Miami Midwinters
Article of the Month February 2008Strictly Sail Miami has a lot to offer …
For five days in February, the cities of Miami and Miami Beach become one huge boat show filled with boats built for every purpose under heaven…and if you are looking for a cruising boat.
For most of us, any excuse will do to fly south in February to the hot Miami sun. Add a huge multi-site boat show and that excuse becomes something very close to a necessity. The Miami boat show, which runs February 14 through 18, has just about every marine company in America exhibiting and if you are seriously in the market for gear, equipment, services or a new boat, you will find it—and it will most likely come with a boat show discount.
Show central is at the Miami Beach Convention Center. It is a huge venue that can take serious browsers a couple of days to fully explore. This is a great place to catch up on the latest in marine electronics. Every year the marine electronics companies introduce new gear and software at Miami. This year you can expect to see the latest G-series monitors from Raymarine, the latest upgrades to Nobeltec’s charting software, an amazing new touch screen monitor from Simrad, the new Sirius Radio offshore weather service and much more.
The main halls also are where you will find the life raft companies, dinghy and outboard manufacturers and most of the safety equipment vendors. And if you are into fishing, you’ll be stuck on the mezzanines telling fish stories and comparing lures for days.
For sailors, the sail-only Strictly Sail Miami at Miamarina at Bayside is where you will find the sailboats—monohulls and multihulls—and a hundred or so sail-only booth exhibitors. Strictly Sail is not a huge show—not another Annapolis—because so many of the booth vendors are in the convention center. But there are plenty of boats to look at.
One of the attractions of the Strictly Sail shows, and Miami is no exception, is the seminar schedule. All day Thursday through Monday you can sit and listen for free to some of the sailing world’s leading experts. Topics range from choosing a proper boat to seamanship, navigation, cooking afloat and much more. There are many sailors who attend the shows just for the seminars.
The big news event of this year’s show is scheduled to be the arrival of circumnavigator Mike Harker who has spent the last year sailing his Hunter 49 around the world, via the Panama Canal, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Cape Town and the Caribbean. His story is unique and should be fun for all of us to hear. He will be speaking during the show and has many wonderful photographs of the trip.
Among the new monohulls that will be at the show will be the new Tartan 43, Beneteau 43, the Jeanneau 42DS, the new Catalina 375, the Amel 54, the Morris 42 and the Hanse 540. Also, expect to see several of the new stylish daysailers from Morris, Friendship and Alerion. If you are looking for something small and unique, Kevin Jeffrey will have his open cockpit Norseboat on the hard for all to see.
The Miami show has become a big multihull show with exhibitors from all of the major cat builders. South Africa is one of the leading cat building countries so the builders have banded together to develop a South Africa Marine trades exhibition where you will see half a dozen cruising cats that will not be exhibited anywhere else in North America.
The South African boat building story has become an interesting one since so many cruising cats are built there, including the St. Francis 50, the Gunboat 48 and 62, the Leopard Cats which are also built for The Moorings charter fleets, Dean Cats and many more.
While the depressed Rand made building boats very attractive in South Africa for a long while, even now that the Rand has increased in value compared to the U.S. dollar, South Africa still has a competitive advantage. That the country is so closely associated with cruising catamarans has a lot to do with the charter companies building so many cats through Robertson & Caine (Leopard & The Moorings) and through other high volume builders. Over the years, the country has developed a broad base of skilled boat builders and designers who know how to provide value and quality in new boats. The Moorings and Leopard usually show three or four boats at Miami, which they sell into their charter fleets or to private owners.
When Peter Johnstone launched his first Gunboat project, South Africa was the natural place for him to build and over time he and Gunboat have pushed the technology envelope—carbon fiber, epoxy infusions, exotic coring materials—to the benefit of all South African builders. The Gunboats have set a new standard in performance to the benefit of all builders. And with electric-lime-green or atomic-yellow hulls, they are not shy about saying so.
If the South Africans have developed a solid niche in the cruising catamaran fleet, the French continue to be world leaders in all major boat building categories, including multihulls. Group Beneteau is the world’s largest builder of recreational sailboats and last year did more than $1.5 billion in sales. The company includes Beneteau, Jeanneau, Wauquiez and Lagoon brands on the sailing side and a number of well-known brands on the power side.
At Miami expect to see the Beneteau Group well represented. The Catamaran Company is the country’s largest Lagoon dealer and they and Lagoon USA usually bring half a dozen or more boats to the show. So, you will be able to see the full Lagoon range from 38 to 50 feet. Lagoon pioneered hybrid engines for their boats using diesel-electric technology. The Lagoon 420 can be equipped with these energy efficient systems so you may want to poke around in the bilges to see what the future of marine propulsion looks like.
Catana is another French company that has a well earned reputation for building blue water cats. Their boats have sailed all over the world and several have made circumnavigations. The Catana 50 is the current flagship of the fleet and offers amazing accommodations in a design that also sails extremely well. The Catana designs are distinctive, with flared hulls and daggerboards, so they will appeal to those who seek excellent sailing performance and plan to set off for extended world cruising.
Catanas are imported to the U.S. by veteran cat sailor and dealer Phillip Berman and his associates at The Multihull Company. Berman also is the U.S. representative for Dean Catamarans from South Africa and Dolphin Catamarans from Brazil.
The Dolphin 46 is one of the interesting stories in the world of boat building since it is the only cruising boat, let alone a catamaran, built for the world market in South America. The partners who build the Dolphins are French and Brazilian and their combined talents have led to the creation of a very successful company. The Dolphin 460 is a thoroughly modern and innovative cruising cat with sleek hulls, daggerboards and a powerful sailing rig.
Another Southern Hemisphere builder who is making waves in North America and will be at the Miami show is the Australian Seawind. They have two cruising cats available in the U.S., the 1000 and the 1160, both of which have proven to be good offshore boats and efficient and comfortable cruising homes. Seawind is a company that is growing quickly and has come to dominate the multihull market Down Under. If you have a look at the boats in Miami you will see why. 
Our British cousins build some of the world’s leading cruising boats led by Oyster Yachts, Discovery Yachts, Northshore Marine and many others. Broadblue Catamarans should be on that list as well and, with luck, the new Broadblue 415 will be at the Miami show…although at press time Broadblue’s importer, Richard Hodges, was uncertain the boat would arrive on time. Look for the 385 and the 435 at the show. Broadblue is a company that evolved from Prout Catamarans, which 20 years ago was a world leader in cruising cat construction. The new company, founded in 2001, has set a very high standard for fit and finish and manages, even with the British pound at two to one against the dollar, to deliver handsome blue water boats at a very good value.
Our home grown cruising cats are a diverse fleet and all will be at the Miami show.
Manta Cats, which are built in Florida, have been delivering high quality offshore cruising cats since 1993. The current Manta 42 Mk IV is the fourth generation of their 42 foot design and incorporates a wide range of features that make it one of the best cruising cats available for living aboard and offshore sailing. Dan Evans, who owns Manta, continues to tweak the design and the construction process in the never ending pursuit of cruising perfection.
Maine Cats, based in Maine, was also founded in 1993 when Dick Vermeulen launched his first Maine Cat 22. Today, he builds the Maine Cat 30 and 41, both of which have the open air cockpit design and excellent sailing performance that makes the boats so distinctive. Instead of building a fixed house or saloon across the bridge deck, Vermeulen builds a fixed top and leaves the sides open. In bad weather, you simply add fabric and Eisinglass enclosures. The boats are simple, fast and a lot of fun to sail and cruise. There are no other cruising cats on the market like the Maine Cats.
Englishman Tony Smith (Performance Cruising) has been building performance multihulls since the 1960s and from his base in Annapolis, Md., has launched more than 970 of his sensible Gemini 34 cruising cats. The latest version, the Gemini 105 MC, incorporates so many design improvements and construction details that it is a far cry from hull number one. Yet through the long evolution of the Gemini, the boat has remained a capable blue water cruiser with good performance that is also an excellent value for its owners.
In 2003, Smith launched the new Telstar 28 cruising trimaran, which has folding amas so the boat can be moored in a monohull slip or transported over the roads on a normal boat trailer. A speedster with cruising amenities, the Telstar 28 is a fun machine for an adventurous family.
PDQ Yachts has been building cruising cats in Whitby, Ontario, for 20 years and is now building the Antares 44i. The Antares is a voluminous world cruiser that has proven over the years to be an excellent sea boat. PDQ has a well earned reputation for high quality engineering and for delivering a boat to owners that is very complete and well thought out. At boat shows you will often see the Antares crowded with visitors who marvel at the boat’s size, accommodations and amenities.
There are plenty of reasons to visit Miami in February. But, none is better than spending a few days walking the docks and browsing the booths at the Miami boat show.
