Fort Myers Offshore Squeezes Supply To Meet Demand

The power-couple behind the current momentum of Fort Myers Offshore, organizers Tim and Cyndee Hill have an ongoing, success-driven problem. Regardless of the Southwest Florida waterfront venue they choose for the nonprofit scholarship fundraising club’s lunch runs, they have more registered boats than places to put them.

Demand outstripping supply is an uptown problem, of course, and the Hills are grateful to have it. Fort Myers Offshore members are well-aware of dock-space squeeze, so they work as a team to make sure every boat gets safely crammed into whatever space is available. No group is more efficient at creating massive side-tie raft-ups.

But until the final boat is secured at a given lunch, Tim Hill can’t relax. On the contrary, he’s twitchy, albeit charming and gracious.

“Our members do such a great job of making it all work,” said Hill. “After everyone was tied up at the last event, the dockmaster said he’d seen never such a skilled and organized group.”

Still, relief is anything but imminent for the club. During the 2023/2024 Fort Myers Offshore season, almost every event had a record-setting turnout. The current 2024/2025 schedule of events picked up right where the last one left off.

With its 2024 Winter Fun, the club saw its largest-turnout to date with 90-plus go fasts crammed into the tiny confines of the Riviera Bar and Grill in Boca Grande. Said a simple awestruck Bob Barnhart, the founder of Fort Myers Offshore, “When I was running the club, the most we had at any event was 30 boats.”

Compounding the dockage challenge is that high-performance center consoles and catamarans are getting bigger. Where once a 50-footer was a rarity that turned heads, the same heads now see one every time they turn. New marinas with bountiful dockage, on the other hand, are in short supply. Plus, late 2024’s hurricanes Helene and Milton finished off some of the existing dock space Hurricane Ian didn’t erase a few years ago.

Right now, 62 boats are registered for this Saturday’s lunch run to the Naples Hyatt House. Last year’s Naples run saw an event-record-setting 55 boats. Any notions—or hopes—that the penultimate day of the Miami International Boat Show, which opens tomorrow, might make for a smaller turnout are long gone.

“We’ll make it work,” Hill said, as much to himself as this reporter. “We always do.”—Matt Trulio

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Source: https://www.powerboatnation.com/fort-myers-offshore-squeezes-supply-to-meet-demand/