MTI Owners Fun Run Hits All The Right Notes
Some of the biggest, baddest and brightest boats from Marine Technology Inc., in Wentzville, Mo., showed up for the 2023 MTI Owners Fun Run in the Florida Keys this week, and once again the voyage to and from Hawks Cay Resort on Duck Key was applauded by those who were part of the fun.
The eighth annual MTI Owners Fun Run in the Florida Keys made a stop at Gilbert’s Resort in Key Largo for lunch on Thursday. Photos courtesy Tom Leigh/Tommy Gun Images
According to Taylor Scism, MTI’s client relations manager, the eighth annual fun run was limited to 45 boats to keep the experience more intimate than it’s been the past few years. And, after leaving MTI’s concierge and service center at Haulover Marine Center in North Miami on Thursday and enjoying a few days in the Keys before heading back to Miami today, the less-is-more approach was effective.
“(The fun run) has been great!” Taylor Scism exclaimed on Saturday afternoon. “We had 45 boats participate this year, which ended up being a perfect size for everyone to meet new people and for us to be able to spend quality time with our customers. Overall it was an awesome event to kick off our 25th anniversary.”
The list of well-known MTI customers on hand for the fun was impressive, starting with the couple behind MTI, Randy and Cherell Scism, aka offshore racing world champion Taylor Scism’s parents. Shaun and Flavia Torrente of Shaun Torrente Racing in Florida enjoyed the run in their 390X catamaran as did one of the newest members of the MTI family, New Jersey’s Mikey Boyle in his 390X. Team Raging Bull owner Matt Gabriel, also from New Jersey, brought both of his MTI’s—a radical Lamborghini-inspired 48-foot cat with twin Mercury Racing 1350 engines and a matching MTI-V 42 powered by five Mercury Racing 450R engines—to this year’s event and had a blast.
Check out the slideshow above for more images from the MTI Owners Fun Run.
Offshore racer and performance boat enthusiast Willy Cabeza also had two boats at the fun run. He brought his 390XR that made its racing debut toward the end of last season in the 450R Factory Stock class as well as the brand new color-matched MTI-V 42 he ordered through TNT Custom Marine and was delivered just in time for the event. (Look for a complete story on the new 42-footer this week).
On hand to assist Cabeza and his teammate Gary Ballough with the raceboat was Barrett Custom Marine owner Adrian Barrett, who traveled all the way from Lake Havasu City, Ariz., for the event. Barrett was joined by his wife, Taylor, and they both enjoyed hanging out with MTI owners from around the country as well as a couple of Lake Havasu locals, Carter Bahde and Tom Leigh, the media production professionals MTI often hires to cover its events.
And last but certainly not least—especially during a 40-mile fun run on Friday with a handful of 390X cats—Maine’s Mike Howe made a last-minute decision to attend the event in the first production MTI 440X catamaran, which he and his wife Sarah, the famous couple from the Howe 2 Live YouTube channel, took delivery of in early February.
Because of responsibilities at home and at work, Howe didn’t plan to attend the fun run, but he said he ended up coming because he “couldn’t leave her out of the fun.”
“The event has been awesome,” Howe said. “The 440 is truly amazing. It’s annihilating the 390s—like every one of them. I rolled with five 390s yesterday in a 40-mile run in 15-knot winds and was five miles ahead of everyone by the end.
“Ask Shaun (Torrente)—he was second,” Howe added with a chuckle.
Howe was joking around a little, but after only a month with his new 44-footer, he is a firm believer that the 440X is most impressive performance boat MTI has ever built.
Photographer Tom Leigh captured a pelican swooping into the frame of his picture at Haulover Marine Center before the fun run started.
“This is such a bad-ass event,” Barrett said. “Everything Randy and his team does is first-class! The whole fun run has been super chill and easy-going.”
Leigh agreed with Barrett, adding, “It was an awesome event per usual. Everything went great.”
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