WaterworldOver the last couple of years I've noticed the gaudy white marine products in various audio catalogs (not just the waterproof head unit covers for my rally car either!). And within the past year and half since I've been the editor, I have talked with several manufacturers about these marine items and how important that market is. From the manufacturers that have such product, the response was good enough for us to start looking into doing a couple of boat features. We let the word out and set the cover date. Actually the sailboat feature was written last year and the pic's were shot this year; it turned out the wait was worth it. The Santana sailboat is the historical class act of the bunch. But what do I know about boats? I can pretty much sum it up in a short paragraph. For instance I grew up behind one on a ski rope; I know how to drive 'em and even know how to sail a small Sunfish. Also, I have the good fortune know to a surfboard shaper Greg Jensen who made a small surfboard with windsurf footholds to surf on while being pulled by a boat. We called this "skurfing" back in 1985-86 and it has now grown into the major sport of wakeboarding. Sidenote: Greg Jensen has gone own to make his own line of sunglasses called "Jensen Optics".
My passion for boats has just begun. While underway with this issue I went out on a family outing to Cottonwood Cove Marina on Lake Mohave in Nevada, on the upper side of the Davis Dam north of Laughlin, Nevada and southeast of Las Vegas. We had an assortment of boats and personal watercraft and also rented a pontoon. Aside from the major issue of where to keep a boat at my apartment, I am thinking about it, what to do to it and how much fun it would be. So as I looked at everything in the water market while riding the personal watercraft (PWC) with my wife, we discussed getting a couple of these three-seaters for my family of five. Fishman's installation that he performed a couple of years ago for the MB Quart PWC came to mind. We saw a lot of people towing their camping gear in a rubber raft behind the PWC to seek out camping locations along the lake. That's cool, but with the kids I need something more practical and SUV'ish, something that can accommodate extra audio gear while providing enough room to transport all the family necessities. After watching the pontoon boat with its big Mercury motor hustle along while pulling skiers and crew, it struck a chord in me. Big, cheap and "thrashable" just seems to be the place to start for me. I was also looking at the 65- & 70-ft. rental house boats at the marina and began to brood our grief of looking at overly expensive real estate in Orange County, California. We began going over the logistics of buying this huge floating house and moving onto the water instead. With all the computer wizardry of today, people can telecommute to the office. That idea lasted about thirty minutes after the wife shut it down, mentioning the kids in school and all that.
After we came back from our family vacation the thoughts of that house boat are still in my head. Two days after the family trip I was off to meet with Carrera Boats of Corona, California (carreraboats.com) to shoot this monster powered 26" 257 Effect X air entrapment hull sportboat. Arriving there I met Danny (the owner) and his father Dan of Perfection Power Boats. This father and son team at Perfection Power Boats build and expand on base model boats such as the Carrera 257 Effect X. We learned a wealth of information from these guys on both company history and construction of performance boats. While Danny and I were on the subject of cost for these types of boats he quickly got my attention off of robbing Ft. Knox to buy a Carrera when he said that he and his friends would like to pick up a cheap pontoon just to have to thrash around in.