Cigarette Racing’s Skip Braver was having dinner with a group of automotive journalists at a posh South Beach restaurant when one of the writers asked if automotive designers ever borrow ideas from the marine industry.
“Frankly, that doesn’t happen,” said Braver, who hours earlier had helped unveil the new Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and a 46-foot boat inspired by the car. “That doesn’t mean our industry can’t offer ideas. They just don’t look to us.”
Over the years, boatbuilders have borrowed liberally from the automotive industry. Whether it’s dash styles or molded bucket seats, designers naturally turn to the car or truck they drive to work every day for inspiration.
In addition, builders such as Marine Technology Inc. have built “theme” boats based on exotic sports cars. MTI’s two memorable creations were based on a Mercedes-Benz and a Ferrari. The Ferrari boat came complete with taillights and headlights, clear acrylic windows on the engine hatches and the classic red paint job.
The Mercedes-Benz-themed boat featured a throttle and shifter and a dash taken from an actual Mercedes-Benz. (Although the dash was replaced because it flexed too much.)
Braver bristles at the suggestion the 46 Rider Cigarette Racing debuted at the Miami International Boat Show last year was a theme boat. “Quite honestly people want to make theme boats, but this was a cooperation between two companies,” Braver said.

We understand. You’re tired of looking at reviews and tests of boats you can never afford. Sure they look cool, have killer paint jobs, run amazing speeds, but you can’t even afford the paint jobs. You want to read about boats that you might actually be able to buy, if not now then at least some day.
So we went to builders of performance boats big and small and posed a simple question. What is your most popular and affordable boat? In more than one case, the answer wasn’t necessarily the least expensive boat in a company’s line. Instead some boats were the most cost efficient in a given size range or with a given engine package.
The majority of the boats are priced below $100,000, with a couple above that mark and others offering serious bang for the buck with a retail sticker of less than $50,000. There are values out there, even in new boats, and we hope you find one you like in these pages.

Assuming that fast boats have been an integral part of your life since you were a preteen, you might wonder what kind of boat you’d want to own when you’re an adult. If you’re like Jerry Gilbreath of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, that answer came in the form of an incredible wooden masterpiece of design, craftsmanship, and perfection.
Even though Gilbreath spent much of his life pursuing checkered flags on the water, it isn’t that much of a surprise that he and his wife Donna decided on a classic-looking wooden boat, conjuring up their 34-foot boat, Jefe, with an assist from the talents and ingenuity of the Resort Boat Shop, a division of Hagadone Marine Group, also based in Couer d’Alene.
If there’s one thing that has been a hallmark of Gilbreath’s career on the water, it’s been that he likes to stand out from the crowd. After all, Gilbreath’s family founded one of boating industry’s most innovative and prolific producers of high-performance marine accessories from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s: Gil Marine. Not only did the company have a stellar resume that included virtually every aspect of powerboat competition from marathon endurance to ski racing to offshore, Gil Marine introduced the first successful outboard transom bracket to the marine market in the mid-1970s. When Mercury Racing debuted its overwhelmingly successful HP500 stern drive package, every engine had a set of Gil water-cooled exhaust manifolds and stainless-steel tailpipes on it.
Meanwhile, Gilbreath was busy in his own right developing, engineering, consulting, and rigging many of the most successful offshore raceboats the sport has ever seen. His resume includes teams such as Popeye’s, Alcone Motorsports, and Fountain Powerboats. Just to seal the deal, Gilbreath more often than not occupied the throttleman’s seat, helping high-profile race teams on both the east and west coasts win numerous national and world offshore titles in the sport.

We don’t mean to nag, but these are just some of the things you need to do to make a propeller testing session worthwhile.
“People don’t understand all the different variables and how stringent you need to be when testing,” said Dirk Bjornstad, brand manager at Mercury Propellers.
There’s more to selecting the right prop for your boat than simply going up or down in pitch. Adding or decreasing blades makes a difference. So does the amount of cup, rake angle, and blade area. If your boat has a stepped-bottom design, it’s going to have different prop requirements than a conventional one. Taking a closer look at all these factors will help you make a more informed decision.
“My first questions to a customer are, ‘What are your main goals? What are you looking to achieve?’” said Brett Anderson, president of BBlades Professional
Propellers. “The common response is, ‘I want to get on plane fast, I need great mid-range, and I want to go faster than my buddy.’”
But even the most experienced prop wizard can’t help you without having accurate knowledge about your boat, such as the engine manufacturer’s recommended maximum rpm (e.g., on a MerCruiser 8.2 MAG HO, the range is 4,600 to 5,000 rpm).
With fuel prices climbing in spring, Bjornstad said he was fielding calls from people looking to save gas money. The biggest misconception was that you could save money by putting on a prop with more pitch. Actually, it has the opposite effect. “This puts more load on the motor and you end up burning more fuel,” Bjornstad explained.
If you want to save money, shoot for the bottom end of your motor’s recommended rpm range. With the engine turning less rpm, it won’t burn as much gas when you make that top-speed blast.

If you follow the poker-run scene through photos in magazines and on message boards, you might think every boater owns an MTI, a Skater or an Outerlimits. But the truth is those high-dollar boats are just a fraction of the go-fast boats built each year, yet they garner most of the attention at poker runs.
If you own an older Baja, Formula, Fountain or Scarab, you might look at those photographs and think your boat doesn’t compare. Your boat may not have a flashy paint job that costs as much as a small SUV, but you still take great pride in it. It also might be one of the reasons you’ve shied away from poker runs in the past.
With that idea in mind, we put together a list of great poker runs for the sport boater. These events attract plenty of regular boaters, are affordably priced, and take place at some of the most scenic spots in the country. You’ll find some of the big-dollar offshore V-bottoms at these runs, but the majority of participants are driving something ranging from 25 to 30 feet long.

Back when the economy was riding high on the bubble, it seemed as though every boatbuilder was developing something new. Sales were brisk and everyone could afford to put their best men on tooling up new products.
Obviously, we know how that story turned out, but the high-performance marine industry is driven as much by the economy as it is by passion—and passion is what gets you through the tough spots. Passion is the primary source of an industry’s strength when empirical data suggest otherwise. In the high-performance marine industry, passion is alive and well. We’ll grant you that it survives in smaller measures, but the flame burns as hot as ever.
For 2011, boatbuilders are readying a new crop of boats. They’re also forging ahead with new innovations to existing models and changing the ways in which they do business. They’re changing how they build boats and altering their manufacturing processes. They’re leaner and more efficient.
As ever, the biggest beneficiary of all the industry’s efforts is
the customer. The following pages provide a glimpse of what’s in store for 2011. There aren’t as many new models as we’ve become accustomed to in the recent past, but we think you’ll agree that what is coming out is pretty exciting.