blogger - Center Console Mania

When the Hydra Sports 53 Suenos launched in 2015 a new barrier was broken for big center consoles, that of the fifty feet size.  Now this size is soon to be broken again by a new Midnight Express 60 model.

I have always watched center consoles with interest, and can understand there huge success at a certain size which for the use they are designed it tops up at around the forty feet mark.  In fact when they became thirty feet I said they where getting very big, at forty feet plus and four or five outboard engines behind it was looking over the top.  Now we are getting at fifty feet plus and it will be interesting to see if this is just a trend to make a brand status or something customers are asking.

Similar to Center Consoles are Ribs, most of which are build in Europe and Italy who in the size game have been ahead, and did arrive at eighty feet in 2007 with the Heaven 80 Open build in Rome, Italy.  Both Center Consoles and Ribs are very performance orientated machines, with the important difference that Ribs of over forty feet, tend in most cases to become a more cabin orientated cruiser.  

Here is an important note that while ribs did go over fifty feet back in the nineties, if I remember well it was Novamarine who did this first, large Ribs over forty feet do not have the high demand that standard fiberglass cabin boats have at around this size.  So while Ribs bullied the sub ten meter market in recent years with an important share in and under this size, above it the market share get smaller the more the ribs grow.  But this is Europe and for what matters, in the USA Center Consoles have the twelve meter market share grow with builders who build cabin boats trying to put something in it see Sea Ray and the SLX 400 model.  

Center Consoles started out as reliable easy to maintain fast fishing boats, but now over thirty feet they are like Swiss knifes able to do many things, from party platforms, to marina hoppers, performance orientated machines, and day cruiser able to take you swimming very fast.  This is the reason of there success in the North American continent.