Put Your Best Foot Forward
What better way to put sebago’s collection of upscale nautical footwear to the test than by breaking them in during a boat show?
I’m what you might call a fitness freak, and even I don’t check the pedometer on my sport watch regularly. But I was checking it now. It was the second-to-last day of the Miami International Boat Show and I was dog-tired. Racing between appointments for boat tests and unveilings, christening ceremonies, videos, more boat tests, product demos, introductions, periodic sojourns back and forth from Virginia Key to Collins Avenue to cover Yachts Miami Beach, and hunting down vendors that I-swear-weren’t-there-a-second-ago-but-suddenly-are-back-the-way-we-came in football-field-sized tents, I was getting a workout without even trying.
I looked down at my watch in disbelief. “What does it say?” asked Digital Editor John Turner, who had been hoofing it alongside me for most of the show. “Ten miles today alone—but that can’t be right, can it?” I asked undecidedly. A veteran of the Miami shows, John was mum, producing instead a wry smile and a knowing nod. I stoically attempted to wipe away the perspiration that had accumulated on my brow as casually as possible.
What better way to know a shoe intimately than to break it in over the course of four days, lugging equipment and materials on the docks like a tropical Sherpa? Warriors, that’s what they are. Pedes bellator. How do I rate these Two Eye Litesides from Sebago’s new collection of boat shoes? A solid five, for the five nonexistent blisters that didn’t slow me down. Each time I slipped my feet into the pair of $110 gray leather loafers, I automatically felt the memory foam footbed spring into action. And they were super light, which is normally a bad sign of things to come, especially after an intensive first weekend of usage—I was expecting the sole to essentially evaporate. Not so with these. Flip it over, and the bottom utilizes a rubber outsole that provides good traction and excellent shock absorbtion.
While the other editors sported different variations of the Litesides on the docks, John was rocking a pair from the Cyphon Sea Sport line. (And for what it’s worth, he really enjoyed them.) I’ll admit, before the test, I was skeptical of the whole enterprise. I was fully expecting to leave Miami, checking my pedometer with dread—oh the pain!—and leaving the shoes behind. I wore them home. sebago.com
See a video from our test here. ▶
This article originally appeared in the June 2017 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
