Today I head to TNT Custom Marine to run the first six-outboard Deep Impact Custom Boats 499 center-console with John Tomlinson, the co-owner and co-founder of the famed Miami-based business. Thanks to Deep Impact company owner Mark Fischer, I’m no stranger to the 49-footer. During the Florida Powerboat Club Bahamas Run in June, I logged more than 600 miles in the brawny beauty.
Conditions during the trip included everything 7-to-10-foot seas during the crossing from Bimini to Nassau and glass-flat water off Spanish Wells. Though the Bimini-Nassau leg wasn’t for the faint of heart, the 499 had no trouble handling it.
But I’m a marine industry journalist, not a professional powerboat operator and set-up man such as Tomlinson, who I got to know as a colleague through the Powerboat magazine Performance Trials more than 10 years ago. So when I want an expert opinion, I recruit him.
Offshore racing fans know Tomlinson as multi-time offshore racing world champion, and rightfully so. But he’s a lot more than that.
Back in the Powerboat magazine Performance Trials days, we operated in test-driver-and-reporter teams. So Tomlinson and I spent a lot of hours working together. In the process, we back became good friends. I’m flattered to say we still are.
Though I no longer have any interest in being anywhere near a high-performance boat pushed to its limits, Tomlinson is one of the very few people I’d be willing to do it with if I did. That’s not our goal with Deep Impact 499, of course. I just want his unvarnished take.
And I know I will get it.
Plus, hanging out with him is a joyful privilege, one full of laughter and old stories and lots and lots of off-the-record discussion. Short version? Tomlinson is just plain fun to be with. He has a dry and often-ironic sense of humor that not everyone gets to see.
So I’m looking forward to today’s outing in the 499. And I’m looking forward to hearing—and reporting—what Tomlinson has to say about it.