Ramblins'
This is my 15th year attending the Raleigh Convention Center Boat Show. I know that because I have a 15 year-old and I’ll never forget my wife waddling around the show when she was 9 months pregnant. At some point we added in a trip to The Pit, our favorite bbq restaurant, (which is just around the corner), and it became an annual tradition.
In this post we’ll walk through some design trends, most seen colors, and other random thoughts that jumped out as we perused. While there was a good showing of pontoon and wakeboarding boats, we’ll stick mostly to center console fishing boats, bay boats, and flats boats.
I will say the color trend for the wakeboarding boats could only be described as, “Sparkle.” The more glitter the better. Now, let’s get going with the trends.
Towers
Towers, both half and full, are not new on larger bay boats and center consoles. This year, however, there were way more boats with towers on them at the show than I have ever seen before in Raleigh. Now, before we go crazy, “more” equals, maybe 4-6 boats. That is still a far stronger showing than in years past. Anglers appreciate the increased height and the view it affords you.
What’s the difference between a half tower and a full tower?
Generally a half tower means that you are standing on top of the console (Sometimes directly on the console and sometimes on a platform slightly above the console). Whereas a full tower puts you standing on a platform built into the tower and results in a higher perspective. You can think of it as sitting on someone’s shoulders (half) vs standing on their shoulders (full).
Colors
Again, ignoring the sparkle of the Malibu and Mastercraft wakeboard boats, the colors of most of the center console, bay boats, and flats boats can be lumped into 4 categories: white, blue, gray, and blue-gray. There was very little variation and probably a dozen or fewer total colors. It seems like most manufacturers are sticking with the safe, neutral colors. I am not dogging it as they do a ton of market research and I am confident that what we are seeing is a result of the demand from consumers. Here at Atlas Boatworks we are in favor of just plain old white hulls. We wrote a whole post on it that you can find here.
Cooler Seats
One trend we saw that we loved was the use of coolers as the front seat or coffin-box. They are so versatile and build better than they used to be that it just makes sense. For a deep dive into why coolers rock as boat seats, check out this post.
Trends we weren't crazy about
Deck Hardware
Precariously attached hatches
We noticed that deck and hatch hardware is still a struggle for a lot of the builders. When we opened hatches and gave them a wiggle, it wasn’t uncommon to watch the thin lip that the gas shocks are attached to wiggle like crazy. That is just not an area that is going to last through the years.
Screws through the deck
Another thing we saw on several different boat models were mounting screws for the struts below mounted straight through the deck. We understand that there is not much thickness there to just screw into, but we really don’t like the aesthetics or the holes in the gelcoat of this mounting process.
Questionable Designs
We mentioned the popularity of towers earlier in the post, but if you’re going to do something cool, you’ve got to make sure you do it right.
One of the coolest half towers that was there had a platform installed for standing on when you were driving from the upper station. The design flaw came in that the platform was so close to the top of the console and was so big that anyone who was driving the boat couldn’t see most of the electronics on the console.
Unless you were an oompa-loompa you would struggle to have good access to the electronics.
Black Steering Wheels
Lastly, we will close out with one that I am torn on: black steering wheels. We saw a bunch of matte black steering wheels. While I think they look awesome, I can’t image grabbing one of those after it has been baking in the sun on a cloudless hot July afternoon.
Conclusion and Shameless Plug
The 2024 Raleigh convention Center Boat Show was one of my favorite local shows. It had more saltwater-focused center console, bay, hybrid, and flats boats than we’ve seen in a long time. I’m generally a subtle guy when it comes to colors, so I don’t mind all the blues and grays. The boat design aspects are where I nerd out, so being able to see what other manufacturers are doing is fun for me. Check out our boat design thoughts on our blog and see why we think the Atlas Boatworks 23F is one of the best center console fishing boats out there.
