Monterey boat photo

The Atlantic City Boat Show hours then are 11 am to 8 pm. They are the best days to see all the boats and boating gear. Figure on all 14 parking lots around the Convention Center being ready to accept your car. Jay Mohr, Tony Bennett, and the Dorin Spivey / Victor Vasquez Super Brawl are on different days.

Back to the power boats and sail boats at the Atlantic City Convention Center, One Convention Center Drive, Atlantic City, NJ 08401. The Show opens Wednesday at 11 AM and goes thru Sunday until 5 PM. Kids 15 and under are free to get in with an accompanying (paying) Adult ticket.

See a big display of Monterey Boats in booth G45. They make bow riders, runabouts, water ski and wakeboard boats, express, and cabin cruisers and have a bow rider / sleeper cabin boat combo that is not to be missed. They are a leading boat brand in the new thinking on how one uses a boat for a weekend of on the water fun. Monterey Boats are on seabuddy’s list of boat builders to see at the show. I really liked the two Monterey Boats that I have had.

Formula boats in booth B23 are also premium boats. They also make a full line of boats to climb aboard, study about, and ask questions on how they fit into your lifestyle.

Grady White boats are award winning fish boats and family boats that go fishing well. They are in booth D30 at the Atlantic City boat Show, starting Wednesday and going on until Sunday, February 5^th, 2012.

regal marine bow rider 24

SHOW DATES: January 19–22, 2012

Baltimore Convention Center
1 W Pratt Street (at Charles Street),One block away from the Inner Harbor
Baltimore, MD 21201

Show Hours

Thursday, January 19, 2012
11am–9pm

Friday, January 20, 2012
11am–9pm

Saturday, January 21, 2012
10am–9pm

Sunday, January 22, 2012
10am–5pm

Admission

Adult: $10.00 each
15 and younger: FREE with a paid adult admission

This is a great NMMA boat show that should have good weather this year. I always go and check out the free magazine subscription choice that comes with an admission ticket purchase. Often the magazine offer makes the Boat Show a free event. Look for the magazine booth near the entrance, and do not worry, I do not get bothered by sales pitches from the magazine, as I opt out of that box on the magazine form. If they are offering Yachting Magazine, get that one, it is the best way to enjoy boating right now, in my opinion.

Regal should have some fine bow riders and deck boats to look at from Jackson Marine Sales on display at the Baltimore Boat show for you and your family to inspect. Woody Jackson is a long time local boat dealer and continues to do an outstanding job in his sales, service, and marina businesses at the top of the Chesapeake Bay.

Also, take a look at the Chaparral boats and the power boats from Cobalt boats. Both have some “hot” deals that shook up the boaters at the New York Boat Show, earlier this month. The New York Boat Show charges more money to get in than the Baltimore Boat Show does.

fiberglass bow rider power boat by Cobalt boats

Cobalt Boats have put their 210 bow rider on sale at the boat show. This is an opportunity to put your family in a luxurious, top quality Cobalt Boat at a terrific value. Now you can have all that makes for a top shelf family bow rider power boat on your waterways.

But it is the ride and handling that a Cobalt boat is known for. Buy a boat for its performance on the water. Get to know that legendary bow rider experience for yourself. It starts with a chop splitting sharp vee at the bow and continues into a hull bottom shape that gives a soft ride in a quick to plane performance boat. Yes, she is a performance boat, just try her out and you will experience performance on the water in a top-of-the-pile family boat.

This Cobalt bow rider power boat is 22’ 5” in length with its swim platform and has a trailer able maximum 8’ 6” beam. The boat and engine weight in at about 3,850 lbs. before you fill its generous 40 gal fuel tank and cockpit with up to 1,650 lbs. of family, friends, and gear. The Coast Guard rates that as a 12 person boat.

After the ride a Cobalt boat is all about fit, finish, and a healthy dose of hand craftsmanship from a dedicated group of middle of America folks that make outstanding power boats. Tour this boat builder’s plant and see happy, energetic people, as Seabuddy has.

The Cobalt 210 fiberglass bow rider power boat is something for you to see at the boat show.

cockpit and helm photo of Cobalt bow rider fiberglass power boat

Pricing sign photo of model 210 Cobalt boat bow rider power boat

Chaparral 2012 H2O Sport Bow Rider Runabout

Look for the newest thinking in bow rider boats at your local 2012 boat show. A $21,885 price for a boat, motor, and trailer is a “barn burner” price coming from the one boat builder that has won 40 plus awards for boat product excellence, customer service index (CSI) awards for excellence in customer satisfaction for the last four years, all topped with an amazing 12 awards as simply the Boat of the Year of all boats tested by the boating magazines over the years. That boating trade industry recognition gives confidence to a boat buyer both in the company that makes a full range of bow rider, cuddy, sport, express, and cabin cruiser boats and in each of their individual boat models.

Are you new to boating or a lifelong boater? Inspect for yourself this sport series bow rider stern drive boat aimed at families that want to get on the water. You want for yourself the quality family building lifestyle experience that a trailer boat becomes as a fully fun adventure together for Mom, Dad, and the Kids. This runabout is big enough for all of the family AND two or three extra friends as well (an invite at your kid’s school for a weekend boat ride is valued as a very special treat in any home or community).

This is a big 18 foot PLUS boat with a wide, spacious cockpit, lots of storage areas, padded bow seating seat bases and seat backs, full, wrap around windshield, well placed grab handles, a cushioned sunning pad, built in swim platform, driver and co-captain bucket seats, and a walk through easy opening passage way to the bow.

Remember, the kids rule the boat by sitting up in the bow so Mom can keep an eye on them without having to turn around while Dad is in command at the helm. Only a generously deep, high sided, top quality bow rider boat suits this style of a day full of fun on the water.

Simply put, Chaparral makes another top shelf water ski boat for 2012 in its H2O Sport. Take a look, please, and tell them when you do that you read about it at www.seabuddyonboats.com.

2012 Sea Ray 300 SLX

Sea Ray makes a bow rider that is 32’ 2” in length with its extended swim platform or 29’ 6” with the standard swim step platform. It is a 9’ 8” beam boat that can still be trailered but only with a fairly simple to get permit. The single engine boat typically weighs in at 7,700 without trailer, or anything in the holding tank, water tank, or fuel tank or boat and crew supplies on board. Figure on a ready tow down to the highway weight of around 10,500 to more likely, 11,000 lbs. It takes a good size tow car or truck to tow it. But, what a beautiful runabout!

The single engine choice is a big block 380 Hp 8.2 Mag ECT gas engine with a standard grade Bravo III out drive. The 430 H. O. 8.2 engine or the 525 Hp engine version of the 8.2 is not offered and the 700 SCi (another version of the 8.2 block with a supercharger included as standard) may not fit. These higher Hp engine power choices would require an upgraded stern drive from Mercruiser. Only an inboard outboard drive system is available with the Sea Ray 300 SLX boat model.

The twin engine choices are several. They are small blocks from chevy marinised by Mercruiser in either a 5.0 block size or a 5.7 block. The 5.0 is rated at 260 Hp and the 5.7 makes 300 Hp. That is 300 Hp for each engine for a total of 600 Hp in an about a high mid-twenties length hull.

What further separates these twin engine choices is the separate option of Axius and Axius Premier joy stick control systems. With this, just a single finger joy stick controls the direction and speed of the Sea Ray 300 SLX at lower speeds.

See this Sea Ray boat at the New York Boat Show.

2012 Sea Ray Bow Rider

Sea Ray bow rider Helm Station

Cobalt Boats, a fiberglass power boat for 2012

The 105^th edition of the granddaddy of all united states boat shows runs Jan. 4 – Jan 8 at the Jacobs Javits Convention Center with the main show entrance at 11^th avenue and 34^th street in NY City. The driving directions address would best be expressed as 655 W. 34^th Street, NY, NY 10001. Parking is handy at down or around the block or take a taxi from the train station.

Cobalt boats, a favorite fiberglass power boat brand of mine, is offering one of their 2012 models at less than $40,000 as a show boat special. Another one of their boat show specials is a two foot larger model at a price that is way less than $50,000. Its closer to the mid-40s than a flat $50,000. Yes, the prices for their even larger power boat models go up even higher, but Boat Show Specials are displayed throughout their generously sized display booth. Look for the Cobalt Boats booth display over on the right side of the convention center and a little more than half way back from the front door.

Chaparral Boats is also featuring special boat show pricing on their bow riders, cuddies, and cabin cruisers.

Chris Craft, the famous boat builder that has a boat building history as old as pleasure boating is also at the show.

Grady White Boats has several new for 2012 model year center consoles, walk –  arounds, and fishing / family bow rider boats at the show.

Ski boat and wake boat noted boat builder, Correct Craft Boats, has a special price offering on two of their most popular models at the boat show, also.

Cobalt Boat 2012 fiberglass power boat

The new power boat is 32 foot long and it is both a bow rider and a sleeper. The new boat is the largest boat model of its type in Chris Craft’s model line-up.

All the folks at Chris Craft including Chris Craft President, Steve Heese, welcome boat buyers to take a long look at their newest offering at their Miami Boat Show display along with their other show boats. Heese is quoted saying that “the Launch 32 is the logical next step for the active boater that still wants a bowrider but also wants the option to overnight at a moment’s notice.”

Sunning space, an open cockpit, a sleep-in cabin, and a on-board head  as well as all the creature comforts that a first class boating experience demands awaits your family and friends aboard the new 32’ Chris Craft Launch.

Chris Craft boats are driven by active boaters. These boaters value high style, sleek-like proportions and a very practical configuration for their boating adventures. Thinking of long excursions or champagne cruises? Take a long look at a Chris Craft made boat. They very well may have the right boat for you for 2012. I have been on their boats and studied their operations inside the Chris Craft boat building plant in Florida. The value of a Chris Craft is well deserved in this writer’s opinion. The story of Chris Craft may be the story of pleasure boating, and both are a glorious one.

No discussion about this yacht should happen without a mention about its yacht designer, Tom Fexas. He used some extra ordinary design skills, grand style, and technical acumen to create a special yacht in the Midnight Lace boats. He first used his thoughts about fast power cruising using modest power in his 44’ Midnight Lace model. I have driven an example of one of those cruisers in the Pacific Ocean. A very nice boat, but somewhat under powered as that one had twin small Renault engines under its cockpit. The Renaults also were smoky engines on that 44’ boat cruise and that was a fairly big issue to me at that time.Tom Fexas made a fast yacht in the Midnight Lace 52 by watching the hull weight and its balance along with a easy to push, narrow beam hull shape.

He has said that the design was “inspired…by the slippery old hulls…of the rumrunners” and the yacht designs of Consolidated and Elco boats.

She is a 52’ yacht with less than 10 tons in displacement! Her 13’ beam makes her narrow compared to other boats of this length. Yet the boat has a double berth master with its own head (with a short bath tub). Plus, a private guest stateroom that has two single berths and there is also a fully found second head.

Cheoy Lee built this yacht in 1983 using the latest fiberglass construction with coring for a light weight composite hull. They constructed a glorious interior to match her exterior design. She has since been updated and her equipment has been generously replaced as needed by an attentive yacht owner.

Oh yah, I saved the best for last…a Midnight Lace is a bow rider.

The photos are from Yachtworld.com that has this yacht currently for sale.

on display at the show

The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show opens on October 27 and runs through October 31, 2011.The Boat Show exhibits new boats from boat and yacht companies as well as yacht designers and used or brokered yachts.

A variety of boats and ocean vessels will be on display including runabouts, sport fishing boats, high performance racers, medium sized cabin cruisers, skiffs, express cruisers, motor yachts, bow riders, catamarans, trawlers, inflatables, and extraordinary super yachts.

Covering six locations and some 3 million square feet of space, the show has a transportation network of land bus, water craft, and river boats to get around the show.

A great venue for a boat show, Ft. Lauderdale, has the water and land items that make for a great boating experience.

The best day for most is the first day, although one can’t see all of the show in a day. Take even non boaters with you, it’s a terrific venue.

Check out the back seat leg room for the O/B verison versas the I/O verison. Big Difference.

Nice boat with a nice ride, but many families will need more.