Boat test for the 2006 Marlow Prowler Open 375 with boat pictures, boat specifications, and boat test results. Includes pricing, videos, engine test reviews, and ratings for the 2006 Marlow Prowler Open 375.

David Marlow followed a regimented path to success during a multidecade career as a boat designer, eventually retiring to his native Florida hard by Terra Ceia Bay in a restored, cracker-style home. But he couldn't stop thinking about hull design, spending hours tinkering in his workshop followed by towing scale models of his design behind his Boston Whaler. Eventually, no longer content as a retiree, Marlow came out of retirement to found Marlow Marine, premiering a 70-foot model at the 2001 Miami International Boat Show.

It's reminiscent of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in which William Blake wrote, "Improvement makes straight roads. But the crooked roads...are roads of genius." During construction of the 70-footer and subsequent models, Marlow rarely strayed from those straight roads. But diversions to the crooked roads began to surface.

One of those departures took place a few years ago at Norsemen Shipbuilding, Marlow Marine's Xiamen, China-based boatbuilding facility, where he took a rigid management approach that had worked in the past. "For a long time [I believed] that the nail that sticks up should be driven down," he told me over coffee at Marlow Marine's Snead Island, Florida, boatyard, a 20-minute drive from Sarasota. I had an impending sea trial on the Marlow Prowler Open 375 and was eager to board her, but nothing beats good conversation with an old boatbuilder over a cup of joe, so I sat, sipped, and listened.

Marlow went on to tell me how his authoritarian method boomeranged on him, most noticeably in the way factory workers would scatter in his presence. He was mortified. After building a state-of-the-art factory and hiring artisans and craftspeople from a nearby millennia-old fishing—i.e. boatbuilding—community, he was isolated and unable to benefit from the invaluable input of the locals. So Marlow spun on his heels and began to heed suggestions from his employees, with splendid results. Now during his visits there, his schedule is crammed with appointments from an enthusiastic staff whose creative suggestions help the factory operate more efficiently and also instill workplace pride.

Enlightened by the communication that's now the protocol at Norseman, Marlow was able to direct his focus to other projects, namely into the Prowler series, custom boats inspired by the hooch-running speedsters he spied in his youth while working the docks in nearby Cortez. When I lugged my Pelican case of test gear alongside the Prowler Open 375, docked stern-to on the Manatee River, I could almost picture her cockpit brimming with Havana's finest rum, as those of her rough-and-tumble predecessors once were. As I took in her graceful sheerline, deep blue topsides, and tumblehome, one thing became as clear to me as the spring-fed waters at Marlow Marine: David Marlow marches to a drum that others do not hear, which is why this 37-footer is unlike any outboard-equipped center console out there.

PAGES:

1

2