seapuppy

the seattle boat show was pretty pitiful...I mean...there were some nice boats there but not like past yrs..
First off..we get to seattle to the hiway turn off and traffic is stopped..construction in the city has the traffic all buggered up...(I really hate driving in the city but since it's a necessary evil...I do it...but I've driven in SF, LA, SD,Texas, New York....etc...I know how to drive in the city).it was slow going to Quest field but....we finally get to the show and we meet up with several people that I know...sales guys that I have bought boats from...VP's of searay...fellow boaters...etc...it was fun and all..but the show was very disappointing....they had a jazz band playing up in the mezzanain deck.....had really gorgeous girls standing on the back of the boats greeting people...but the numbers of boats were really disappointing...lots of open space around the place.......

There were the usual Searays..BAyliners..Meridians..Cobalts....tugs.... a few trawlers...tons of fishing boats.....a few sail boats...but not the numbers of boast as in yrs past....

The local Bayliner/Searay dealer had a good selection of everything from ski to fish to cruiser boats. All at really good prices from the 16ftr all the way up to the 50ft Meridian flybridges.....
some of the other boating lines were sparse and in some cases weren't prepped for the show.....Cobalts had a decent selection but one thing we noticed about some of the lines were that they were cut up in the design...meaning not user friendly...instead of an open airy feeling ...some of them gave you the being in a cave feeling...one monteray 28 ft boat had the head so small...you couldn't stand up to take a shower...your knees hit the head door....bout the roomiest heads were in bayliner and searay boats.....full stand up and usable spaces....
On a side note...I went to the bayliner side to see what offerings they had and found the sister ship to my boat...they had a slightly different layout in the salon but basically the same...everyone that was with us liked ours better than the one at the show...the differences were it had a fwd berth..not the wrap around seating we have better than the fwd vee berth.....well...one main difference that I noticed was the show boat had the zeuss drives and joy sticks...no bow thrusters or anything so...you just point the stick where you want to go and the boat figures out how to do it with the rear drives...pretty awesome.......a couple of guys were standing there watching me drool and we started talking....yep...I almost sold them that boat..turns out 2009 was the last model yr for the 340 and this one had been one of the last ones left...a good deal was being offered and I became a show spokesman for it..haha....it was fun...but I like mine better..haha...

Overall the Seattle boat show was nice..but very disappointing in the selection this yr....several boat manufacturers went out of business last yr which limited the selections and numbers....but what was there was well represented....

I took a few pic's but haven't had a chance to download the camera yet...I'll try and get those posted here this weekend...

SP