Hi Christopher,


Glad to hear you are enjoying your purchase decision. Can never hear "too many" good things about a company you handed over an arm, leg and Big Toe's worth of $ to . Best Regards----- John

Hey John,
Spoke to Kevin at Advantage yesterday and he said Pat Kuntz was in and painting on your boat.

He thought it would be slightly delayed in shipping due to some additional stuff Pat is doing. He also said that you have done alot of additional stuff to it and it will be a "HELL of a Boat".

Hope I get a chance to see it before it leaves for FL........

Talk to you soon......

Hi Chris,


Glad to hear Kevin thinks the boat will rock. The interior of the boat is really unique and I think that's what got them buzzing a bit, it really turned out nice. Patterns like checkerboards/stripes you'll see on the inside of many custom boats, but you never see other types of graphic elements much. The white/yellow checkerboard in my boat cockpit with playing card suits embroidered in the yellow checkerboard squares turned out rather nice. On the outside, the boat has a yellow to red fade type paint thing going in 3 major "swooshes" front to back, Pat will be doign his magic to spice up the outside.
The really great thing is how all the details are coming together to match... The outside graphics will continue with the poker card theme and have card suit graphics, and Pat's making those suits to match the suits in the cockpit upholstery (ie. so the spades will be drawn the same, etc.) Also, before they did the interior cockpit checkerboard, we made sure the yellow upholstery would match the yellow gelcoat on the exterior. It has a really tight look so far, although a major part of it -Pat's work- still has to be done, I feel fairly good right now about the final outcome.
Oh, and one last thing, I was able to get them to integrate a really killer stereo... way beyond the norm. I had Forrest -FWK- on the board help me out and he really went the extra mile with me. He checked out a 32 at a dealer near him for me and figured out a perfect system.... he even figured out all the lengths of extra heavy gauge speaker and electrical wire we would need and he sent all the stuff to Advantage directly (speakers, wires, fuses...) and talked to the rigger for me to make sure everything would get installled right. Forrest was great, no 32 Advantage previously has had speakers installed in front of the first set of bolsters because there is very little mounting depth in that area. The factory didn't think anythign could fit there. When Forrest checked out a 32 at a local dealer, he figured there was like 2 inches of space behind the side panel in front of the first set of bolsters (too shallow for regular speakers) but he knew that Poly Planar made flat plate marine speakers that just need 1.5 inches depth - http://www.polyplanar.com/5500%20prod%20page.htm - .. and voila, I got those plate speakers installed in without a glitch. That one piece of knowledge Forrest had was like a miracle. Nobody knew about those plate speakers... since I really wanted some speakers in front, we were thinking all kinds of crazy things first like making a custom enclosure and adding it on to the boat or sticking the speakers under the seat with the tweeters up on the dash... real hack jobs that would have been tough to do and cosmetic messes that would probably have broken easily. Forrest's solution just required a cutout and voila, fits flush and is out of the way... just perfect. I know it sounds silly, but this was a big thing to me. It's funny how the internet works magic like that. you can get 100 people to look at it and they will all come up with really extravagent ways to get speakers in and then you have Forrest who knows from experience about the plate speakers and LOL... he has the best and simplest and most reliable solution. So the end result for the stereo -this thing will rock-.

Bench seat- 2: 6x9 Babbs, 2: 10" subs
Inbetween the 2 sets of bolsters on the side panel, 2:6x9 Babbs
In front of the first set of bolsters on the side panels, 2: Polyplanar Plate speakers

Only 2-3 weeks away till the end and man, can hardly believe it. Best Regards---- John

[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: gjockey ]

[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: gjockey ]

well my question is, DO you have any pictures you can e-mail to me? And tell bob to get some photo's of your boat and to put them in the ad's and brouchures. 95% of the boats they have in thier ads look like they have graphics from 1988 on them!!! I think as far a business plan goes thier advertising is horrible. They make so many cool custom boats and deck out the interior and exterior, but then they do a hot boat article of a 32 with 575's and have a plain jane interior in it, then it really pisses me off that they have 575's in it and it only does 89mph!! I gps at 83.7 mph with bone stock 502 mags as does the other 32 with these moters I know of. If they actually spent two weeks testing props and set up's it sere would read alot more impressively in hot boat to see this thing running in the upper 90's like I know it would IF they dialed it in!! Sorry I'm a bit aggresive about things when I know this is true and they dont do it and it would really help the company greatly. I cant wait till spring to do some more testing, I have absolutely everyting out of the boat right now, my whole cabin interior is in a spare bedroom at my house, and that **** isn't light. Lets see what speed I hit with all that weight out of the nose!

Hi Rob,


I have a digital camera and was gonna wait till I got back from my next visit to Havasu with finished boat pics.. but in the meantime, i can whip you out some photos that I took and the factory took as the boat was getting built which will give you a good idea about it.---- John

LOL Rob,


"95% of the boats they have in thier ads look like they have graphics from 1988 on them!!! "


I couldn't agree more. The full page ad they run with pics of their full line is graphically very poor.. and it's sad because they make some real nice stuff (but then again, it's all a reflection of how much effort the owner wants to put into the design). Here's a very nice Advantage I saw on boattraderonline.. just makes you wonder, why they don't put this in their adds... very contemporary look, very nicely done
http://images.traderonline.com/img/6.../1602679_6.jpg

-John

Advantage 30

Wow, that is just the base graphics on the hull and it looks great, I love how seamlessly they fade the colors together, and your cabin is definitely wild looking, AND now I really want to have my cockpit interior re-done it looks great in every aspect, totally custom everywhere, it is a completely matching custom job, outside, inside and in the cabin and it all flows together really good. You'll have to post a full slew of pictures to show the rest of oso how f-in cool advantage does thier ****!!! I hope from our conversations I helped you in getting this thing to be that custom, cuz man that is as cool a boat as I've ever seen!!!

[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: advantage_ROB ]

Thanks for the compliments Rob,


When it's all done and I get to do a maiden voyage back in Miami, I'll put up a nice post and alot of pics. I owe alot to several people on the board. First got into the offshore thing when I stumbled on this site. Got my first ride on a V from a board member down in Miami. Found out alot about the Advantage 32 from you Rob. Got alot of Stereo help from Forrest here and the list can go on and on. Shows the power of the Net. Without it, I'd probably be driving around in some lame Ferrari instead LOL. Offshore is so much cooler ---- John


P.S. Something I found out and Pat the painter agrees with about the Advantage. The boat looks alot sleeker and longer if you can incorporate some real long gelcoat paint work going horizontally across the boat... lines or fades or what not. Something to keep in mind for your next.

[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: gjockey ]

some lame ferarri, that's funny!! I agree with the long lines making the boat look better and more sleek, we had that conversation when we talked I belive, and I see yours is just like that. I've got more pictures of mine, and I want to make a web site of mine sometime this winter, along with the rest of my toys, and some good party pic's too. I was just in Ft. Lauterdale, and we hit bar after bar in the intercoastal on a friend of a friends magnum with diesels in it, and me and all my friends were all saying how much fun we would have in our boats flying thru the intercoastals, and going from miami to lauterdale partying all year round. That year round boating sure would be nice.

[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: advantage_ROB ]

Yehp,

A Ferrari is still a car -and a Fiat at that -. Got 4 wheels got an engine, you got to drive it on a road and deal with all the *******s that comes with the privelage of driving in Miami. Offshore V tho, it's another world... especially in South Florida man. Just paradise year round for boating.. and the great thing is, my boat gonna be stored in a hanger just 15 minutes away. Give a call at 5PM, they drop it in the water by 5:15 , I'm there and off and running.. intracoastals, Ocean whatever..., sun sets around 8PM normally, can catch that, drop the boat off and they rack it. How crazy is that?.. and I'm just talking about a short weekday jaunt. Best regards---- John

P.S. Rob, our conversations definitely helped convince me to try a no compromises attitude in regards to customizing boat. The best thing about Advantage is, the more ideas I came up with and the more I got into the whole process, the more they seemed to get into it with me. Like they thought it was cool I was getting so involved with the process even though that meant more work for them. ie. Like before Forrest came on board and figured out the front stereo plate speaker solution... Bob's attitude at the factory was like, we never did it before, but since it seems like you really want this boat to be top notch all around, we'll figure something out. Great attitude. Could have just said we never did it and it can't be done, Next.

[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: gjockey ]

[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: gjockey ]