Back in the depths of the Great Recession, the economy’s effects on the boating industry were inescapable. Rather than seeing new models and innovative new ideas coming to market, we were saddled with warmed-over products. It was clear the industry was—forgive the pun—treading water.

Things are looking brighter in 2015, and that’s good news for everybody. Walking the show this year, it was evident that companies are making capital investments in new product, and certain market trends are emerging.

cobalt marker one

The Cobalt Marker One is just one example of fiberglass boat builders chasing the pontoon boat market.



I don’t cover the pontoon boat industry, but even I can see that it’s hot. Companies that never offered them before are stepping into this market space with new brands, two of which leap to mind. One is Cobalt, which is now offering its Marker One line of pontoon boats. Cobalt is loathe to call them pontoon boats, but if it’s welded together and has pointed tubes for a hull, it’s a pontoon. Larson Boat Group also jumped into pontoon boats in a significant way with its Escape line. Company president Rob Parmentier said the company had done enough research to know Larson Boat Group needed to be in that space.

There were other interesting tidbits at Miami. Volvo introduced a new sterndrive unit called Forward Drive. Seven Marine debuted a new outboard engine that produces 627 horsepower from its 6.2-liter GM V8. Mercury Racing also announced its new 400R Verado. The Verado outboard line is based on a supercharged inline six-cylinder engine.

Meanwhile, Chaparral and Hurricane are chasing pontoon buyers with new deck boats. Chaparral debuted the new 250 Suncoast. Hurricane introduced the new 2486. We’ll have full reviews of those new models soon. Chaparral Southeast Regional Sales Manager Bill Pegg said they preferred to pursue those buyers with what they do best, and that’s fiberglass boats.

Jet boats, which re-emerged at last year’s Miami show, are still out in force. Chaparral, Glastron, Scarab, and Yamaha all are betting big on that market. It will be interesting to see how they perform in the coming months.

Click around on boats.com for more reports from the Miami International Boat Show—it’s the next best thing to going to the show yourself.

Written by: Brett Becker
Brett Becker is a freelance writer and photographer who has covered the marine industry for 15 years. In addition to covering the ski boat and runabout markets for Boats.com, he regularly writes and shoots for BoatTrader.com. Based in Ventura, Calif., Becker holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s in mass communication from the University of Central Florida in Orlando.