I don’t remember the exact year, but in the 1970s my dad took me to the Boston Boat Show and the Michelob Light offshore race boat was on display. As I recall, it was a 38-foot Scarab and it was amazing. Other than an airplane, that boat was the largest piece of motorized machinery I’d ever seen. Although I grew up boating in and around Massachusetts—we had runabouts early on and then my mom purchased several Formulas over the years on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire—it wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I had the opportunity to purchase my first performance boat.
Living in Southern California, I knew I wanted a boat that was flexible for what I wanted to do—run in the Pacific Ocean to Catalina Island for some camping, yet also be trailerable to the Colorado River, mainly Lake Havasu. I was thinking a single-engine deep-V in the 30-foot-or-less range. My only problem was that many of the 27- to 30-footers on the West Coast are designed for lakes or rivers not ocean boating.