March Hot Boat Article
 

Just read the boat tests in the March Hot Boat Article. Fastcats you must love it! Without a doubt, your 31' AO is the best priced rocket in the tests. Great job keep up the AO name, still want a 31', my 26' is a little too short and wide for the bad Atlantic Ocean off of AC,NJ. PS, are you still doing the american flag decals down the side of the 26' AO's? Maybe interested if I keep my 26 for this summer.

Hey Steve,

That was a great article! :D

Must say........the pictures were really nice too:D :D :D ;) :cool: :cool:

Hi BlueAmerican,

The article wasn't bad, the water that day was pretty snotty, if you look back you will see water conditions were rough, while all of the others were moderate, I think if we could have found the right water we would have seen the 134mph that we got the day before, we even showed the gps speedo recall to them!

The only part that I didn't like is where they said we didn't have any cup holders and right beside the statement was a picture showing six! They said that our weight of 6800 was heavy while the weight of the 30 eliminator at 6800 was light. Whats up with that?

Yep, we're doing the American flag behind the model numbers, I'll get you a set if you want. We had a 3100 here in Miami w hp500's that ran 102.7 with full tanks of fuel and only a few hours old. The whole boat is an American flag!

Scott:)

Fastcats,

You just don't give as much money to Hot Boat as Eliminator does.

mike

KatDrvr,

You may be right! and BlueAmerican said it, we are priced very competitive, ... hey! maybe that's why we were having ham sandwiches on the dock at the show and those guys were upstairs having steaks! Actually we like ham sandwiches, LOL!

Fastcats,

Did you get a chance to run side by side with the Elim. in the rough water? Just curious how AO ride compares to the Elim. My guess is much better in the rough.

mike

Hey Kat,

No we did not run side by side with the 33, however we did have 3 people that rode in theirs and came over and we went thru the same path on demo rides and so far 2 have bought from us, I'm not saying that one is better than the other, although I am biased, but my customers have made comments, that I think in all fairness, should not be repeated. My opinion is that Eliminator builds a good boat and Bob is a nice guy. Our boat likes the rough and then again ... maybe we just got lucky. Who knows!

Scott

Hey Scott, great article. Love that boat since my ride in Tex's 3100 a few years ago. Don't know if you can answer this, but why have the other owners bought AO, then turn around and sell it again? Everything I've read say's you're improving the quality and all, but were the other owners just poor business men? Did they think they'd make a million over night and then realize boat buildings a tough business? Just looking at company stability. Hopefully you'll have it when I hope to move up, I'll be calling you!

Thanks,
Craig

Why did they sell???
 

I think I can answer, business is business. My first AO was a 26' from Ed Ferro in 95' (the powerboat mag special), great boat, fast, workmanship needed a little help, engine was wild, did go over 100mph, but radical, got mad, sold it on a whim. Got another Cat (Talon 22') great boat, workmanship etc., too small and not fast enough. Called Ed Ferro, traded the Talon for another 26' AO, Steve D'Nick bought company with brother's Art's money. Boat was much better quality, workmanship etc. Steve tried to race boat to promote etc., I guess Art wanted money back quicker (who can blame an investor for a good rate of return), Now Scott steps in with experience with Emerald and I think "Sugar Sand Jet boats" (the greatest jet boats on the market) and will give it a try. Quality is important, rigging, fit, look, etc., but to pay three times as much for a Skater, I will take an AO every day. Business is business, somewhere in between having fun, living, working with boats, you have to pay the bills and make some money, and I wish Scott all the luck with AO, keep up the great work, and I will be in touch. Steve P.

FastCat, Nice article. Where did you get the Fresh Water cooling setup. It looks to have an oil cooler and filter attached to it?

Thanks Blue American,

But whats this about having fun and living, this is a 24/7 deal for us, but we like it that way!

I come from the automotive racing industry where I worked for companies such as Edelbrock, MSD, Crane, Comp Cams ...etc. About 8 years ago, my conned me into the boat industry, of course it would be doing what our hobby was then, now it is work! We developed a compact jet for Sugar Sand and helped with the R&D of that, from there we were hired by the Seebold ? Emerald company where we worked with Bill Seebold closely and later worked closely with Brad Collins of Mirage fame. Needless to say we had some pretty good teachers and learned a tremendous amount.

Sales for us has increased, so far by about 140% last year and we already are ahead of last year to date sales by over 200%.

We like what we do and work hard to get the customer what they want! As much as I like racing, we just cannot do it and pay attention to business and I think that that was the downfall of the other guys. They were good guys with different priorities.

Scott

Scott, When you worked for sugar sand did you design and help on the 'Heat XRS'? We have one for my son and all of us love it. Too bad they stopped building it. It would be a screemer with the new 240HP V-6 Mercury jet!!

Hey Cobra,

We tried it with the 175 v-6 and it proved too fast and agile for the consumer we thought, so we canned the v6 project. It's just too much, the final answer was the last day it was tested, it launched fairly high and ended up injuring one of the passengers pretty bad, Aimee and I are still very good friends with the owner, Gary Rutherford. Aimee played an important part in the interior lay out of the heat, in fact the little step ups in the footwells are called Aimee steps. She's 5 foot tall on a big hair day! Our first heat 120 test boat ran 56mph and we tested it down in the Louisiana bayous running from bar to bar!

By the way, the fresh water cooling was basically designed after an oil cooler, works great! It just clutters the engine up.

Scott

Steve and I worked very hard on our 3100 with the Eagle and flag down the side of the boat. We wanted to try to bring the best boat that A.O. has ever brought to the Miami show.

Some loved it and some didn't...can't please everyone but we did not fail for lack of effort.
No one wanted to see the good movies on the 11.5 flat screen T.V. down in the cabin:D :D :D

We have alot of ideas for the next 3100. Can't tell you guys yet...Scott knows us,we kept him in the dark until the day before the show.

If anyone has ideas or improvements please let me know. Hold on for the next one:p :p :p

Rob
Xtreme Dream Machines
Florida's only A.O. Dealer

Those guys at Xtreme did a GREAT job with the graphics. I thought that everyone loved them, Look for it to appear in the May issue of Powerboat Mag. As far as I am concerned it was the best that has been to the show. Bob Teague and HOTBOAT Mag both said that the AO's are getting better and better!

Dino Dog, We just didn't want to offend anyone with those special movies! This boat was the American Eagle, maybe the next one should be named "Rated X"!!!!! Put a pair of those new Merc 1050's in it and give the "cat eyes" boat a run for it!

Good Job Guys!


Hey Mltdwn,

We have been with AO now for over a year, why they said "new owners" again? I'm not sure. Ed founded the company in the late eightys and had it until 1999, the other owners took over for a short run, made improvements, but lacked in sales experience, we have been here over a year and have had sales improvements as well as model improvements and have added a dealer base in selected markets. Through it all, AO has always run on a strong platform, we are known as being one of the Fastest best built Cats out there and they are built to last as witnessed by Tex Taylors boat and a ton of others. We still have a lot of happy early ninety's owners. And yes, boat building is a tough business!!!! Give me a call!

Scott

I'm typically not a fan of large bright graphics on powerboats, but the 31 AO at the Miami Boat Show was very clean and tasteful. Spent a lot of time looking at 31 foot cat's this year. AO is definitely in the running for the choice of purchase.

-Bayley

Great Pic Bayley!!!!!!