Spent the day, from 4 AM this morning until 5 PM this afternoon
helping my dealer set up for the New England Boat Show at the new
Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

There were an incredible number of boats crammed into 500,000 sq. ft.
I've never been to the Jacobs center in New York which is supposedly
bigger, but this was incredible. From where we were setting up, you
could look across the center to where Bassett was setting up their Sea
Ray exhibit and the 50 footers looked like toys. In fact, I think one
of them was bigger than 50 foot, but I didn't get over there to take a
closer look at it.

As my interest is small boats (those 25' and under) with outboard
power, I kept wandering to look at other boats when there was some
down time (which there wasn't a lot of). I got up close and personal
with a Parker 2530 Extended Cabin with a 350 Yamaha on it which was in
the next booth over. I'll say this - the engine is more impressive
than the boat.

sidebar

Why Parker doesn't put some styling on their boats is beyond me - in
particular for the money they want for it. Thing looks like somebody
put a box on top of a box with a pointy thing at one end then painted
it one solid color of dull beige.

I also noticed something interesting with respect to the bracket -
there is no direct support other than where it's bolted to the
transom. I snuck a quick look at the attachment points and can
honestly say I was under whelmed at how the bracket was attached. Then
again, it must be ok - I've never heard of one falling off or
loosening up.

Another thing that was interesting was when they unloaded the boat
from the trailer to a rolling stand - it slipped back a little and the
engine hit the floor - the bracket flexed a little. I wonder if
that's a design feature for hard hits on underwater objects?

/sidebar

Anyway...

Hanging off the bracket, the engine doesn't look at large as it does
just sitting on the stand - in fact, it was a 25" shaft engine and I
measured it from skeg to top of the hood - it's not taller than my 25"
ETEC 200 HO - it is a little wider.

Under the hood - wow. There is a lot of technology there - it looked
as complicated as my ETEC. I talked to the dealer's head mechanic -
he was pretty honest in his evaluation. It has some good points, it
has some bad points - mostly related to acceleration compared to
Optimax, ETEC and Verado. According to him, fuel economy is
reasonable for it's size but you can't make a direct comparison
because of it's size. Which is a good point.

There were some boats there that were new to me - different in that
they had some rather intriguing lines and different approaches to
"multi-purpose". I can't remember all the different names - I'm going
back on Saturday for the whole day - half "on duty" and half on my own
to wander around - I'll get details then.

Long day, tiring day, but way cool looking at all the boats.