The Seattle Boat Show

I started the Seattle Boat Show at the In the Water site on Lake Union. Someone designed a rowing attachment for stand up Paddle boards and were hawking their ware. Rowing is a big deal in the PNW so now I guess the paddlers will have a convertible. 

They had a few Miami Style but the ones drawing the crowds were the PNW boats, Trawler types, can you tell the difference?

Nice but burns to much diesel per hour. 

There are a lot of do it yourselfers up here who have comnverted old work boats and tugs into family cruisers, here is one built from the ground up for cruising. I Like this one a lot!

All Steel Hull with Aluminum deck superstructure.

Workboat heavy duty windless

This is the entry to the Aft Owners Stateroom.

Huge well oufitted Galley

Great viability in the Pilothouse

A Popeye Helm Station

Whoops sorry for the alignment but this boat made Passagemaker Magazine and was called the Working Class Hero. See the Story here: http://mydigimag.rrd.com/display_article.php?id=1298931

This one walked away with awards from the Annapolis Boat Show, I have read a few articles and here it is. I was not impressed by the running rigging, especially the wierd way the ran the mainsheet back to the cockpit, it could easily be corrected but I was no longer interested.

The High Dollar ship on the docks

The thing is, someone will buy it!

I took the shuttle to CenturyLink Field where the indoor portion of the boat show was held. No Southern boats here, ALL the power boats have enclosed pilot houses

These are the Suburbans for those living on all the Islands in Puget sound. 

You NEVER depend on a single engine up here, you could get into trouble fast if your one engine failed so everyboat that is not equipped with two or more equal sized engines has a small "Kicker" always ready to go just in case.

This was just wierd,, a Helicopter like body, 3 seater, fixed to a catamaran Hull with two huge outboards, their selling point was you could go 30+ knots in five Foot Seas.

He wanted to know if I wanted my picture taken in the cockpit...nope

I like the mini trawlers like the Ranger Tugs. more my Style

This guy worked on this for 5 days and it always looked the same?, maybe a bit more detail 3 days later?

I'm tellin you it's the PNW!

I really liked these Hose Clamps!

They were selling these little paddle wheel boats so every kid that walked by got to get in one and try it out.

Before I wlaked in the dorr I said I know for sure they will NOT have Pontoon boats in a PNW boat show but yep, they sure do!..but they are made way heavier than those you find in Texas Lakes, the Pontoons are very heavy polished aluminum abd the whole vessel is heavier built. 

Well it is the Home of the SeaHawks!

The Cutwater Trawlers were my favorite, these guys took all the good ideas and improved them, this is the newest mini trawler on the market, a 30' one would be great up here. 

Well it has changed some but nothing like the one in the Program. This is the 4th day...I think they have been enjoying Seattle more than building this out.

Better be a calm day!

Really liked this wind vane steering system, it would fit right on Wand'rin Star, They are way better than a 12 volt power hungry hydraulic autopilot system.

Want to get that old nasty diesel out of your boat?, these guys can convert any boat to electric power.

The Seattle Boat Show

The admiral encouraged me to go to the Seattle boat show. well after being to the mother of all boat shows in Miami I was not sure it would be worth the effort.I have walked a lot of Lake Union so I have been doing my own boat show so I was not sure what I might see worth spending $22. She thought I should buy a five day pass which was the same as going for 2 days. I looked over the Seminar schedule and saw several things I might like to go to so I thought that part would be worth hearing especially from PNW sailors. So I bought the pass and the good news I would not have to hike it all the way to Century Link Field since there was a shuttle available from South Lake Union since that is where the in the water portion was.

South Lake Union
The in the water Portion was sort of cool but like I said I have seen a lot of PNW vessels already and I was not interested on stepping on super expensive boats, already seen all I need to see. But there was just this one Trawler that caught me by surprise. It was a One-Off. The only one of it's kind built. Some PNW boat dude had a idea for a Trawler type cruiser built on the same type of platform as Steel Workboats that work the PNW waters from here to Alaska and beyond. He spared no expense and the man showing the boat was so nice to me, of course I really looked like a prospective buyer since I was so interested in all the details. I went home and researched the boat and if I had the $means$ we might be sailing a way different dream. Check out the listing on Yachtworld: http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listing/pl_boat_detail.jsp?&units=Feet&id=2620265&lang=en&slim=broker&&hosturl=seamarine&&ywo=seamarine&
Yes I know for $1.6 m there are a lot of choices out there, but there is only one of these.

CenturyLink Field

I grabbed the shuttle and as soon as I got to Century link I found where they were doing the Seminars but there was standing room only and the standing room was out in the hallway so I resigned myself to just go walk around and see whatever. Well I did like looking at all the PNW power vessels from 35' down to 16'. They wee pretty much all built for whatever Puget sound can dish out. All Aluminum, all with enclosed pilot houses or at the very least hard dodgers and a tough fabric eisenglass enclosure for the bimini and back,
I got a call from my friend Mark in Corpus who is preparing his 38' Morgan sailboat to cross the Gulf of Mexico (I have talked about the "Gulf" up here several times to PNW boaters and they always ask me Which Gulf"). Anyway he wanted to know if I could find out some info for him regarding Hooking up Sirius Satellite weather/radio to his laptop. You bet! I was on the hunt, I knew exactly where to go, upstairs where all the electronics booths were. So long Story short while locating the answer for him I discovered s few new technologies I did not know about and in the process helped Mark move forward on his decision how to outfit his boat for the crossing. I just got a email today announcing a couple of new products, I think The new stuff coming out in 2014 will be game changers for Safety and Navigation electronics here is just a couple of those the Satsleeve: http://www.thuraya.com/SatSleeve and
Iridium Go http://www.iridium.com/products/Iridium-GO.aspx?section=support&productCategoryID=29
The SSB transciever has been around for a long time and it is still the only way to economically get weather and communicate when you are far offshore but I think all that is about to change.