Vancouver boat show

I’m hurt you didn’t ask me to speak at your wedding. I have the best closing joke:
“As a man who has spent many years as a hardwood flooring installer, I’ve learned that a new husband is actually a lot like a hardwood floor... If you lay him right once, you can walk all over him for the rest of your life!”
I’ve used it in a wedding and it slayed them
Priceless that is awesome don’t feel to bad tho we eloped so there wasn't many speakers lol.
 
Anyone got any cool pics from the boat show to post? I am hoping this weather didn’t hurt attendance.
 
Didn’t get to make it to boat show, what’s the general vibe at the show from all the venders in regards to the possibility of closure to fishing. Is it pretty down feeling or business as usual?
 
Went today looking to replace my electronics. Looked at simard.lowrance and raymarine. Anyone have any feedback on the raymarine axiom pro products
 
Didn’t get to make it to boat show, what’s the general vibe at the show from all the venders in regards to the possibility of closure to fishing. Is it pretty down feeling or business as usual?
Didn’t seem like any down feelings to me , was business as usual with many vendors busy with sales and great deals, we were looking at aluminum boats in the 26-30’ range and many boats already had sold stickers on them.
 
Anyone got any cool pics from the boat show to post? I am hoping this weather didn’t hurt attendance.
we looked at some sweet rigs today in 26-30’ seasport aluetian & the osprey really stood out in the fibreglass boats we looked at , as for the production welded aluminums we liked the hewescraft alaskan ,northriver 28’ and the 28’ thunderjet.. the only custom welded boats we saw were the silverstreak 26’ and the eaglecraft. As always uploading a picture on here seems to
Be next to impossible...
 
Some pics from the boat show today

20190209_124447.jpg
Pretty tough looking solid feel Eagle Craft 33' I'll be adding the lower bow log/deadhead teeth to my boat. Thought that is a really good idea. Pretty nice inside wood trim. A little too pretty inside for me. I'd have that wood blood stained way too quickly :)
20190209_133233.jpg

North River 33' Twin 425's. Boat looked pretty decent until I started looking closely at the welds. For some reason especially the top of the pilot house edge seem beads were so horrible we actually thought they were painted over silicon beads until I inspected further to see it was actual weld bead that looked like bird ****. Can't believe a half million dollar boat gets shown to the public like that. Nice "looking" boat though but heavy duty FAIL on quality. I think that company went down hill after the original owner and founder got arrested for killing his girlfriend. :confused:
20190209_132056.jpg
One of the more odd boat and hull designs at the show
20190209_130809.jpg

The classic Grady White
20190209_131904.jpg
Cute little welded aluminum but tons of very bad weld seems covered over by a paint that looks like a plastic paint type coating that looks to me like it will be pealing off in no time. Some of the welds tapered off into tiny non penetrating cold thin beads. How do these boats get transport certified??? Do they not all get surveyed before being passed to be able to be sold to the public???? I've worked in an aluminum fabricating shop to help a buddy out at times and I know what quality weld work is and isn't. Some of these boat welds are scary bad. Our close family friend is the head underwriter for a boat insurance company. She had just told me that they had two claims this past month of a new welded aluminum boat sinking in Victoria due to inadequate weld beads. Sad some of these boats are stamped out and released to the public. Don't get me wrong there are some very good builds out there BUT in my opinion there should be ZERO bad ones released for sale to the public.
20190209_130318.jpg
Kingfisher shallow bathtub shaped hulls. Shows the main reason I traded mine in. In my opinion these boats are better suited for calm pond water.
20190209_132936.jpg

Bow shot of the North River 28' and 35'
20190209_132950.jpg

Lake boat posing as a ocean boat :rolleyes:
20190209_131817.jpg

The monster Yamaha 425HP 5.6L V8
20190209_125301.jpg
 
Last edited:
Didn’t seem like any down feelings to me , was business as usual with many vendors busy with sales and great deals, we were looking at aluminum boats in the 26-30’ range and many boats already had sold stickers on them.

Was doing the same in the 28' range. Know Northwest and even Walker are better than those at the show, but for a persy boat for the pops may head towards something else as wouldn't head out in rough water anyway. Thoughts on aluminum boats in 28' range?
 
Thanks @Chasin' Dreams for the photos from the show.

I notice your comments on the flat bathtub hull of the Kingfishers and that's why you sold yours. I had the same experience with a 2825 Kingfisher and sold it. Nice boat to fish once you are fishing, tough boat to ride in when in any sea over 1 foot.

That Eaglecraft at the show is my actual boat and they are using her for their display for this year. She's 33'6"x11.0' with a 38' LOA.

That big North River was a 35' model. It's on their website now. Sold during the show. I thought that big NR was ok but the headroom in the salon was too short for me and the front and side windows were too small IMHO - giving the boat a strange look and a bit claustrophobic inside. I like the North Rivers overall, and I replaced my Kingfisher 2825 with a North River 2900SXL and have been extremely happy with the ride and the build. The 'big slam' that you are used to on the Kingfisher is never experienced on the North River.

(the white one at the show is a 2900SXL 29' - which is actually larger and longer than the Kingfisher 3025).
 
BCI. Your boat is beautiful. By far the nicest boat at the show in its class.

Thanks for showing it off and letting us on her!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: BCI
Thanks @Chasin' Dreams for the photos from the show.

I notice your comments on the flat bathtub hull of the Kingfishers and that's why you sold yours. I had the same experience with a 2825 Kingfisher and sold it. Nice boat to fish once you are fishing, tough boat to ride in when in any sea over 1 foot.

That Eaglecraft at the show is my actual boat and they are using her for their display for this year. She's 33'6"x11.0' with a 38' LOA.

That big North River was a 35' model. It's on their website now. Sold during the show. I thought that big NR was ok but the headroom in the salon was too short for me and the front and side windows were too small IMHO - giving the boat a strange look and a bit claustrophobic inside. I like the North Rivers overall, and I replaced my Kingfisher 2825 with a North River 2900SXL and have been extremely happy with the ride and the build. The 'big slam' that you are used to on the Kingfisher is never experienced on the North River.

(the white one at the show is a 2900SXL 29' - which is actually larger and longer than the Kingfisher 3025).

Thanks for the info BCI! My buddy and I thought the Eaglecraft was a 33' and asked the guy in it that was repping it if it was and he told us it was 30'. Looked much bigger to us so that explains that lol. Guy sitting in it, repping it didn't seem like he wanted to talk much about the boat at all which surprised us as you would think he would be trying to sell them?? Maybe he was just tired I don't know. I really liked the boat. Very well built and thought out. Didn't see any poor welds on it either which was a pleasant change from others we saw at the show. Built like a tank while still being very fish-able and well thought out layout. It was both me and my buddies favorite at the show.

Ya the Kingfisher Hulls aren't West Coast hulls. Even if the water wasn't rough we hated fishing out of it honestly. Such low sides, didn't track well at all. Constantly trying to keep it on tack cause any wind would blow it off coarse. We were literally fishing off our knees in some bad weather off shore in Tofino in the one I had because it handled so poorly and we were scared we would fall off the boat cause the sides were so low and the wind and waves had come up. Also have a friend in Tofino that had a 2825 for a couple years up there and he got rid of it too. Good marketing they do though lol.

If you ever have the chance to look at that bigger North River again check out all the welds on it carefully. Some of them are scary bad like it shouldn't have left the facility like that IMO. Yes a lot of the structure welds were better than others but if someones buying a boat of that caliber for that much money every single weld should be perfect IMO. Thank you for the correction on it being a 35' not a 33' I'll edit my post above for that. Wonder if they measure from inside or outside the stern when calling it a 35'?
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: BCI
The couple that really stood out were the Thunderjet 28’ and also the Sliverstreak.. obviously Thunderjet isn’t even in the same league as Silverstreak but the boat had some real nice creature comforts but at 288,000 it is a tough sell. The Hewescraft alaskan was pretty good for the money, i like the toilet with a door off the back deck. For 200k + category though i think droping a bit in length and going for a custom welded aluminum is the answer . I would say northwest is top of the catagory for custom welded boats , Silverstreak, Walker , Lifetimer . Riptide marine in coombs is also making a sweet boat these days ..
 
Back
Top