Unique Way to See This Year's Key West World Championships

Every year, thousands of powerboat racing fans flock to Key West for the World Championships in November. It's a tradition, where everyone wants to experience the thrills and excitement of the high-speed boat races. This year, premier Key West tour center Best On Key West will be offering exclusive trips on their state-of-the-art catamarans that will provide guests with the best views of the powerboat races.

These special Powerboat Races Catamaran Trips will take guests out to the end of the race course straight where everyone on board will have a full one mile view of the race course. Trips depart at 8:30 in the morning and return to the island at 3:30PM...including a continental breakfast, buffet lunch, and complimentary drinks (mimosas, beer, wine, and sodas).

"These are trips we only run once a year especifically for the Key West Powerboat Races," explains Best On Key West office manager Tania Espinoza. "Anyone who's seen the races from one of our catamarans will attest to the fact that it truly is one of the best spots for viewing the races and one of the most fun times had during their stay in Key West."

Yeah - it's a sailboat - but if you can't get a boat of your own down there or you don't have a friend who will let you tag along on their Cigarette, this sounds like a great way to watch the action. And who knows? You might make some new friends. Find out more here.

VIDEO: Why Every Fast Boat Boat Needs a Kill Switch...

Unless you're just putzing around the lake at no-wake speeds, it's always a good idea to have an ignition kill-switch and a lanyard installed on your boat. This is one of the first things any high-performance boat owner should look into, because if you are hitting the waves at any kind of speed, bad things can sometimes happen. This is especially the case if you are a new and relatively inexperienced boater.

This video picks up at Stuart Inlet, FL, after the driver and his two passengers have already been thrown off their center console boat. This is not necessarily a high-performance boat - but it's obviously fast enough to cause trouble for an inexperienced driver. Another boat is running alongside, and the YouTube poster (jeremyglass86) is taking the video:

"...another boat picked up the boat owners and we rode along side, radioed the coast guard, and made sure no one was hurt. "

Thankfully, the folks on the "chase boat" did the right thing - while it might be tempting, it would be very foolish and dangerous to try and get on board a boat moving across the waves at speed. The lesson here is simple: Use a kill-switch and lanyard, which will shut the boat down immediately if you fall or get ejected from the boat for some reason. Without one, your boat just becomes a guided missile that's been let loose to destroy or damage property, or even worse--hurt someone. Not to mention the damage to the boat itself, which could be avoided.

SPY PHOTOS: Check Out the New Outerlimits SL 44

Serious Offshore member animalhouse shared these sweet new photos of Outlerlimits new SL 44 before it made it's way to the paint booth. As you can see, this boat has a very slick design and a beautiful interior as well.

PHOTO CREDITS: All photos credited to SOS member - animalhouse.

Reportedly the SL 44 is the first boat in the industry to be built with a special Carbon Monococque Grid System. This grid-based building technique is supposed to result in considerable weight savings, as well as significantly increased strength.


The hull is all e-glass, which provides for a very smooth and stable ride. This particular boat, which is powered by twin Whipple Charged Teague 1200's, reportedly "pulls to 137 without even breaking a sweat."


Congratulations again to the team at Outerlimits, who just keep coming up with one great boat design after another. To find out more, register at SOS and check out the thread, or head over to the Outerlimits website.

VIDEO: Apaches Go Head-to-Head at LOTO

Apaches are great boats - but you don't see one every day - much less two of them speeding side-by-side across the water. That's why we just wanted you to see this great-looking video posted on YouTube by user 41Apache, whose 41-foot No Reservations is shown flying down Lake of The Ozarks with a 31' Apache named Indian Giver. As he explains on an accompanying thread on OSO:

"I was running 65-70 in that video at about 3700-4000 rpms. Wave heights were 4-5's with a few 6's thrown in between. The swells were from hurricane Bill."

The footage is better than most casually-shot onboard videos - that's probably due to the excellent GoPro video camera, which is specially made for high-shock environments such as this. Also - a little scotch tape over the mic helps cut down on the wind noise!

There's a nice thread on OSO about this video HERE - and some accompanying videos that aren't too bad either - but for very different reasons!

Enjoying Georgian Bay Beauty as Summer Draws to a Close

This summer hasn't been the greatest for boating; sure -- there have been a few decent weekends here and there, but overall, the season has been much cooler and a little wetter than we'd like to see. That hasn't stopped some die-hard boaters from hitting the water, and Offshore Only member Bobthebuilder is one of them. Bob was kind enough to share some of his photos from a recent trip around Canada's Georgian Bay.

"After about the worst summer I can remember weather-wise, I decided to take the afternoon yesterday and cruise out to The Western Islands and finish up in the small craft channel in the 30,000 Islands. The Westerns are about 15 miles offshore and are uninhabited. Weather was perfect. Enjoy the pics."

PHOTO CREDITS: Offshore Only user Bobthebuilder.

Bob took his Donzi out to the Western Islands about 20 miles offshore to take these photos, whihc really show off the ruged beauty of this area. He explains: "My route was Midland / pass betweek Beckwith and Giants Tomb / Westerns and then into the SC channel at O'Donnel Point and south to Honey Harbour and finally back to Midland. Gorgeous day but just not enough of them this summer."

To see the rest of his photos, check out this thread on Serious Offshore.