SMD-Painted Gulf Crosser Yachts 52 Center Console On The Water – Speed on the Water

Bound for their Kentucky home-base, Stephen Miles and his crew departed Southwest Florida last summer with a new accomplishment to their credit. Miles and company had painted their first Gulf Cross Yachts 52, an elegant open-water center console powered by five 600-hp outboard engines from Mercury Marine, and they were pleased with their work.

But when the Stephen Miles Design team departed the Tampa-based yacht-builder’s headquarters, the 52-footer was a mostly bare hull.

Though this 52-footer is the first center console Steven Miles and his crew has painted for Gulf Crosser Yachts, it will not be their last.

“It was nowhere near complete,” said Miles. “It was a hull and deck. The pilothouse was on the factory floor. We painted, clear-coated, sanded and then added another coat of clear before we left.

“The boat was too wide to fit in our paint booth, so we went to Tampa,” he continued. “But they shipped all the outboard cowlings to our place in Owensboro. We painted them there and then sent them back.”

This week, Miles and company saw the boat in action for the first time via social media.

“It’s amazing to see it on the water,” he said. “It’s so elegant—and it runs 70-plus mph.”

Earlier this year, the owner of the 52-footer had Miles design the graphics for his Bombardier Global 5500 jet aircraft. (Per Federal Aviation Administration standards, an FAA-certified contractor had to handle the paintwork.) Though the boat-and-jet color schemes employ similar hues, they are far from identical.

“You have to work with shape when you design graphics—and an airplane is not a boat,” Miles explained. “But both have similar colors.”

Though painting the massive center console was his first Gulf Crosser Yachts project, it will not be his last according to company representative Steve Dupier.

“Most of our models get painted in house in solid colors, but moving forward with any custom paint projects like this one we will use Steve and his guys,” he said. “Everything they did was amazing.

“It takes a team—it definitely takes a team—and working with them was a great experience,” he added. “They did exactly what they said they were going to do.”