The marine industry has descended on Tampa this week for the 2026 International Boat Builders’ Exhibition & Conference, and among a show floor packed with new technology, innovative hardware and some of the biggest names in recreational boating, Hardin Marine is making sure it doesn’t go unnoticed.
In fact, you could make a pretty good argument that Hardin Marine is one of the stars of IBEX 2026.
Taking place October 6th thru 8th at the Tampa Convention Center, IBEX brings together more than 700 exhibitors and thousands of boatbuilders, engineers, designers, manufacturers and other marine-industry professionals. It’s exactly the kind of audience Hardin Marine has spent decades serving, and this year the company arrived in Tampa with an impressive collection of products that bridges traditional performance boating with the increasingly digital future of the marine industry.
At the center of the Hardin Marine display is a product that addresses a problem facing an enormous number of existing boats: How do you bring an older analog engine into today’s digital marine electronics world without replacing everything that already works?
Hardin Marine’s answer is its new Analog Gauge to Digital Display Converter System, a remarkably straightforward way to allow traditional engines and analog-style engine sensors to communicate with modern NMEA 2000 multifunction displays.
The system takes information from dedicated engine sensors and puts that data onto an NMEA 2000 network, allowing compatible displays aboard the boat to show critical engine information digitally. Oil pressure, coolant temperature, fuel pressure, fuel level and other information that traditionally required individual analog gauges can now become part of the boat’s modern digital display environment.
Rather than requiring the installer or end user to configure complicated calibration tables, connect a laptop or learn specialized programming software, the individual sensor-to-CAN modules are pre-programmed for their specific function and engine position. A gateway then translates that sensor information into NMEA 2000 messages for the boat’s network.
In other words, Hardin Marine has taken something that sounds technically complicated and turned it into something designed to be far more approachable: install the appropriate sensors and components, connect the system and put the engine data onto the NMEA 2000 network.
No laptop. No complicated sender programming. No reinventing the entire boat.
Hardin Marine offers configurations for single- and dual-engine boats along with systems capable of monitoring multiple fuel tanks, making the technology applicable to everything from classic performance boats and restorations to custom builds and repowers. That’s what makes this product particularly interesting at a show such as IBEX. Hardin Marine’s system creates a bridge between those two generations of marine technology. Keep the engine you love. Modernize the information available at the helm.
For builders, restoration shops, riggers and owners of existing performance boats, that opens the door to an enormous range of possibilities.
The new digital conversion system may be generating plenty of attention in Tampa, but it certainly isn’t the only Hardin Marine product drawing people into the display. The company’s popular Gen III LED Trim Indicator systems are another natural showpiece.
Hardin Marine’s latest Gen III indicator systems use NMEA 2000 cabling for easier installation and feature twice the LED count of the previous-generation design, with 76 LEDs per board. The displays transition through red, green and blue from top to bottom, giving drivers an immediate visual reference for drive and tab position.
For the performance-boat crowd, that’s a big deal.
Drive and trim-tab position aren’t simply pieces of information—they can be an essential part of setting up a performance boat. Being able to glance at a bright, easy-to-read indicator and immediately understand where the hardware is positioned is exactly why these systems have become such recognizable Hardin Marine products.
Available in configurations for a wide variety of Mercury Bravo, Speedmaster, Alpha, TRS and No. 6 applications as well as IMCO SCX drives and different trim-tab configurations, the Gen III family demonstrates something Hardin Marine has traditionally done very well: take a specialized performance-boating component and continue refining it rather than leaving a proven design standing still.
Then there is one of those products that makes experienced boat riggers stop and say, Why wasn’t somebody doing this years ago?
Hardin Marine’s well-known Swivel Rigging Connector tackles an issue created by the huge range of motion found in modern high-horsepower outboards.
Traditional fixed rigging-hose connections can force the hose into awkward positions as an engine is steered, trimmed or tilted for trailering. That can result in stressed or kinked rigging hoses and unwanted contact around the engine cowling.
Hardin Marine’s solution uses a non-corrosive Delrin directional swivel that provides 12 degrees of angular hose movement while maintaining a watertight seal. The mounting hardware is concealed, and the rigging hose threads directly into the swivel connector for a clean finished installation without additional hose-attachment hardware. Great marine hardware doesn’t always need to be complicated. Sometimes the best products identify an everyday rigging headache and eliminate it with smart engineering.
And in an era of increasingly powerful and increasingly expensive outboard packages, protecting rigging while allowing the engines to move naturally is the kind of detail builders and installers appreciate.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from Hardin Marine’s presence at IBEX 2026 is that embracing digital technology doesn’t have to mean abandoning the boats and engines that built the performance-marine industry.
The new Analog Gauge to Digital Display Converter System might be the perfect example.
There are countless boats on the water with engines that owners love and analog instrumentation that has worked for decades. Until recently, stepping into the world of modern digital displays could mean an extensive conversion or accepting that some of the boat’s most important information would remain isolated from its electronics network.
Hardin Marine is offering another path.
And judging by the collection of innovative components surrounding it, from the company’s latest Gen III trim indicators to its proven outboard rigging hardware means the converter system isn’t an isolated experiment. It’s part of a broader effort to combine Hardin Marine’s traditional strengths in high-performance marine hardware with the technologies shaping the boats of tomorrow.
At IBEX, where the entire point of the show is to put the future of boatbuilding under one roof, that’s a pretty appropriate message.
With hundreds of exhibitors competing for attention inside the Tampa Convention Center this week, there’s no shortage of impressive technology to see.
But Hardin Marine came to Tampa with products that solve real problems and with its new Analog Gauge to Digital Display Converter System leading the charge, Hardin Marine isn’t simply showing off another collection of marine parts at IBEX 2026, it’s showing the industry where it’s headed next.