoons everywhere
No new go fast boats
Too many wake boats
My Bravo's broke
I hate jet skis
Mercury pricing is ridiculous
Why are boats so expensive
Still don't like outboards
CC's are for fishing


All valid arguments but if you see the glass as half empty, finish the drink and order another one!

RR

Skater30

I personally think we are seeing a great period in performance boating right now. Pick your warrantied power - from Mercury's new 860 package all the way up to the 1350/1550. From there, we now have piston engines putting out more power than the turbines of the past with Mercury's 1650 and 1750 packages, and Sterling's insane 1900 kilo motors (I know I've left a lot of big power builders out of this also). The rise of the outboard powered midsize cats and large center console Vs due to the introduction of mercury's 5 year (extended) warranty 400R. And we all know a bigger HP outboard is coming from Mercury soon, which will allow even the larger cats (38'-42') to perform well with a pair of outboards on the back. I've been involved in the offshore scene since the late '80s, and think that we're seeing the best times of all right now. The racing scene is not near what it once was, but the performance scene that the masses of us all enjoy is as good as it gets!

Griff

​​​​​​​Feel free to post something exciting or different

pullmytrigger

Vanilla CC's

39 Unlimited

Words from a person that has most likely never owned or ridden on a Cigarette.

sprsptr

The Truth shall set you free! Cigarette is rolling, and the AMG affiliation has resulted in big dollar sales which makes Skip excited. Tank is right on, plenty going on if you look for it. Certainly is more Buzz now than last winter.

floatingphil

You may have just helped him make his point.

Jupiter Sunsation

You need to watch comments like that......not sure what production numbers look like on I/O Cigs but I suspect they are becoming really small numbers these days. In the next few years catching a ride on a new I/O Cig might be like riding your unicorn to the dock to take your Apache out for the day with your buddy the leprechaun! Even Phil has slowed down building his spec I/O boats. Remember when he would build at least one a year for the Ft Lauderdale show and he never had to worry about taking an unsold boat home after the show!

I think a 30 Vice with 400r's would be a cool build, maybe a 38 with triple 400r's.

Jupiter Sunsation

AMG boat has been a good concept for them more importantly it also rolls cash flow into the shop! That being said, if you took all the AMG sport boats and put them in the same place and carefully examined them......they are essentially all the same except for paint/interiors! The lone exception would be the electric boat of course but not sure if that was even a running boat.

In years past there were several owners that could trade in/out of new boats without losing much, American Muscle owner owned like 5-6 Cigs in 7 years or something. Of course when demand drops, so do trade in values so that new boat every year idea quickly falls apart without big check accompanying the deal.

Matt Trulio

Having covered this market for more time than I care to remember, I couldn't agree with you more. Yes, we all know that the market has contracted—but at this point that's belaboring the obvious. We all know that prices have increased dramatically, which is another dead horse that's been beaten to death. We all know about high-performance powerboat depreciation. Like swimming pools, performance boats never have been a good "investment," unless of course you see enjoyment as your ROI. And I think most of you do.

Cigarette's marketing partnership with AMG is exactly that—a marketing partnership. Regardless of what you think it does or doesn't do for Cigarette, that it exists at all—as it has for 11 years—is impressive. If you believe AMG tosses its name around lightly, you're mistaken. If you think another boat company could pull off that kind of longstanding partnership, you're also mistaken. Try to find another example of that kind of luxury boat-luxury car relationship and you'll come up short.

Center consoles didn't just save most of the performance boat builders that offer them—they saved much of the marketplace. Its hard to argue otherwise. And in that salvation (such a big word, I know) most were still able to at least offer the hardcore go-fast V-bottoms and catamarans that blow our minds. Outboard-powered sport catamarans haven't hurt the bigger-cat business for the likes of Skater (which started with outboard models) and DCB—they've enhanced it. Worth noting, both of those companies are still building their bigger stern drive models.

Offshore racing isn't what it used to, that's true, but we have at least two strong classes (Superboat/Super Cat and Superboat Vee/Super Boat Lite) that draw solid fleets.

I'm with Skater 30. This really is an exciting time in the high-performance boating world, especially if you're lucky enough to cover it. Accuse me of having an optimistic, positive perspective because I make my living covering this world and I'll plead guilty. But I can also say with absolute candor that I've never enjoyed covering it more than I do now.