The increasingly popular Palm Beach International Boat Show starts next Thursday, March 28, and runs through Sunday, March 31. The show’s location, in downtown Palm Beach along the Intracoastal Waterway, makes it easy to get to and easy to enjoy; it does not have the logistics problems and large crowds that hampered the big Miami shows last month. It also has the reputation as both a buyer’s and seller’s show, as people get ready for the spring and summer boating seasons. As a result, it will have a strong showing of a wide variety of new cruising powerboats.
This will be the 34th year of the Palm Beach show, and it will have more than $1.2 billion worth of yachts and accessories, with boats ranging from eight-foot inflatables to megayachts almost as long as football field. It also will have other attractions, including a free fishing clinic for kids, seminars from the IGFA School of Sportfishing, and a new AquaZone with hands-on testing and demos of water sports at the south end of the show.
“Every major boat show has its own special appeal,” said Andrew Doole, president of Informa U.S. Boat Shows, which produces the show, “and for the Palm Beach show it’s this beautiful setting in a world-famous destination at the most beautiful time of the year.”
The Palm Beach show is the end of the big east coast boat show season that starts in the fall in Newport, Rhode Island. It also represents a continuum of sorts. This year it will have the Back Cove 34O, for example, that won the Best New Powerboat Under 35 Feet award and the People’s Choice award at the Newport show, and the Palm Beach GT50, which was named Best New Powerboat at that show. For its part, Hunt will be showing its Hunt 72, which won the Best New Powerboat award there earlier.
The range of cruising powerboats at Palm Beach would be hard to overstate. It runs from the new trailerable Ranger Tugs 29, for example, with a single 260-hp Volvo diesel that can sleep six and is built for coastal cruising, to the battleship-solid new Nordhavn 76, which also sleeps six, but which has world-wide cruising capabilities.
The show, along Flagler Drive, is open from noon to 7 p.m. on Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets cost $28 for adults and $18 for children from six through 15 years old. Children under six are free. It also has a VIP Windward Club inside the Lakeside Pavilion with a premium open bar and dining in a relaxed indoor/outdoor atmosphere. It costs $150 a person. For more:
