Florida is a great state to visit in the winter, and we were lucky to spend a few days of March down in Fort Lauderdale celebrating the opening TrawlerFest for 2025. The sun was bright, the rain sprinkles were limited and the ocean breeze coming off the sea and into Bahia Mar resort was a welcoming gift for attendees.
Bahia Mar resort is world famous for hosting FLIBS (the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show) every year. As the largest boat show in the US, it can get crowded and hectic very quickly as thousands come daily to check out the docks. It is common to wait in long lines to see boats.
Luckily overwhelming and oversaturated wasn’t the case for the smaller, but still popular TrawlerFest. Street traffic was reasonable, parking was affordable at the venue and you could actually find a place to park! There were more people attending the Florida Trawlerfest this year than last year, but we also had more room to spread making the time spent more appealing for everyone.
After several years in Stuart, FL, the Florida Trawlerfest location was changed to Fort Lauderdale for 2025 with plans for Bahia Mar to host again in 2026. It was over a decade ago that Trawler Fest (two words with capitals) was held at the Bahia Mar Resort. It was fun to reminisce and compare the two events held ten years apart at this special venue.
Jeff, Pam and Jon (the JMYS team) flew out on Sunday from California to get ready and spent the first couple of days meeting with clients to discuss trawlers.
Trawlerfest had three locations at the Bahia Mar venue. The seminars were held on the second floor above the lobby of the Bahia Mar resort with Julie, Donna and Priscilla greeting and guiding people to the seminar classrooms and also directing attendees to the tent area and docks (both of which opened on Thursday).
On Wednesday, our fabulous tent team Jon and Pam set up our booth in preparation for the event while Jeff kicked off his week of seminars with Dialing In Your Trawler to a packed room of enthusiastic Trawler owners (current and future) looking for ideas that they can use aboard. If you attended the session, please feel free to download the PDF PowerPoint down below as well as the handouts and put some of these concepts to use!
Wow and hurray, 33 boats were on display! The new and used trawler market is opening up, more sellers and buyers were on the docks and the selection is varied with optimism and enthusiasm for the trawler lifestyle continuing to build.
On Thursday, docks B and C opened for visitors to start boarding boats. Jeff had a brief chance to hit the docks but was called back to the classroom by mid afternoon to serve as the host and moderator for a three hour session called, “Trawler Buying Tips”. This is one of the most popular seminars at every Trawlerfest and the room was packed with attendees scrambling to take down every note from many industry experts!
Trawler Buying Tips kicked off with Steve Zimmerman and his clever boat selection matrix helping buyers figure out what type of trawler might best serve them depending upon their cruising plans. Jeff then talked about selecting a yacht broker and extolled the virtues of finding a broker you trust, preferably a member of one of the yacht broker associations to insure trust, ethics and good business practices. He also covered the advantages of working with a CPYB (Certified Professional Yacht Broker) the highest credential a yacht broker can achieve. Cindy Lewis from Sterling Associates discussed in detail how to get marine financing. Next up with John Posey from Total Dollar to review marine insurance. Once you have a broker, know which trawler you want, have the funds to proceed and have a plan for insurance you can write up an offer and get a survey, which merged right in the Kerry Nikula from Elite Marine Surveyors who outlined how you find a surveyor, what to look for during a survey and other important aspects of onboard due diligence. The session culminated with Matt Miller, maritime attorney from Miller Watson Marine Attorneys, who discussed; titles, taxes and tariff amongst other important legal technicalities every boat buyer should be aware of. We ran slightly over our time slot but were graciously excused by Wayne Goldman from Selene Yachts America’s who was up next.
A special thank you and acknowledgment to Kim Russo from the AGCLA (America’s Great Loop Cruising Association) for a fun, but brief hello before she conducted a program about doing the Loop, which timing wise, was tough, because it overlapped with Trawler Buying Tips. We heard later that several couples used a “divide and conquer” strategy with one sitting in on Tips and the other Looping. Good thinking!
With the docks open and the trawlers ready for boarding, Jeff and Pam grabbed the video gear and started filming. Several years ago Jeff started a series of video time capsules to celebrate each Trawlerfest called a “Dock Walk and Talk”. These videos can be found on our YouTube channel and capture some of the people we met and trawlers on display. They continue to increase in popularity and views with each passing year.
For 33 boats, two docks were in play to secure all of the trawlers. In addition to walking down the docks to record a summary of the trawlers on display, Jeff was invited aboard nearly a dozen trawlers to get a more in-depth tour. With all the additional footage, we will be doing something different this year. Our standard Dock Walk and Talk will be business as usual, but we will also share the individual trawler tours as short standalone videos called “TrawlAboard.” None of these boats are listed for sale by JMYS (each video will have information on the boat and representative). We just love giving our viewers a more in-depth onboard experience of different brands and to meet many of our favorite fellow trawler brokers who were kind enough to show us around. These videos will be posted on our YouTube video – so make sure you are subscribed to find out when they are live!
Check out the full list of boats that were on display below:
Back in the tents we had a fun visit from John Hoffman (current JMYS broker) and Ray Danet (former JMYS broker).
Friday was a gorgeous Florida day, the gateway to the weekend. Jeff and Pam arrived early to do some video filming before the show. “TrawlAboard” videos were recorded with:
Andrew Cilla – Luke Brown – Outback 50
Dave Price – Burr Yacht Sales – Fleming 55
Paul Cifka – Selene Americas – Selene 54
Michael Mandel – YachtsSalesInternational.com – Greenline 39
Scott Helker – Helmsman Trawlers – Helmsman 38E
Then it was back to the tents! Jeff had a good visit and enjoyed some office time up in the marina control tower thanks to John Jarvie from Oversea Insurance.
Friday walking around the tents Jeff recognized Nathan Cicio and Lindsey Lock from 71 percent – a blossoming YouTube channel sharing their adventures on the new to them Nordhavn 41. You’ll have to go to their page to learn the cool significance of 71 percent and the equally cool artwork on their transom. Jeff had a short conversation to congratulate them on their Nordhavn purchase and successful YouTube channel and…just as fast and in a blink, they were off to the docks with their video gear to take a look with plans to quickly get back to their boat and take off on their next trip. Hopefully there will be a time in the future where Jeff can sit down with Nathan and Lindsey them to hear more about how things are going. Here is a link to their channel – please check it out and subscribe, they are very fun and energetic.
https://www.youtube.com/@The71Percent
Jeff went back to the docks to film a wonderful tour with Mike Schlichtig of Outer Reef Yachts aboard their Outer Reef 720. Joel Davidson was also aboard. These two have been with Outer Reef since inception and their product knowledge is exceptional. The boat on display was really a spectacular boat.
Finally on Friday afternoon, it was time for the Town Hall -Ask the Experts Panel where Jeff served as moderator. This event started years ago with veteran cruiser, and circumnavigator, Bruce Kessler opening up his brain to all comers. It continues to pack the room and for Fort Lauderdale our experts included Chris Parker, Cindy Lewis, John Posey, Wayne Goldman, Bob Arrington and Steve Zimmerman. It was one of our best discussions and we had an active, curious and engaging audience which made it that much better.
Saturday welcomed another sunny, summer day (not bad for March) and with our classroom commitments completed it was fun to meet people at our booth in the tent and also go down to the docks to get on a few more boats and catch up with our fellow yacht brokers and the people walking the docks.
Jeff and Pam snuck down to the docks early to film:
Leopard 46 with Doug Ullam from Leopard Catamarans
North Pacific 45 with Frank – the owner
Nordic Tug 42 with Cory Gracey from United Yacht Sales
Saturday – Butch and Jennifer Ringelspaugh from Aqua Cultured came by the tents to say hello and keep in touch. See the video cruising conversation filmed at a previous trawler fest here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x87swcXibCc and subscribe to Butch’s You Tube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/c/AquaCultured
Kit and Dace Kramer stopped by for an old home week visit. We met at Stuart TF in 2016, and Jeff helped them purchase an Ocean Alexander 50 Classicco which they enjoyed for several years of cruising. When it was time to sell, they trusted Jeff and John Hoffman from JMYS to help them sell Sea Traveler in 2024.
Saturday also included a fun Nordhavn 46 owners visit from Susie and Craig who are the proud owners of Salty Haven. They met Jeff at a previous Baltimore Trawlerfest which led them to eventually find and purchase a Nordhavn 46 which they call Salty Haven. Please follow them on Instagram, here is the link. As a thank you, they stopped by to present Jeff with one of their custom boat t-shirts and the three posed for a photo.
Back on the docks in the afternoon it was time for one more TrawlAboard, this time on the North Pacific 49 with our tour guide Evan Adams of North Pacific Yachts – showing off some of the many great features.
Jeff went back to visit the Helmsman 38 and had a great discussion with Scott Helker and Greg Singer from Lochner Law Firm (maritime attorneys) about duty and tariffs and foreign flagging which is becoming more mainstream as a viable alternative for many trawler buyers.
To wrap up the day and the event, Jeff returned to the Selene 54 Full Circle to meet up with the Selene Americas crew and talk about the great excitement the Selene team is generating.
As this wonderful event comes to a close and we reminisce on all the conversations had and new faces met, we can’t help but notice that each TrawlerFest seems to attract more and more people to the trawler lifestyle. Each show is a welcoming place for cruisers of all experience levels to come and learn something new with likeminded people. The first TrawlerFest of the year sets the tone for how the rest of the year’s shows will perform, and with the energy and excitement we saw in Fort Lauderdale, we expect the Anacortes and Baltimore shows to be right up there with it!
Thank you to Firecrown Media, Inc., the new owners of AIM which includes Passagemaker magazine and Trawlerfest. The legacy staff was aboard (Julie, Donna, Ryan and all) continuing a smooth transition to maintain the prominence of this wonderful experience.
See you in Anacortes, WA this May for the next Trawlerfest – details are at this link:
https://www.passagemaker.com/trawlerfest/anacortes-boat-yacht-show-featuring-trawlerfest-2025
