BORN & BRED
A boat show isn’t the best place to land a marlin. But it is a good place to land a prospective owner for your newly built sportfisherman, so waiting for me at Pier Sixty-Six Marina was Hatteras Yachts’ Director of Sportfishing Capt. Jeff Donahue, his mate Tyler Davis and Hull No. 1 of the GT59, her sleek, dark blue gelcoat shining in the Florida sun. A little over a winding mile north along this stretch of ICW, a legion of sunglass-wearing construction workers was breaking down the 59th Ft. Lauderdale International Boat Show. Donahue and company had been one of the first cut loose, and they were reveling in their newfound freedom. Affer being in attendance for every day of the five-day show, I couldn’t help but feel the same way as I stepped aboard. “It kind of feels like you’ve been let out of the cage,” opined Donahue, splayed out in the expansive salon as Davis stared distractedly at his phone. Their body language said it all: The boat show, while successful, had clearly taken its toll. Now the real work could begin.
If you can even call it work. While Donahue—a designation bestowed on the GT59 for 2019. It also might be one of the best jobs in the industry, one that requires captain and crew to attend a distinguished list of tournaments: from the Production vs. Custom Shootout to the White Marlin Open. In the past, the program has commandeered almost every model in the GT line—including the 54, 63 and 70—as demo boats. Donahue’s predecessor, Capt. Terry Stansel, even went so far as to live on the old 54 with his wife, traveling to the big-Fish tourneys and boat shows up and down the East Coast.
