At first, the general idea was a 47- to 48-footer, but they wanted a three-stateroom, two-head boat and the bare minimum comfortable size for that was 50 feet. “And Paul [Spencer]’s pretty quick comment was, you can fit a whole lot more stuff on a 52 or 53,” said Burch Perry of Albemarle Boats about approaching the partnership. “We finally had to pull the plug because our lamination shop is only 56 feet wide.”
They also wanted her to be a production boat—but customizable. The hull mold, which would remain the same, would ultimately come from Sarasota’s Marine Concepts, but they wanted to be able to tweak the layout. And of course, said Spencer, “We really wanted a boat that looked killer. That’s the first stipulation for me in a boat, it’s got to look good. That’s where I think we’ve had some success. We also wanted her to perform—to be the best boat on the water, in short.”
Perry recalls the day they first splashed hull number one. Spencer couldn’t be there in person, so he was there virtually—constantly. “The texts we got from him the day we floated her,” he chuckles. “’How’s she float? How’s she float?’ He was so nervous—but it just sat exactly like he wanted it to. That man nailed it. He nailed it.”
