There was nothing quiet about this week, which leads up to the 2025 Miami International Boat Show. The annual South Beach event opens Wednesday, February 14, and if it delivers a fraction of the news that came out of the past seven days it will be a big-time success. Plus, the exhibit leads right into the Florida Powerboat Club/Speed On The Water Miami Boat Show Bash, the Miami Boat Show Poker, the Deep Impact Winter Run and Keys Island Runners Islamorada Fun Run.

Buckle up.

Friday, February 7

Joey Imprescia Celebration Of Life Set For February 18

A life lived honorably is worth celebrating.

Miami Boat Show Poker Run Approaching Sellout

The event is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

Thursday, February 6

Nor-Tech At 35—The Lady In Red, Part I

The founders of Nor-Tech, Trond Schou and Nils Johnsen have always thought big.

Statement 44GTrs Center Console And 396 Cat Headed For Miami Showcase

Ready for their public debut.

Wednesday, February 5

Lake Cumberland Thunder Run Opens Registration

With this year’s later dates designed to help minimize debris in the water, the Lake Cumberland Thunder Run organizers are expecting a stronger-than-usual turnout.

Joey Imprescia Remembered—A Champion On and Off the Racecourse

All business on the racecourse and a portrait in humility off it, Joey Imprescia was a throttleman’s throttleman. Photos courtesy of the Imprescia family.

Waves And Wheels Tests New Doug Wright 42 Carbon With New Owners

Waves and Wheels recently finished its second Doug Wright 42 Carbon catamaran.

Powerboat P1 Inks Sponsorship Deal With Progressive Insurance

When the first green flag flies for the Triple Crown, safety teams will be flying Progressive Insurance colors.

Cigarette Rendezvous Opens Registration

Cigarette center consoles and sportboats from around the country will be on hand for the 2025 event.

Tuesday, February 4

Race World Offshore Opens VIP Experience Ticket Sales For Key West 2025

Want something warm to look forward to? Consider VIP tickets to the Key West World Championships.

Monday, February 3

Keys Island Runners Hosting Winter Fun

The 2025 Keys Island Runners season continues this month with a two-day event.

Dueling Paint Booths And Looming Deadlines At Stephen Miles Design

If Miles finishes his personal boat by February 15, the last element of its total makeover will be complete.

Sunday, February 2

Sponsors Flocking To Support Cincinnati-Based Rock The River Fun Run

Carrying last year’s momentum right into 22025

Midwest Boating Center Making Strong Progress On New Facility

Shooting to be open by early April with an open-house event in early June.

Saturday, February 1

New ‘Qatar’ Mystic Owner Sets Sights On Breaking Lake Of The Ozarks Shootout Record

Last seen in action at the 2014 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout, this 50-foot Mystic catamaran is slated to return to competition this year.

APBA Offshore Racing Returning To Englewood Beach

Once the site of OPA World Champions, Englewood Beach is now an APBA event. 

Friday, January 31

Offshore Racing Great Joe Imprescia Gone at 67

The offshore powerboat racing community has lost of its most enduring and endearing legends.

Image Of The Week: Perfect Pairing

A couple of stunners from Statement Marine are almost ready for their new home.

Dirty Money Shop Planning To Test XINSURANCE South Pro Class 1 Raceboat Next Wee

Bobby Adams and the Dirty Money crew have been working on the 45-footer since it arrived at their shop.

For the purposes of efficiently finding useful information on pretty much any subject, social media is a train wreck. Yet not everything—just most things—it has spawned is crap. OK, well at least one thing that come out of social media, Instagram to put a fine put on it, is excellent.

Key Island Runners.

Born and raised in Key West, Fla., Daniel Garcia, III, created an Instagram group of that name a few years back. Now that group has more than 30,000 members and an annual schedule of casual, “run-what-you-brung” events.

The group grew out of a simple, basic premise: No matter what you boat own, the most important thing is being on the water.

Garcia loves performance-boating almost as much as he loves his hometown—and that’s saying a lot. He doesn’t care what kind of boat anyone owns. He never has. He just enjoys being boating with his friends. Long ago, he noticed that boat-owners throughout the Keys were too intimidating to run their less-than-marquee rides in “major” runs and such. He knew there was a demand for something more less structured and more inclusive.

And that’s where Keys Island Runners comes in. Organized and announced mostly through social media, it produces casual lunch runs and raft-ups. The next one heads to the Islamorada Sandbar and is set for February 21-22.

Whether you own a five-outboard center console or a single-outboard catamaran, all you have to do to be welcome is show up.

Keeping up with the Keys Island Runners schedule will require you, however, to access its Instagram or Facebook pages.

Set for June 27-29 this year, the Lake Cumberland Thunder Run in Kentucky opened registration yesterday. For the past few years, the event has been happened a couple of weekends earlier, and the typical spring rains in the area have flushed most everything on the forest floor—logs, branches, dead opossums and other unpleasant things that will do your propellers, drives and hull no favors—into the water.

As a result, the 17-year-old event has seen participation steadily decline.

So why didn’t Thunder Run organizers Justin Lucas and Dan Weiss “just change the dates” per the unsolicited advice of so many, to put it kindly, numbskulls for the past few years?

Here’s a fun idea: Ask Lucas and Weiss that question. Then step back and watch their heads explode.

Let’s start with what should be obvious. Most lakes are public spaces, meaning—pesky as it is—they have to be shared. Producing events on those spaces require permits, for without them there is no insurance and without insurance there are no events. Permits, hence the plural usage, means more than one, which in turns means working with more than one permit-granting agency.

Forget that nothing about the event-permitting process is fun. Remember than it doesn’t happen overnight.

And of course, the new dates you want actually have to be available. If another event is already permitted for the same dates, you’re immediately out of luck.

That Lucas and Weiss were able to pull off a date change on a waterway as busy during the season as Lake Cumberland is a small miracle that took years. So when you see them this year at the Thunder Run, the best thing you can do is tip your hat and thank them.

The last thing you want to do? Ask what took so long.—Matt Trulio

The founder of River Daves Place, the go-to website for high-performance boating fans who call Lake Havasu home-water, Dave Johnson is a well-known figure in the Lake Havasu City, Ariz., community. Equally well-known in Missouri performance-boating circles, Alvin Heathman, his partner in producing Super Cat Fest West, lives at the Lake of the Ozarks and founded the original Super Cat Fest event at the waterway.

Both are strong-willed, passionate dudes who like to run their own shows and raise money for children’s charities while they’re at it. And yet for the past two years, they have successfully teamed up to produce Super Cat Fest West on Lake Havasu. The event, which is hosted out of Havasu Riviera Marina and set for April 10-13, has grown every year since Johnson and Heathman joined forces.

What’s more, it has grown steadily in the shadow of the famed Desert Storm Poker Run, scheduled for April 23-26. Desert Storm celebrates its 26th anniversary this year. And though its original and current owners didn’t invent the idea of a street party exhibit before their main event, the Desert Storm version set the standard by which all other such celebrations and product showcases are measured.

The mile-long display of exotic boats and cars in downtown Lake Havasu City is impressive, the crowd that fills the street once the sun starts setting even more. For performance-boat fans, it surpasses any formal boat show.

With its charitable fundraising efforts, Super Cat Fest West has set quite a bar of its own. In 2024, the event raised $300,000 for local children’s charities. This year, thanks to a generous benefactor who will match up to $200,000 raised by the organizers, the event has the potential to bring in $400,000—and maybe more.

A full week separates the two events. So unless you can carve out three weeks away from your business—meaning you’re probably not needed—you’ll have to choose between them this year.

Either way, you’re in for an experience. Registration for both events is open.—Matt Trulio

If you’re still experiencing withdrawals from powerboat winterizing—symptoms include deep depression and a burning desire to buy boat parts you don’t need—you’re not alone. Go-fast powerboat fans around the country—with one notable, regional group-exception—feel your pain.

The exception, of course, is those in Florida.

Go-fast boating is just starting to get good here. OK, that’s not accurate. It’s good for the past couple of months, though the unseasonably cool temperatures of December and January, sent native Floridians scurrying for the nearest REI or Helly-Hansen location.

Starting with the February 12-16 Miami International Boat Show, this month is stacked with worthwhile happenings. Florida Powerboat Club members in good standing have two events to keep in mind—the February 14, Florida Powerboat Club/Speed On The Water Miami Boat Show Bash at the Sagamore Hotel and the following weekend’s Miami Boat Show Poker Run to Hawks Cay Resort on Duck Key.

For go-fast-boat types across the state who don’t feel like traveling east for any of that, Fort Myers Offshore’s Naples Fun Run is set for February 15.

But this puts folks who want to hit the Miami Boat Show Bash and be in front of the Sanibel Island Bridge by 11 a.m. for the Saturday Fort Myers Offshore lunch run in a bind. Because almost 170 miles of road separate the two locations.

The solution? Mine, at least?

Show up on time, Irish-fade from the celebration early and head across the state at sunrise. Yeah, I’m one of the part hosts, but people who know me expect that anyway. It’s a little work to do both, but the Miami bash and the Fort Myers Offshore lunch run will be worth your time.

Want to make it a February event-trifecta? Toss in the Florida Powerboat Club Miami Boat Show Poker Run the following weekend.

Come on. Who’s with me? —Matt Trulio

All eyes will turn toward South Florida next month and thanks to the “Countdown To The 2025 Miami International Boat Show” article series, you already know what’s coming to the annual exhibit. But there are sure to be a few big stories from the show itself, just as there were this in this week’s new. Canada’s Big East Marine became an MTI dealer, a new team joined the Super Cat class, Peter and Michael Hledin are working on their first Skater catamaran, Big Thunder Marine will produce its Lake of the Ozarks Boat Show and much more.

Friday, January 31

Dirty Money Shop Planning To Test XINSURANCE South Pro Class 1 Raceboat Next Week

Bobby Adams and the Dirty Money crew have been working on the 45-footer since it arrived at their shop.

Image Of The Week: Perfect Pairing

A couple of stunners from Statement Marine are almost ready for their new home.

Thursday, January 30

Big Thunder Marine Hosting Second-Year Lake Of The Ozarks Boat Show

Between its Speed and Luxury Showroom and Family Boating Center locations, the multi-brand dealership will have than 100 boats on display during the two-day event.

Latest DCB M33R Open-Bow A Family-Inspired Move
Going with an open-bow interior format made ideal sense for the Miller family.

Nor-Tech At 35—Charity Starts At Home

Serving its local community is among Nor-Tech’s top priorities outside of boat-building.

Last Day To Buy 10th Anniversary Year In Review Before Price Increase

At 212 photo-filled pages, the Year In Review is simply superb.

Wednesday, January 29

Sunshine Dreams Foundation To Produce South Florida Version Of Shore Dreams For Kids

Remember Shore Dreams for Kids In New Jersey? A South Florida version is coming.

New Super Cat-Class Team To Race Former Teague-Owned AMSOIL Skater
A new entry for the 2025 Super Cat-class season, the Arizona-based EWB Racing team plans to race its Skater 368 catamaran at a few events this year.

Mystic Kicking Off Full Event Schedule With Grove Harbour Demos

A Mystic C4000 catamaran will be part of the Grove Harbor demo fleet February 12-14. Demos will be available by appointment only.

Tuesday, January 28

Concept Boats Planning Three-Boat Display For Miami International Boat Show

A new Concept Boats 4400 Open center console powered by four Mercury Racing 500R engines will anchor the company’s booth at the upcoming Miami International Boat Show.

Winter Fun Run Thunders Into Chilly Key Largo

Even when the weather is a little cold as it was for the Florida Powerboat Club Winter Fun Run last weekend, the Florida Keys are always cool.

American Marine Performance Hosting Open-House During Miami Show Weekend

AMP will have its latest models on display during the open-house event.

Monday, January 27

Hledins Building New 26-Foot Single-Engine Skater Pleasure Cat

The first father-and-son collaboration in Skater Powerboats history is underway.

Team M CON’s Tyler Miller Named Sportsman Of The Year

For Miller and company, sportsmanship is the foundation of the M CON/Monster Energy offshore racing teams.

Binks Fun Run For Addiction Awareness Changes Dates To Schedule Overlap

The third annual Binks Addiction Awareness Fun Run will happen a week earlier this year.

Sunday, January 26

Statement 396 Catamaran No. 1 Set For Dial-In Next Week

As it happens, the first Statement 396 catamaran is color-matched to the first Statement 44 GTrs center console.

Saturday, January 25

DCB Pumped For Sterndrive 45-Foot Cat—And More—As Tooling Nears Completion

With the deck-plug for the DCB M45 Widebody catamaran complete, a deck mold will soon follow.

Friday, January 24

Hellkats Powerboats To Debut 40-Foot Catamaran-Based Center Console In Miami

Though the first Hellkat 40 center console is set up for fishing, the boat will be offered in poker-run and pilothouse versions.

Big Thunder Marine Launching ‘Cigarette Saturdays,’ ‘Fountain Fridays’ And More In 2025

Big Thunder is will launch its biggest event-season to date this year.

Big East Marine Joining The MTI Dealer Family

The owner of an MTI 390X catamaran, Big East Marine principal Cole Leibel also is MTI’s latest dealer.’

—Compiled by Matt Trulio/Speedonthewater.com

When I needed a new key fob for my old BMW—a 2012 model-year 328i with 130,000 miles on it—I was forced to do what I’ve avoided since I bought it. After exhausting all local, “Yeah, this will be no problem” locksmiths that couldn’t do the job, I gave up and grudgingly headed to a BMW dealer near my former home in Northern California.

The place was immaculate, which it should have been given the $800 it cost for the new fob combined with the discovery of a head gasket in need of replacement that brought my little visit to $2,300. But the service and experience were purely white-glove. They were gracious and polite. They answered direct questions directly.

They were so cool that I didn’t even spit out the freshly made cappuccino they provided after I saw the bill.

Short version, it was the kind of customer experience that made me want to come back and buy another BMW, which of course is by design. The easiest sales are to existing customers, so the experience, from sales to service, matters.

Contrast that with the average large boat-show experience for would-be performance-boat buyers, where entry-level starts at $500,000—more than 10 times what my sedan cost when I bought it 13 years ago. Not being a total moron, just a sometimes moron, I realize this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison. I understand scale. It isn’t necessarily “fair” to compare the two.

Regardless, the big-boat-show customer-experience is inferior. It might have just been fine 30 years ago. No longer. Consumers, especially of the big-ticket kind, expect an intimate and comfortable experience. They expect to be pampered. They are more demanding than ever.

But they’re not wrong to be.

So it doesn’t surprise me that Big Thunder Marine just announced it is hosting its own Lake of the Ozarks Boat Show next month for the second consecutive year, just as Performance Boat Center—also located at the Central Missouri waterway—did with two shows of its own last year and plans to continue that program. Both dealerships have the requisite facilities to pull it off.

More important, they can control the entire customer experience, while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars displaying boats at marquee shows such as Miami and Fort Lauderdale shows. They can make it as fancy, hands-on, hassle-free and personable—key word—as they want.

So why wouldn’t they?—Matt Trulio

How far will $35 take you in the high-performance boating world? It likely will cover the cost of your meal at a waterfront restaurant. It might cover the tip for your group.

But if you order today, $35 will cover the cost—including shipping—of the 2024 Speed On The Water Year In Review collectible print edition. And at that price, the photo-rich, 212-page 10th anniversary issue is a steal, far and away the best value you’ll find for any go-fast boating product, much less on that so beautifully celebrates your passion.

The Speed On The Water Year In Review edition isn’t just print-magazine artistry at its highest level. It is a print magazine that makes sense in the real world and is worth its cover price. No one looks for timely information in a print publication, especially when you have websites such as speedonthewater.com producing daily news, 365 days a year. Magazines are simply collectibles that help preserve your memories.

But they have to be worth collecting. And almost none of them are.

For just $35, Speed On The Water Year in Review presents the most notable exception, maybe even the only notable exception.

Today is the last opportunity for you to order the magazine at $35 an issue because it will ship directly from the printer. After that, it goes to $40 an issue, which is still a bargain.

Strike that. It’s the bargain of the decade. Order yours now.

To bluntly belabor the obvious, sales of closed-deck V-bottom sportboats with stern-drive power have been plummeting since the mid-2000s—and the recession of 2008 came close to pounding the final nail in their coffin. Do they still get built by the likes of Cigarette Racing Team and Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats? Of course, and they’re stunners, works of art if you will.

But compared to performance-oriented center consoles and catamaran of the outboard kind, V-bottom sportboats are few and far between.

So why did Concept Boats, which has been building center consoles in Miami for 35 years, rekindle its 32 Sport Deck model? Simple, the company doesn’t expect to build a lot of them. So far, according to Concept’s vice-president Eric Avila, the son of founder Luis Avila, they’ve had just a couple of orders so far. And that is exactly what they expected.

“We brought back the 32 Sport Deck expecting to build no more than a few a year,” Avila explained. “We wanted to be able offer one for our customers. We don’t expect to sell a lot of them. Center consoles will always been our primary business.”

To help its cause, Concept equips the 32-footer with outboard rather than stern-drive engines. That just where the primary power market is right now, and to call outboards “a fad,” as a few low-watt dim-bulbs have insisted for the past 10 years, simply ignores reality.

Or suggests that a few stern-drive fanatics need a dictionary.

Concept has at least three things going for it with the 32 Sport Deck. First, the model is based off a proven hull that the company has used for its 32-foot center console for years. Second, outboard-powered boats have been the company’s bread-and-butter since the senior Avila founded it in 1986. Fourth, Concept’s expectations for sales are realistic.

And last but not least? They don’t have to rely on 32 Sport Deck sales to keep the lights on.—Matt Trulio

Statement Marine started with big boats, or least what that meant in 2009. The Southwest Florida builder’s first offering was a radical V-bottom stern-drive-engine called the 42 Ultimate, which had a suspended sole that actually worked.

Next up for the company was the 50 Passion catamaran—another stern-drive offering—which was large enough to be decked out with a model-filled hot-tub at the 2010 Miami International Boat Show. Company founders Todd Werner and Nick Buis were out to make an impression, and they did.

Both models are still offered by the Clearwater, Fla.-headquartered, but they are far from big sellers. Like so many former high-performance stern-drive V-bottom sportboat and catamaran builders following the 2008 recession, Statement saved itself from extinction by moving into the high-performance, outboard engine-equipped center-console business. Eventually, the company added a 36-foot outboard catamaran to the mix.

Now, the company has a 44-foot center console and 39-foot catamaran—both outboard-equipped—in its line-up. The first two builds of each model are owned by the same buyer, Eric Lonabough of Maryland. Both were built, as all Statement 44 GTrs center consoles and 396 catamarans will be, at a factory in Brazil. It took three years for Statement dealer Randy Sweers to get the facility outside of Sao Palo up and running, but the company already has multiple orders for both models.

Sweers, who founded his own powerboat sales company called The Marine Group, developed the 44- and 39-footer through a marketing partnership with Statement Marine owner Nick Buis. That means all Statement Dealers, not just The Marine Group, can sell the boats—there is no sales exclusivity in the deal for Sweers.

“I’ve been on the sales side of the boating industry since I got into the business 30-something years ago,” said Sweers. “And I still am. But now, I am also on the boat-building side, which is kind of a dream come true.

“I think both boats will do every well for every dealer in the Statement network,” he added.

—Matt Trulio

Go fast boating-event seasons follow a sort of volcanic pattern. They hiss and rumble in the spring, and then erupt and roar throughout the summer. Every year, there are more events— from poker runs to offshore races—than weekends. So dates overlap.

Frustrating for everyone involved? Yes. Unavoidable? Bigger yes.

But that doesn’t mean event organizers “don’t even bother to look”—as snarky barstool experts will tell you till your eyes bleed—at the dates of other events and modify their own to avoid overlap if possible.

And why wouldn’t they? Date conflicts hurt participation, and participation translates to reduced charity fundraising, which is the ultimate goal of most go-fast boating events.

As reported today on speedonthewater.com, for example, North Carolina’s Kurt Binkley and Chad Shutter moved the dates of the Binks Fun Run For Addiction Awareness when they learned they shared dates with the Harwell Lake Charity Run benefitting Meals On Wheels Anderson in South Carolina. Now the Binks event is set for June 6-7 and the Hartwell, as originally planned, is set for June 14-15.

In 2024, Leah Martin, who heads up the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout and Shootout Offshore races in Central Missouri, told a reporter she was going to schedule Shootout Offshore so that it didn’t conflict with the Kuttawa Cannonball Run in Kentucky at the end of May. Martin was good to her word and the American Power Boat Association-sanctioned offshore race is set for June 20-21.

As it happened, Powerboat P1/P1 Offshore had its inaugural New Orleans event, the first races of its new Triple Crown Series, slated for the same weekend. Thomas Covington, who heads Powerboat P1’s efforts in the United States, worked the New Orleans group and was able to move the event to June 27-29.

Event dates will overlap as long as there are just 52 weekends—and just 12 good ones in many parts of the country—in a year. It’s unavoidable. It’s also the last thing any organizer wants, and most work to avoid.—Matt Trulio