Aero-tek Boats
 

DOES ANYONE OUT THERE NO ANYTHING ABOUT AERO-TEK BOATS? WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM? ANY OPPINIONS ON THEIR BOATS WOULD BE APPRECIATED. THIS IS MY FIRST POST AND I LOOK FORWARD TO ALL OF YOU EXPERTS SHARING YOUR KNOWLEDGE.

AeroTek was rockin' in the mid 90's and was "supposedly" a good boat to own. Actually, i believe the quality was really good, BUT, they were robbing peter to pay paul and as things slowed a little, they got really behind and FINALLY closed the doors...screwing a lot of people of of their hard earned money. So the boat may have been good, but there is no resale.

THANKS SCREAMIN FOR THE INFO. IT'S A SHAME AERO-TEK IS GONE BECAUSE I THOUGHT THEY HAD A GOOD LOOKING PRODUCT. DO YOU KNOW WHO THE HULL DESIGNER WAS?

gofast i always thought they were good looking boats too. they used to pop up now and again in the ohio boat trader, always seem to be reasonably proced to. but i havnt seen any latley. any body know where they were made (state) ?

GLASSDAVE BACK IN THE MID TO LATE 90'S I RECIEVED AN INFO PACKET WITH SOME GREAT PICS OF THEIR 27 & 29 MODELS. I BELIEVE THEY WERE IN SOUTH FL THEN MAYBE AROUND FT. LAUDERDALEOF IT COULD HAVE BENN MIAMI. I, LIKE YOU LOVED THE LOOK!

Oh man, what a touchy subject for some people on this board. I think that Activethunder todd got screwed big time from them. I am sure he will chime in with his experience. :(

THANKS GUYS FOR ALL THE INFO, I HAVE ENJOYED YOUR EXPERTISE AND LOOK FORWARD TO TALKING AGAIN. YOU GUYS HAVE MADE MY FIRST EXPERIENCE ON "THE BOARD" A PLEASURABLE ONE. HAVE A GOOD NIGHT!

they were built on the west coast, Sarasota/Ft Meyers area

They where built in Sarasota, and the designer was Bob Zanine.The hull is a Wellcraft Excal.bottom with a notch in the transom,with Bobs deck design,the boat is a great built boat and very fast.The hull is strong,well built and great rigging.They built a 35 that was one the best boat in the line,when i did some testing with the boat in the mid 90's the boat ran 86 mph with a pair of carb. 650's.
They were price reasonable and where a great value for the money at the time,if you can find a clean one at the right price you cant go wrong....

There is a guy at LOTO that bought a few bare hulls and rigged them himself. I have not seen them up close, but driving by them they look pretty good. They also had a pretty good price on them if I remember right.

Those boats were pieces of ****! Trust me we have been there done that. I have some very good friends from Germany that would love for Bob to come over for a little vacation. I have had the deck flexing so bad and the sides sucking wind in 3-4s that a Bayliner would be an improvement. We were not the nice guys we are today back when that *******s name was on our minds .That dude that built those boats is very lucky we had other problems back in the day to use our resourses.

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Jeff,
I'm not sure what boats you got for germany but all the boats i've tested and drive handle great and i never had one brake,including the race boats.We had 2 local out of sarasoto in B class about 8 yrs ago and they did very well.I local Doctor in town ran one of them and Bob ran one for two years and did very well with it,and never once did we have any hull damage they were built like a brick **** house,with all of the best materials...

Xtreme who are you? Go over to Innovation and ask Rick who we are. My best friend ordered the boat later known as Triton, built with 550 motors and # 3's in it. He ordered that boat from Bob with a big bag of cash up front and never got to finish it and got screwed out of all his money due to the fact he was in jail. 2nd another 32 with 465 Mercs was almost stolen from our group by Bob that was waiting to be finished until the (almost not) owner came over and put a SW in that dudes mouth and we took the boat. Third he stole a $100k cash deposit from another buddy that was from Germany. Go away with this subject.

Jeff, sorry to hear you or your friends got screwed but I think he is aking for opinions on the boat not the builder. I agree, he screwed alot of people but beyond that the boat seemed to be a nice piece. Would love to hear others comment on the product not the builder.

Todd

Oh God!!! Not AeroTek again!!!
 

Ok for everyone that has been on this board for some time already knows my story regarding this guy. Zanine never went to jail for what he did which is a true shame. First off back in 94 I ordered a 33' with 502 mags. I was suppose to take delivery in March of 95. In Dec of 94 Zanine told me that the boat was "mostly complete" and that I needed to get him the whole amount of money. Not being nearly as wise in these matters I let him contact my bank directly and he provided them MSO serial numbers and the works as far as paper work goes so the bank released the funds and I began making boat payments. I thought the boats look great and thought they were built pretty well too. Well to make a very long story short I was one of 12 people that got burned by this guy in Oct of 95 when his business bank came in with the local sheriffs dept and locked him out of his building. After sueing everbody I could think of I came away with a blank 33' hull and a small amount of money from his bank just to go away. (still lost over $50,000 in the whole deal) I traded the hull to PAt at AT for my 32' AT in sept of 98. What I did find out later however is that if you got one of the few Aero Teks that were delived in 93 to 94 they were total complete pieces of ****. I think the guy in LOTO that has the aero Tek boats has fixed them up pretty well. In fact He ended up getting the 33' that I got as my settlement. Zanine would show the same serial numbers to motors that he had to a bunch of different customers telling each one that they were theres. He would put a paint job on a boat, show it to you then sand it off and put a different one back on and show the same hull to someone else. He made many many enemies. He even had a deal working with Shiada Boats from California and took them for alot of money. Zanine was and still is nothing but a crook and a liar. Last I heard he was working in the electrical contractring company in Sarasota. If anyone knows where he is I for one wouldn't mind pating him a visit.

One last note on this is how I got hooked up with Pat at AT during this time. In Oct or 95 when I thought I was going to get the hull form Zanine Pat helped me out. I was suppose to get a trailer in this deal but of course Zanine didn't have one for me. I had never met Pat in person just talked with him on the phone. I needed a trailer bad and Pat was the only person in Fl. that I could think of to call. He said sure come on over and you can use one of my trailers. We had never met yet. I got there, he unloaded a boat off of a trailer, we hooked it up to my truck and I drove away. He never asked me for a deposit and just said to bring it back when I was done with it. Well i didn't get the hull at that time and brought his trailer back to him a couple days later. It was then that I knew I would buy a boat from him when I was able too. 3 years later I did just that. If anyone wants to know more about my Aero Tek experiences please feel free to call me at 608-289-3834.

Todd K.

The boats built in 93 and 94 were total crap. he was trying to cut corners and save money. I know he did deliver some boats in those years and even into 95. The boats that the guy from LOTO has have been gone thru and looked at closely by them. I stopped and talked with him last year when we were down there. Still don't think they are the best offshore rough water boats even in they're best days. They were very very light. My 33' was suppose to weigh around 6200 - 6500 lbs w/ twin big blocks. My 32' AT weighs in at 7200 lbs.

Todd K.

WOW! DID I OPEN A CAN OF WORMS OR WHAT? I JUST THOUGHT THEY WERE NICE LOOKING BOATS BUT THANKS FOR THE INPUT, I'LL STAY AWAY FROM THE USED ONES.

NOW LET'S OPEN ANOTHER CAN! I FELL IN LOVE WITH A 30' COBALT CONDURRE THAT WAS DESIGNED BY JIM WYNNE. ANYBODY EVER DRIVE OR TAKE A RIDE IN ONE OF THESE?

Wasn't the grey "Sorcer" a Areo teck? It's for sale and was pretty fast at the Shoot-Out in the Ozarks a few year's back.

The people that have it for sale have a new Skater that is called "Sorcer"(sp) Their name is something like Tis;oadhgap;e
or something like that, I think they are from Dabuque, Iowa

The owner of several hulls at LOTO is Gregg at Extreme. E-mail him at [email protected]. He has a 30 and a 35 finished and for sale under his Extreme Powercraft manufacturers code.

COBALT 30 CONDURRE
 

well built,heavy,comfy and slow as hell.:eek:

Dave B from STl are you the Dave that has the 40 Skater?

ssherman,

No I have a 32 Sunsation.

Dave

I believe the hull design of the 30' Cobalt Condurre was eventually sold to Cobalt by Carerra. It was based off of Carerra's 9M design. I have ridden in the 9M Carerra's several times back in the 1980's and they were very HEAVY boats, but could they ever take a hard pounding---I always felt safe in them. Great rough water boat!!!

i had the last 35 to get out of the factory..great boat for the money.. Very LIGHT ..would run mid 80's.. carb hp 500's..redid the boat paint., carpet.pop up cleats.. etc..

Aerotek !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

I do not know what most of youre problems are, fact is that back in the days it was the best deal fast good looking and cheap.
Yes Bob did allot of stupid things with the Germans wich are also friends of mine.
But i have an AEROTEK and i kick ass with it !!!
C-YA !!!!:evilb:

I had this boat that was build by Aero tech, and challenger. I don't know if its the same aero tech or not. But it was a great, fast hull.

i just did an upgrade from my 22 sonic to a 30 aero-tek with twin hp 500 staggerd

so, there are still some fl aero-tek's around.


steve

Was that 35' hull an original design. Also I think their ads had every size in one foot increments available. Correct me if it was a different company.

SAME COMPANY !!!!!!!!

Mold was original a 32 excalibur stretched to 38 the blocked of in 1 foot sections on the transom !!
38,37,36,35,34,and so on ,,all the way down to 27 !!!

VERY FAST AND GOOD HULL ,,but the deck is just paper thin ,,other then that awsome !!!

Did Bob Z any cats also, just wondering...
http://www.boatingbay.com/listings/1...ran-80153.html

At least it looks a lot better than a 32 Aero-Tek.

screamindemon, Is that you dare devil??

^ Theres the Aero-TeK cat made by welcraft. They could also be had with outboards.

See above. I think Aero-TeK bought the molds from Welcraft.

Todd your story is exactly the same thing that happened to a friend of mine. I was going to make a post about the paint jobs until I read your post. Zanine would actually paint one side of the boat with one customers design and then paint the other side with another customers design. Then he would only let you see the boat through the window to the shop. My friend got whacked for about 86k.

http://i56.tinypic.com/2whqq8o.jpg

I remember the stories in the local papers about his customers that would send the builder engines to put in their boat, only to have the guy put them in another boat and sell it for cash.