Risk Nothing

From 9/13/01</font id=blue>

I can recall the first time shopping for a car with my father. Each car he looked at he would open and shut the door several times. Then he would turn to me and say, “Tim do you hear that?” If the car door made a good deep and solid thud when shut, in other words if it sounded similar to someone shutting the vault door at Fort Knox, dad would give the car a thumbs up and would turn to me and say, “That is a solid car son.” Dad went on to explain to me how critical it was to purchase a vehicle that was built well, could withstand harsh elements, and was therefore safe. In short risking nothing when it came to safety.

I recently spoke with John Alger, Director of Sales for EdgeWater boats, and he was explaining to me EdgeWater’s motto “Risk nothing.” According to John “Risk nothing” means building an extremely solid and safe boat, a hand-laid boat constructed of a new high tech carbon fiber that is 50% stronger than fiberglass, a boat constructed on their new cutting edge permagrid FRP stringer system, a boat produced with their closed-cell foam floatation that is renowned for it’s unsinkable safety, and of course a boat backed by a “limited lifetime transferable warranty,” in other words a boat that would receive a two thumbs approval from my father as being a safe and solid piece of equipment.

A couple of weeks back I stopped into Longshore Marine’s new state of the art facility on Daniel Island, to see how things were going with their grand opening. I was taking a gander at a new 225 (22.5 foot) EdgeWater when Tim Clark, Sales Manager for Longshore Marine, walked up. “That is their number one selling boat,” Tim explained, “and they are producing a 265 (26.5 foot) modeled after it.” He went on to tell me how they were expecting a prototype of the 265 in their shop later in the week, and invited me along for a ride when it arrived.

The boat arrived on Thursday and Tim and I met at Shem Creek for a test run that evening after work. Our test boat was a sharp l