Apr 12

Apr 12 2020 Miami Boat Show: Center Consoles, Cruisers, Family Boats

This year I put together three different videos of the Miami Boat Show and I broke it up into performance boats, accessories and the last one is a mix of center consoles, family boats and other stuff. I’m always curious to see what's happening in the regular boat world, just for kicks. Most of the family boats and other boats you see make great content for the bad boat design articles. Let’s look at a few themes in new boat design and see what different brands are doing. The video is at the end.

For starters, in the boat world not much really changes. Sure, there are a few trends that come and go, and a few brands that fizzle out, but the tried and true always seem to do well. Construction materials change a little bit, but for the most part, the good builders have been doing it well for a long time and have adapted to the latest materials. When it comes to design, gimmicky features never last and some of the best boats are purpose built, or just plain simple and I mean that in a good way. Trying to build a boat that con do everything, fish, ski, dance, wakeboard and hold 15 of your closest friends rarely works for obvious reasons. The only place where we see major change is technology; from accessories, components and engines, that type of technology is changing for sure.

The guy who designed this wears sandals with a speedo and smokes 2 packs a day. No thanks.

Outboards

When I roamed the show this year, like last year and previous years, outboards dominated. You can find almost any type of boat in outboard versions now. I even saw a cruiser that had outboards hidden beneath a hatch, a design that was attempted decades ago, to hide the outboards. For smaller cruisers, outboards make so much sense, it frees up space in the boat, and carries all the other inherent advantages outboards hold.

What I see go wrong is when the outboard version seems like an afterthought. A few big manufacturers utilized brackets, which in themselves aren’t too bad, but the boat is usually a very modular looking modern design, with an integrated swim platform, and then a bracket is placed below the platform and just doesn't’ look OE. Formula boats does this, and it doesn’t look well executed but I understand it is way cheaper than creating a new mold and redesigning the transom.

Where you would see an extended swim platform normally, the outboard version has Armstrong brackets to mount the outboards. This approach doesn’t look as nice on a luxury sport boat.

This Sea Ray Sundancer does a much nicer job at the transom, with a completely molded swim platform and transom. The boat itself is as ugly as sin though.

Center Consoles

For center console boats, there are so many builders and options it is truly a buyers paradise. There is almost any size and budget, hull type and design available you can think of. The market is just so strong for so many different center console boats it is truly mind boggling. I do like the more hardcore ones, with high freeboard and large bow flare but there is a lot of junk on the market too.

The center console design is good for certain types of fishing but in general is a bad design, creating a giant bathtub essentially. Most center consoles are not great to ride in, as the console seating and helm are just not comfortable and have plain bad ergonomics. Passengers end up standing most of the time. For this reason it is kind of surprising to me how mainstream center consoles have gotten.

Catamaran CC’s are definitely popular. They are stable, slice through the water and have a roomy cockpit. The selection of CC boats is insane.

Manufacturers often say the attractions is you can load many people on them, but to me that is not the goal of good boat design. Again, for certain fishing boats, I get it, but the luxury center console market and some performance CCs are a bastardized design to me. Some of the best center consoles are made right in Florida and are usually very focused purpose built designs, and made to a high standard.

A Concept 30 CC, it’s an old design but still one of the nicest looking performance CCs on the market.

Bad Design

The one thing I always go on about and will never stop is bowriders. I’ll say it again, bowriders are the worst design in sport and family boats period. There is nothing good about a bowrider. There is no design that causes more accidents, injuries and death on the water. That’s not hyperbole. Go over insurance claims and lawsuits for wrongful death in recreational boating and the majority are caused by bowrider boats that submerged, passengers ejected and run over or drowned etc. You don’t have to be a genius to see how it makes zero sense to cut the bow out of a small boat and have people sit up there, blocking the pilots view, adding weight in front of the center of gravity and allowing a way for water to enter the boat so easily. Stuffing any boat is dangerous, stuffing a bowrider is ten times as dangerous.

MasterCraft has a removable solid bow cover, which is better than nothing, at least you have the option of a closed bow version.

Novice boaters let kids sit up front underway and in some cases let them sit on the front. I have seen it with my own eyes, kids sitting on the deck of the boat holding the railing, this practice is literally insane but it is common enough. This would be more dangerous then letting the kids ride in the bed of a pickup truck on the freeway. The ignorance in the marine industry is staggering, many manufacturers will build them just because they think that’s what customers want, and you can fit the whole family in a little bathtub I guess. These same manufacturers defend themselves in major lawsuits with these same customers that cost a fortune. Here’s an idea, stop cutting a hole in the bow of your shitty boat.

The transom isn’t terrible with the molded in platform. Everything else is back to the drawing board for Regal. Lounge seats suck, it looks like the boat only has 2 forward facing seats. Sitting sideways is awful, especially in small boats, and that… — The transom isn’t terrible with the molded in platform. Everything else is back to the drawing board for Regal. Lounge seats suck, it looks like the boat only has 2 forward facing seats. Sitting sideways is awful, especially in small boats, and that tower is brutal.

Some major manufacturers like Formula, Sea Ray, Bayliner, Regal and countless others only make bowriders. Formula stopped making all closed bow models up to 31’ all together, that’s how ass backward the industry is.. Some of the worst offenders are tow boats, wake and ski, that are often then overloaded with ballasts, people and monster energy drinks, to basically have them swamp when rolling over there own wake. Many lawsuits are actually involving tow boats swamping at low speed, when crossing a wake and burying the front, causing people to fall out and get run over. Interesting to note that no serious performance boat builders make a bowriders. The only ones that do are in California, and they make Cats or sport deck boats, which I will cover in a different article.

Pursuit has good looking boats, good build quality but these giant dual console boats are not much better than small bowriders, maybe slightly safer.

Family Boats

I have mentioned the mini jet boat market before and some of them aren’t so mini anymore with Yamaha and Scarab jet boats making larger and larger models. These boats usually combine the worst design characteristics of all of the above, except are powered by jets, which are actually safer because they don’t have a prop. I grew up around jet boats, performance ones not bathtubs, and they are good for their simplicity, safety and ease of use. I don’t have anything against jet propulsion other than that they are inefficient.

I would bet money a 5 year old child could design a nicer looking boat. This is an assault on the senses.

All in all, most of the marine industry seems to move at a snails pace. Performance boats are what drive design and innovation. Materials, technology and design are paramount in performance boats and mainstream manufacturers would be wise to put safety and design ahead of trying to pack as many bodies into a fiberglass vessel as possible.