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Fred Smith’s boating
career started out like thousands of others’. He took to the water
at age 10 aboard his father’s rowboat and with rod in hand set out
to see what he could catch. Over the years the boats got bigger, the fishing
grounds expanded, and the cruising activities took him and his wife Mary
up and down the Intracoastal Waterway between Florida and Annapolis, Maryland,
and oftentimes out to the Bahamas.
The difference between
Smith and most other boaters, however, is that he’s been at it for
70 years, and the boats he’s owned were built by some of the great
names in wooden boatbuilding, Wheeler and Matthews among them. Even though
these were followed by a 20-year flirtation with sailing, he returned
to the powerboat fold with a 42-foot Uniflite, a 38-foot Blackfin, and
then a 27-foot Boston Whaler.
If you look at this
downsizing trend, you might think this energetic octogenarian was ready
to pick up another rowboat and return to his roots. But not Smith. Given
his and his wife’s penchant for cruising and fishing the Bahamas,
Smith realized he needed to upsize again. In November 1998 he purchased
his first Cabo, a 35-foot Convertible. He was impressed with the boat’s
quality and dry ride but needed more room for guests. So when Doc Austin,
president of HMY Yacht Sales in Dania, Florida, told him about the new
47 Cabo coming down the ways, Smith was first in line. And the rest, as
they say, is history.
According to Cabo sales
manager Greg Borque, the yard spent two years developing the 47. "We
built a hull and deck with no interior and filled it with 55-gallon drums
to create a life-size tank test. We pumped water between the drums, ran
the boat, and found the optimum center of gravity and horsepower combination.
We didn’t go any further until we had this nailed down." Borque
says Cabo then finished the job by designing an innovative interior with
a watchful eye on weight. The hull bottom is solid FRP, but the hull sides
and decks are of Corecell foam sandwiched between layers of FRP and bonded
using vacuum bagging. The result is a strong 50-footer with a dry weight
of just 42,000 pounds.
The 47 sports the usual
fishing accoutrements but with several innovations. For example, the seven-foot-long
in-sole fishboxes on either side of the cockpit have split hatches with
gas-assisted struts so they’re easy to open when you’re boating
smaller quarry like dolphin and kingfish. But if you need to stow a big
one, you can easily remove the entire hatch. The 50-gallon livewell on
the transom is waist high for easy access and lit for nighttime use. There’s
thick inwale padding on all three sides and good nonskid decking. Forward
and to port, the 47 has the typical bait-prep center with sink and freezer
next to the centerline engine room door. Decidedly atypical is the electrical
console to starboard. Here, just beneath a stowage box are all the switches
you need to run the cockpit–fresh- and raw-water pumps, livewell
pump, cockpit lights, and even macerator pumps for the fishboxes–all
clearly labeled.
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