MIAMI INTERNATIONAL BOAT SHOW

Mid February · Miami · Five Days · Since 1941

No longer among the Court’s 250, from MMXXVII.

An aerial view of the show marina at dusk with motor yachts berthed in ranks under coloured light at the Miami International Boat Show, Miami Beach — I · The Marina at Dusk

The Miami International Boat Show runs over the Presidents’ Day weekend across four sites in Miami Beach and Miami.

Everything from a kayak to a yacht of nearly three hundred feet. The American market for the year is set here.

Visitors walking the in-water docks past sportfishing boats and tuna towers at the Miami International Boat Show, Miami Beach — II · The In-Water Docks

Since 1941

It began in 1941 as the Biscayne Boat Show: one tent and fifty boats, put on by the Miami junior chamber of commerce.

It has come through a world war and several recessions, a year lost to the pandemic in 2021, and the one piece of legislation that nearly destroyed American boatbuilding. In 1990 Congress placed a ten per cent surcharge on boats sold above a hundred thousand dollars. Buyers stopped buying, or bought abroad. The yards laid off thousands of people who were not rich. The tax was repealed in 1993, having raised almost nothing.

In 2016, at seventy-five, it moved back to the water where it started.

A motor yacht raised on lifts above the entrance gates as visitors arrive at the Miami International Boat Show, Miami Beach — III · The Entrance

The Sea Trials

This is what separates Miami from the Mediterranean shows.

Monaco is a display. The boats are moored, admired and photographed, and anyone who wants to know how one handles must arrange that separately and afterwards.

Miami puts a hundred and fifty vessels in the water for sea trials. You take the wheel. There is a freshwater pool of forty thousand gallons on land for demonstrations, and a marina given over to nothing but test drives.

Which is why the show sells rather than exhibits, and why the American yards bring their new hulls here rather than to the Riviera in September.

A white sailing catamaran berthed on the in-water docks under builders’ flags and a forest of masts, with motor boats and white tents across the water at the Miami International Boat Show (2020) — IV · The Docks under Flags

What to Know

Four sites across the city, and one ticket covers all of them. Shuttles and boats run between. Allow a full day to see two of them properly.

The convention centre holds boats up to about fifty feet. The Yacht Collection on Collins Avenue holds thirty feet to a hundred and twenty-five. The sailing boats are out on Watson Island, which is a separate journey.

There is no box office at the show. Tickets are digital and bought in advance.

A preview day runs on the Wednesday, ahead of the crowds, at roughly double the price. It is worth it if you intend to talk to anybody.

The mistake is trying to see all of it. Four sites in five days is a week’s work. Choose the two that hold what you came for.

Centre-console boats and outboard displays on the exhibition hall floor at the Miami International Boat Show, Miami Beach — V · The Exhibition Hall