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With this issue, PMY
marks its 20th birthday, and we’ll be celebrating all year with
a look back every month at where our sport was two decades past. Now,
a fifth of a century isn’t much in the millennial scheme of things—or
even among boating publications. But what a time we’ve chronicled!
When we started there were fewer powerboats than sailboats and boating
was mostly for the rich. Today the sport is so popular, it’s impossible
to get a slip in some places.
A lot has changed in
these two decades—perhaps more than you realize. So to help you
see just how different things are, let’s take a quick tour of our
February 1985 issue. Electronic navigation is hot, and one of the hottest
products is something called the Global Navigation System. It looks to
be the size of a radar, can provide distance and bearing to an “amazing”
15 waypoints, and promises “worldwide navigation for under $7,500.”
Our engines column
recaps the 1985 gasoline inboard offerings from the major marinizers,
including BMW, Chrysler, Commander, OMC, and Kaama. Shortly thereafter
comes an ad from Gulfstar for its 49 Motor Yacht Mark II with a base price
of (sitting down?) $299,500, and later, one for the Trojan F-36 Convertible
for $104,900. Other boats advertised include Phoenix’s Blackhawk
909 Sports/Cruiser (no, it wasn’t a fishing boat), Storeboro’s
40 Biscay, and Chris-Craft’s “23 cruisers from 23 to 50 feet,”
plus the French builder Ilver, which advertises a 35-foot sportboat incomprehensibly
named Cymawa. There is no Ferretti, Azimut, Fairline, or Sunseeker,
but Europe is represented by Gallart, with a 58-foot convertible built
in Spain, and by Guy Couach, with an 85-foot motoryacht built in France,
plus a feature on an aluminum 70-foot Striker convertible built in Holland
and christened Bite the Dust.
We do a “Design
Portfolio” on a nifty 29-foot Black Fin and Ocean Yachts’
63 Super Sport, which has a base price in the mid-$700,000 range. (My
search of used 63s on the market netted five at or around $700,000—not
a bad investment.) Of course, we cover a megayacht: in this case a trio
of Browards, including Cara Elena II, which we say “carries
a price estimated at $3 million” and dubbed the “Queen of
the 1984 Fort Lauderdale Boat Show.” Photos show her “glistening”
interior, which looks like Austin Powers’ pad.
Many electronics companies
are represented—and many have disappeared—at least in their
1985 form. See if you remember these names and what they produced: Alden
(if you said yachts, you flunk), Trimble (still a big name in GPS, but
not for pleasureboats), Cetec Benmar, RDI, Sea-Tex, Cybernet, Regency
Polaris, and King.
Yes, things really
have changed during PMY’s relatively short lifetime. Kinda
makes you wonder what the future holds for boating and who will survive.
Lots of companies did fall by the wayside, but many quality names survived
and prospered—Raytheon (now Raymarine), Viking Yachts, Grand Banks,
Bluewater, Carver, Grady-White, and Formula to name a few. And so has
PMY, thanks to you. Here’s to 2025.
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