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The best thing about coming in from offshore standing on the bridge of
the Jarrett Bay 58 was the celebrity-like attention we got. The Intracoastal
Waterway in Fort Lauderdale was jam-packed with battlewagons, motoryachts,
and other smaller craft that afternoon, either headed for the jetties
and the wild-blue Atlantic beyond or coming back. And almost every pair
of eyes on every single vessel we passed bugged out with rapturous appreciation
as Capt. Frank Davis, Sr. eased the blinding-white, custom-built Jarrett
Bay along through the wintertime sunshine, her brightwork gleaming and
her aluminum tuna tower sparkling like a diamond-studded tiara. You’d
have thought sportfishing greats Ernest Hemingway and Zane Grey were standing
on the bridge waving to the fans, not just Davis and me.
The Jarrett Bay 58 is indeed a beautiful boat. For many years now, North
Carolina builders have incorporated into many of their sportfishing vessels
an element of design that is both distinctive and downright glamorous:
Carolina flare. With the 58, Jarrett Bay takes the idea a little further
than I’ve ever seen. Of course, the pronounced concavity or flare
of a vessel’s bow and the even more dramatic outward turn just below
the deck known as flam are highly regarded among aficionados because they’re
said to engender additional buoyancy as the bow enters a trough, blasting
aside green water, knocking down spray, and generally maintaining a more
up-and-at-’em running attitude. Whether the 58’s flare and flam
actually do these things I’m unable to say, since conditions in the
coastal Atlantic where we sea-trialed the boat were pretty mild on test
day. But the aesthetic appeal of the two elements is undeniable. Add them
to the 58’s other stylistic delights, like the huge, sweetly crowned
foredeck, the long, graceful, broken sheerline, and the stern sections
fat with curvaceous tumblehome, and it’s no wonder jaws drop as the
58 sweeps by.
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