Plans are great—I’m a planner by nature so I appreciate. But what good is a plan if you can’t deviate from it when something better one comes along?
Case in point: My original plan to cover last weekend’s Fort Myers Offshore Spring Fling Fun Run had me riding with Platinum Powerboats owners Edwin Scheer and Scott Grants in their sultry 428 catamaran. Though I’ve covered Platinum since the company was formed and began building its first model, it was going to be my first time riding in one.
Thanks to a hard push by those two gentlemen, the 42-footer was available late Friday afternoon. So Scheer took me for an hour-long blast on the Intracoastal Waterway in Cape Coral, Fla.
That opened my Saturday dance-card for the Fort Myers Offshore affair and I didn’t have to think twice about how to fill it. The owners of the well-known Cowboy and Indian DCB Performance Marine M37R catamaran, Kelly O’Hara and Kiran Pinisetti invited me to join them and our mutual friend Bill Sestak for the day. They didn’t have to ask again.
The Phoenix-based high-performance company has built a slew of 37-footers. But Cowboy And Indian became my “event-home” for the much of the 2024 season, and I produced a series of articles on the experience. I also became close to O’Hara and his wife, Julie, and Pinisetti and his wife, Jessica. The four of them became precious members of my extended family that season.
Full disclosure, their love and support helped me through a personally rough year.
Everything about the M37 felt familiar and comfortable last Saturday. Though now the 37-foot outboard engine-powered cat is book-ended by a 35-footer and a 42-footer, the M37R was DCB’s first full-tunnel catamaran and it opened doors for the company around the country.
Having logged more than 6,000 miles and 100-plus running hours in the one belonging to O’Hara and Pinisetti, I grew more than a little fond of it. Now the boat has more than 10,000 miles under its hull and 300-plus hours on its Mercury Racing 500R outboard engines.
“Can you believe how great this boat still looks?” Pinisetti asked no one in particular. “After all the hours and miles we’ve put on it on the water and hauling it around the country?”
The question was rhetorical, of course. but we all chimed in. Without question, the ownership-duo is fastidious and fanatical about keeping their baby clean. But aside from a nick on the paint here and there a tiny blemish on the dash there, the cat looks brand-new.
As for the ride quality, it was everything I came to expect from the boat after running 10 events in it two seasons ago. We cruised at 100-plus mph when conditions allowed, and the 37-footer was smooth in the slop we encountered offshore.
Later that day, we sat around the pool at Fort Myers Offshore member Mikey Boyle’s waterfront home and swapped “remember that time” stories.
“You know, people asked me how much we paid you to write that story series,” O’Hara said, then laughed. “And when I told them we didn’t pay you anything, they asked how much DCB paid you.”
I chuckled, too. No money changed hands—not even close. O’Hara and Pinisetti invited me to join them for events in 2024. In turn, I decided to make to produce an article series about the experience.
“People really don’t understand how this all works, so they guess,” I said, then laughed.
Before we parted ways, I asked O’Hara and Pinisetti about their 2026 event plans. Our paths will cross again, most likely during the Boyne Thunder Poker Run in early July. They even invited me to join them in the Northern Michigan happening.
But I already have plans. Unless they change. Again.