Dream Boat—On Board The First Statement Marine 44 GTrs Center Console

Just for fun yesterday, I tried to hit my head on the ceiling inside the cabin of the first new Statement Marine 44 GTrs center console. I stood in the center of the cabin and jumped up as hard as I could. Then I did it again.

But I couldn’t even come close to banging the top of my noggin on the headliner.

The Statement 44 GTrs debuted last week during the Florida Powerboat Club Key West Poker Run. Photo by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

That’s how much headroom a six-foot human—albeit one with a sad vertical leap—will enjoy in the cabin of the 44-footer. And it makes sense because the new boat, the latest and largest addition to the Statement center console line, is the realized-vision of marine industry veteran Randy Sweers of The Marine Group.

Sweers is 6’ 6” tall. The world is not built for people of his stature. Having been in the powerboat industry for more than half of his adult life, he tired of stooping in cabins decades ago. So no cabin of his making—even one in a center console—was going to have less than phenomenal headroom.

Quad 500-hp outboard engines power the 44-footer.

The product of a marketing partnership between Sweers and Statement Marine principal Nick Buis, the 44 GTrs took more than two years to bring to market.

“It definitely took longer than I expected,” Sweers said, then shook his head and chuckled, as we idled in the 44-footer yesterday off Miami’s famed South Beach. “It wasn’t easy. But it turned out beautiful, and this is the first one.

“And man, does it ride well,” he added. “You can’t feel a thing in this boat.”

Sweers didn’t just shepherd a new model through the development and build process. He established a new production facility near Sao Paulo, Brazil, to build it, as well as a 39-foot, high-performance catamaran.

For more than two years, he traveled, often weekly, from his Fort Lauderdale home to the South American nation. Near the end of the process, he stayed in the country for weeks at a time. He was tenacious.

A closer look at the details.

And now he was on his way home to Fort Lauderdale in the hip-deep-freeboard creation after its Florida Powerboat Club Key West Poker Run debut.

With four Mercury Racing 500R outboard engines, the 44-footer has so far topped out at 80 mph with a pair of “crappy” four-blade, 25-inch-pitch propellers on the lower units. Sweers will be testing the boat with five-blade wheels for the next couple of weeks.

But speed is one metric of performance, and far from the most important one. The GT 44rs is a smooth-riding, muscular boat built to handle open water. At 50 mph, we couldn’t feel the two- to three-foot groundswell under our feet. We also couldn’t feel it at 60 mph. Or 70 mph. At all speeds, the boat was impervious to those conditions.

Yet it was nimble. During an impromptu photo shoot with a couple of friends running his 38-foot Statement center console, which seemed tiny next to its 44-foot sibling, Sweers cranked the boat through one hard turn after the next. He whipped it around like personal watercraft—and it carved like one.