The 61st annual Spokane Boat Show serves as one-stop shop

The aluminum is polished to a high sheen. Little Big Town’s “Pontoon” is blaring outside the door. And then it hits: new boat smell.

This is the kind of intoxicating mixture that can convince a frugal man to add a handsome monthly payment, for say, 15 years.

And that’s exactly what they want at the annual glitz event for all things that float. The 61st annual Spokane Boat Show at the Spokane County Fair and Expo Center is the kind of show that can convince a couple they need a hydraulic boat lift even if they don’t own lakefront property.

“It’s a one-stop shop for a guy who has a boat or a lake house,” show manager Scott Thompson said. Boating “is a good way to spend quality time with your family and friends, or to just get away on a private experience.”

I walked right past the audacious Nautique Wake Boat, with its $124,231 price tag and a sound system that could drown out a concert at the Gorge, and tried to find a couple of examples of a boat that could do it all.

My idea of the perfect boat is something that can take my wife and some buddies on search for walleye at dawn and tow a screaming kid on an inner-tube-of-horror later that same afternoon.

With that in mind, I found some candidates:

Rich Baalman, of Traveland RV & Marine of Kennewick, brought a new line of boats under the Elite name. The boats are made by Thunder Jet in Clarkston, but the Elite name is a private label exclusive to the dealership.

“These will do just about anything you want to do,” Baalman said. “They’ll pull the family or go chasing salmon off shore. They are made for everything.”

The boats look like the kind of sturdy, thick-hulled craft made to brave the shallow water and hidden boulders of the Snake River. Most of the higher-end models have a partial hard full-enclosure to keep out the rain and an 8-foot wide amidships that can handle seats, live wells, and lots of pole-handling humans.

But unlike the traditional jet sleds made for extremely shallow water, all the Elite boats on display had large outboard motors. They also featured large metal platforms allowing swimmers easy transitions from the water into the boats.

The high-sided boats are made with full sheets of aluminum that are welded together.

“They’ll handle rough water,” he said. “And with the aluminum, the owners like the fact that they can run them up on shore and not worry about fiberglass damage.”

Baalman had the Elite boats priced from $29,999 up to $59,999.

“But if you want a pilot house on a 26- or 28-foot boat, it could be $140,000 to $160,000 depending on how you build and power it,” he said.

While the boats are not specifically designed for water sports, the boats can handle outboards up to 150 horsepower, which is plenty for wake boarding, skiing or towing a tube.

“When you spend that much money on a boat, you want to be able to be on the water as much as you can,” he said.

I next checked out some smaller aluminum boats on display by Spokane Valley Marine.

They had everything from high-end Ranger boats designed for all things fishing to V-hull aluminums with the power for sport and utility for fishing.

“These boats are good for if you don’t know what you want to do,” said Erick Morris, who works for Spokane Valley Marine.

He showed off a 16-foot-6 Starweld boat priced at $23,999. It had an electric trolling motor mounted on the bow and a rear-bench seat that folds down and becomes an extension of the rear fishing deck. It also has removable cushions for seats on the bow that can be moved to expose storage bins and a live well for caught fish.

“You can add what you need to make it the boat you want,” Morris said.

Then the final example came by chance. I stumbled onto a South Bay tritoon pontoon boat.

Talk about a party. This 25-foot South Bay, on display by Specialty Recreation & Marine of Coeur d’Alene, has a full bar, LED-lighted cup holders, a kitchen and sink, refrigerator and built-in gas grill.

“You can have lots of people on board without upsetting the apple cart,” said Greg Babbitt of Special Recreation. “It’s like a floating picnic patio.”

But it also has a monster 150 horsepower outboard that can turn the party into a wakeboard or ski excursion. The boat also has a metal ski harness for the water sports.

“We not only can have a picnic, we can also take the kids for a tumble,” Babbitt said. “We don’t want to sit around … all day, we want to play.”

The boat, which carries a $52,999 price tag, also has a top-notch sound system with an amp and sub woofers.

“We are able to make a little noise if we want,” he said.

While the dealership sells everything from personal watercraft to utility vehicles, Babbitt said pontoon boat sales have sky rocketed.

“People want to put their kids and dog and granny on board and go,” he said.