2011 Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show

Oct 27th-31st was the 52nd Annual Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show held at the Bahia Mar Resort, Las Olas Marina/The Sails Marina, The Fort Lauderdale Hilton Marina, and the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Thursday and Friday were warm humid and mostly sunny South Florida days, Saturday and Sunday was cloudy and rainy most of the day, and today seems to be a fairly nice day so far. The FLIBS has something for everyone if you're heading out on the water. There are displays and information on every sort of boat from 14' Flats boats up to 150'+ Mega Yachts costing millions of dollars, and everything in between.

There are sail boats, fishing boats, motor boats, yachts of all sizes, and even a motorized surf board that will propel a person up to 35mph and weighs less than 30lbs (www.jet-surf.com).

Lazzara Yachts (www.lazzarayachts.com), like most yacht builders, had several yachts at the marinas for interested persons to view, and get a first hand look at the quality and unique features that go into a Lazzara LSX series yacht. 

The master stateroom and master head, with entry to extendable sun pad.

Perini Navi Group is one of only a few companies that offer both luxury sailing yachts through Perini Navi and luxury motor yachts through their Picchiotti brand. Perini meets 5 market segments in 40-60 meter sailing yachts, 60+ meter sailing yachts, race line sailing yachts, fast cruising sailing yachts, and motor yachts. Some innovative aspects of Perini sailing yachts are moveable keels (enabling Perini yachts to navigate much shallower waters than is typical of sailing vessels of this class), central electronic helm (allowing 1 person to navigate and manage ship's functions such as sail management all at the same time),  and carbon fiber sinks, masts, and other components to lighten the yacht as much as possible.

More pictures of Perini Motor and Sailing Yachts.

The pictures below are of the Christensen mega yacht Remember When, which has every amenity a person could ever want, as well as some unique features, but what really attracted me to this particular yacht was the 2 Harley Davidson motorcycles strapped to the back deck. 

 Dining Room

 Top Deck to Bottom Deck Elevator

 Galley

 One of many heads

 Crew quarters

 Master Head

 Helm

 Fold away crane, to raise and lower Harleys and other toys off the deck.

 Toys

 So much chrome and floors you could eat off of, 2-V12, twin turbo charged MTU diesels

Seahunter Boats (www.seahunterboats.com) makes center console boats from 18' up to 48', but what makes this boat a truly incredible boat is the carbon fiber/kevlar/closed foam construction. If you are looking for a tough boat this is it. Standing there watching there demo video, and I mean demonstration as well as demolish. Seahunter took one of there boats and dropped it from 20' onto concrete measuring more than 100 ton impact, bolted the engines back on and took it out for sea trials with no problems, after that they cut the bow off just in front of the helm, and again took it out for sea trials with no problems. Truly an incredible video to watch.

Pictures of more boats and boating equipment and other cool stuff to be found at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show(http://www.showmanagement.com/fort_lauderdale/event/). It's a great family friendly event whether you're looking for marine electronics, a new boat or mega yacht, fast car, or just coming to view the size and excellent craftsmanship that go into these vessels it's a good time had by all.