Jul 24

Jul 24 Car Guys Doing Boats: The One Wake

As an avid YouTube watcher I have noticed a proliferation of car enthusiast channels the last few years. It seems like the mainstream car publications are making content and a bunch of independent guys have started making interesting car videos. Most of the content is reviewing cars and talking about the latest cars. Some of the best YouTube car channels are the ones that review beaters or pro drivers who ring out fancy cars on tracks. Some car channels are closer to lifestyle vlogs. My favorites are Tim's Enthusiast Garage, Motor Trend - Head 2 Head, Chris Harris on Cars and The Smoking Tire’s: One Take.

Recently, Matt Farah from The Smoking Tire, started reviewing boats. If you're not familiar with his channel, Matt drives cars that are provided to him by volunteers and usually they are fairly unique or have been heavily modified. It's good content, Matt seems like a good guy who really loves cars and you get to checkout some cool rides. His first forray into boats was a 24 Checkmate Pulsare bowrider with a wakeboard tower. Not exactly a hardcore performance boat but it has a Mercury Racing 300XS, so it should go pretty good. The problem is Matt and the owner don't really know much about boats, neither one knew anything about Checkmate, which is one of the oldest and most popular performance boating brands in America. It would be like not knowing what a Mustang is. Obviously if the owner wanted a bow rider and a tower, then you can assume he's not really into performance boats. I hate towers on anything other than a towboat, I hate bow riders too but that is another story.

So they drive around in the boat, don't offer much of an opinion on it, don't really know how to ring it out and seem like newbie boaters. Basically, it was really disappointing. What makes the car version interesting is that Matt gets into technical details about the car, the car itself is modified or special and Matt knows how to drive and brings a certain level of expertise to the commentary. He doesn't have that same level of knowledge with boats.

In another episode, Matt reviews an Avon inflatable with a 40 Yamaha. That would be the equivalent of a Smart car with a governor; something you would never see on car version of The One Take. This boat is owned by a dealer and the salesman is riding shotgun. During the review the salesman claims “this is a really well designed hull, it handles very very well.” No, it is not well designed, they don’t handle well at all, they perform horribly. In the video you can see the boat struggling to plane and porpoising badly. He also claims inflatables handle better than regular boats, also not true. I get it, he’s a boat salesman, he’s trying to sell his Avon tender that usually sits on the deck of a yacht, hardly ever used. The only real advantage a rigid inflatable has is when it is crashed into a dock and they might be a little safer as rescue boats but that’s it, everything else is a disadvantage. In fact, Matt gets soaking wet in the video just driving around, it’s an unacceptably bad design. One more thing, inflatables aren't lighter than comparable full glass or aluminum boats. This guy also claims in the video a similar size Whaler is over 1,000 lbs, again, not true; they weigh about the same and the Whaler will outperform it all day.

Boston Whaler — Tenders

A Whaler will weigh about the same as a RIB, outperform it and be safer. Plus you won't look like as big of an idiot driving it.

Sorry, this turned into a rant about how much I hate rigid inflatables. The One Wake is for beginner boaters I guess, which is fine but I was hoping for something more, knowing Matt’s interest in fast cars. Having said that, I hope the show does well and people are interested in it as increasing the popularity of boating is good for the industry overall. I’ll see if I can get Matt to do an interview for Wave to Wave and have him tell us more about the direction of the show.