On the Water: News & Events

Sea-Doo has high hopes its new RXT-X 260 (read my review here) will begin to challenge Kawasaki for endurance-race supremacy, and as such the company is offering a little more incentive for racers to compete aboard the company's products. Yesterday BRP announced that the company has once again expanded its grassroots "Sea-Doo X-Team Bounty" racer contingency program for 2010, which will now offer support for top finishers in offshore and endurance events. BRP also announced the addition of Novice class championship payouts to the existing Expert and Pro closed-course program. …Read More

Yesterday’s “United We Fish” rally was quite interesting, generating a crowd estimated at three to four thousand fishermen, brought together from the commercial, charter, and recreational segments of the fishing industry. Wait a sec – commercials and recs working together? Has the world come to an end? Nope–but thanks to the current status of the Magnuson-Stevens act, [...] …Read More

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I was relieved to come away from visiting Plastiki with the sense that, yeah, this can come out OK. It might even be important. Photo by Kimball Livingston Most people have heard something of Plastiki by now. Being heir to a name like Rothschild confers an automatic celebrity and resources, and it’s not just any old [...] …Read More

BRP Sea-Doo was up for a trio of Innovation Awards at the recent Miami Boat Show, and one of the products that took home top honors was the company's innovative iCATCH trailer. Something like the iCATCH, however, is not always that easy to explain with words. Sometimes you just have to see it in action to truly understand the concept. So, with Flip video camera in hand, I had WaterTop's Tim McKercher run me through the process... …Read More

A new Grady-White center console hits the water. …Read More

What just happened in Valencia wasn’t an America’s Cup as we used to know it, or want to see it again. It was a rescue mission, something of a raid. A successful raid. Leading to this happy moment at City Hall, San Francisco. Reception at City Hall. Photo by Gilles Martin-Raget/BOR Having registered with the [...] …Read More

Think affordable entry-level go-fast boats are gone with production builder shutdowns? Think again...and look to the regional builders. …Read More

Yesterday’s news of the new Kadey-Krogen 52′ — which was made sort of under the public radar — at last month’s Trawler Fest in Fort Lauderdale, reminded me of just one more benefit of these events. If you’ve never been to a Trawler Fest, which are owned and operated by Passagemaker Magazine, and you’re thinking [...] …Read More

I see Ernesto Bertarelli, ex-Defender of America's Cup, quoted as saying that he might challenge again, “if the rules are fair,” which might be the tone-deaf statement of the year. Does the man not realize what just happened? Meanwhile, I’m off to Sausalito to have a close-up gander at David Rothschild’s Plastiki. On my way out [...] …Read More