So what’s going on with the Florida Powerboat Club? It’s a question I’ve gotten several times a week since the organization’s annual Emerald Coast Boat Week in September, which saw the event-planning business swap out its long-time poker-run format for something far less structured that—to address the elephant in the room—reduces liability exposure for club.
The founder and owner of the club, Stu Jones isn’t just a high-performance marine industry colleague. Jones and his wife, Jackie, and their sons Tyler and Max are cherished members of my extended road-family. So while Jones has told me a lot, I’ve been more careful than usual to let him explain what’s happening with club.
Now, with the renamed Key West Powerboat Week event less than a week away, he has. In an open letter to club members and sponsor on the Florida Powerboat Club website, Jones explained his position.
“Many FPC members are very much in tune with our new event formats, but for others it is important to understand what has recently changed in our organization structure,” he wrote. “Since the early 1990s, the FPC has played an integral role in managing many aspects of all club events, whether they are casual fun runs with ten boats, or multi-day events with over 200 hundred registered teams. During the past three decades, we have learned to navigate the Florida hospitality industry, securing travel certifications and lodging partnerships with major hotels and marine resorts throughout Florida, which has created a successful business model that allows us to serve a global clientele.
“With that said, the climate of recreational performance boating has changed in recent years, with faster boats that can now have up to six engines, multi-function instruments at the helm, nightclub-caliber sound systems, and crew numbers that often average well over ten occupants” he continued. “These factors, combined with increased speeds, have led FPC organizers to make the decision to remove our organization from the marine logistics equation completely and focus our efforts on what best suits our business model.
“Therefore, the new Key West Powerboat Week LLC, represents a clear and distinct departure from our past as a marine-event coordinator, to a new organization that focuses its efforts on being a professional event hosting company,” he included. “We will continue to manage land-based venues from Miami to Key West, booking hundreds of hotel rooms, reserving transient docking, planning lunch rendezvous functions and securing the best fueling locations. When you arrive in Key West, we’ll have the party started at our Powerboat Village at Conch Republic Seafood Company, and be ready for you and your crew to join the fun.”