Banana Boat Info?
 

Hi,

I am new to this site and noticed that there is a Banana Boat Forum. I owned a banana boat in the late 80's early 90's and it was probably the best boat I ever had.

I bought mine new from the company which was based out of RI. I am back in the market again for another boat and I would like a banana!

About a month ago I called Port Edgewood (the place where I bought my banana) They said that they were in the process of building a run of boats ready for the boat shows this year. I was wondering if there have been changes in ownership or something because I was told they were being built in RI and it keeps mentioning Florida in all the posts.

Does anyone know the story because I am really interested but am a little confused to what the status is and who is building the banana's?

Hope to know soon so I can get a new boat by spring, that is if it ever thaws here in Mass.

Re: Banana Boat Info?
 

OK not to bash anyone here, so here is the short version of the story. The two members here on OSO, Top Banana and Chatim Racing, are father and son. Top Banana was the original owner of Banana. He sold the molds to Port Edgewood in the 80's. He and his son now are reforming the company agian, and are based out of Florida.


Port Edgewood may indeed be getting ready to make some new boats, but I doubt it. And if they did I would stay away from their boats. They stopped building them for a reason. They started changing lay up methods and maybe other things and the boat quality went down drasticly.Don't get me wrong I have one of their boats and its fine by me. But I've seen stories of others that were horror shows.

Top Banana learned to build his boats the right way. From the right man. Don Arronow himself, of cigarette, magnum, formula, apache, and many other companies he started that are still around today. those companies wouldn't have survived if he didn't build quality boats. I'm sure that TB has passed on his knowlwdge to his son(Chatim). And now Chatim is working to make boats of the same level of quality while incorporating some newer technology.

So I guess what I'm saying is if I were in the market for a new Banana and had the choice of either team building my boat. I would go to Top Banana and Chatim Racing. Hands Down!

So send them a PM and I'm sure they will help you out. As well as give you the scoop on weather Port Edgewood is going to make any more boats or not.

Hope this helped.