NEWS & EVENTS
April 28, 2025
Hi, my name is Darrell. I’m 58, soon to be 59 years old, which apparently is old enough to look like a grandpa to 13-year-old girls in Target, but that’s another story. I live in Phoenix, AZ. Over the next 6–8 months, I hope to complete a +/-6,000 mile boat trip called The Great Loop by myself, in Grace, my 2025 Marex 310 Sun Cruiser I purchased from the good people at Sandy Hook Yacht Sales in Naples, FL. I hope to embark on this epic journey May 1 and finish by the end of the year. During this journey, you can track my progress, my setbacks, and all of my experiences right here on the Sandy Hook Yacht Sales website.
The Great Loop is a +/-6,000 mile boat route that goes up the entire eastern coast of the U.S., via the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, then cuts over to the Great Lakes via the Erie Canal (in my case, since I am not doing the Canadian portion of the trip), down the Illinois River to the mighty Mississippi River, then down the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway to the Gulf Coast (at Mobile, AL), and back to Florida via the Gulf of Mexico — ending in Naples, my starting point.
The route includes over 100 locks and countless fixed and moving bridges to navigate. As a deepwater Pacific Ocean boater, all of this is going to be completely new to me, so be sure to check in right here to track our (mine and Grace’s) progress as we find our way and navigate this unique boating experience.
I first came across The Great Loop maybe 3 years ago and thought to myself that I might like to do this mega-marathon boat trip one day. Well, apparently that one day has arrived — or at least is imminent. Five days imminent, to be exact.
Yes, I am embarking on this 6,000 (+/- depending on route and side trips) mile boat ride May 1, or as close to it as possible, with a goal of finishing the complete U.S. loop (minus the Canadian portion) by the end of the year.
This is an aggressive goal considering the average time to complete The Great Loop is 1 year, according to the America’s Great Loop Cruisers Association (AGLCA), and planning a Great Loop trip typically takes a full year as well (according to the AGLCA once again).
Having only 8 weeks to prepare for the trip — remember, the average preparation time is one year — it has been a flurry of activity for me and made a pretty big dent in my credit card. That said, outfitting a new boat with all of the gear I like to have onboard is hardly work to me. I am indebted to Amazon, West Marine, and Defender Marine for their support and help during this process.
There is an enormous amount of planning and preparation that goes into The Great Loop, but the biggest, most expansive, and most important decision is what boat you are going to do The Loop in.
Assuming you don’t own that boat yet, it also includes what your budget is for your Loop boat, and where you are going to purchase it (since this is a loop route, you can really start anywhere along the route and just end there — meaning you can buy your boat anywhere along the way and start your journey there).
Traditional wisdom says a trawler is the best boat for The Loop. Trawlers are the #1 boat category for The Great Loop. Of the 270 boats that finished The Loop in 2024, used trawlers were well-represented.
They can be budget-friendly, are fuel-efficient, have exceptional range, can provide ample room and comfort, and generally meet the maximum draft recommendation for the trip of 5 feet.
For the past 10 years, I have been pushing the Pacific Ocean in front of me in my full-displacement 1995 49’ Grand Banks Motoryacht and before that, my 1988 36’ Grand Banks Classic. I am extremely familiar with trawler-class boats and agree with the conventional wisdom.
Trawlers have exceptional range (my 49’ Grand Banks carried 1,000 gallons of fuel), are comfortable, efficient, and older used ones can be reasonably priced. They also share one additional characteristic — they are slow.
Slow as in 7–10 knot cruising speed, with top WOT (Wide Open Throttle) probably only gaining you 1 to 1.5 knots above that. I was looking for some speed this time, so a trawler was out for me.
In addition to reasonable speed — I wasn’t thinking cigarette boat or anything, just a planning hull with a little get-up-and-go — I also wanted a reasonable level of comfort, fuel efficiency, and while not focused solely on the actual purchase price, I was focused on value.
Value is much more inclusive than simple purchase price: it relates to features and capabilities for the price and resale value (I may actually sell Grace after completing The Loop).
I did my research — hardly work when you’re researching boats to buy — and landed on a specific make and model. A couple of weeks later, I found myself in Florida to look at four of these boats I had narrowed it down to.
My intention was to purchase one of these four boats on that trip, checking this big item off my list.
I started with 10–15 boats on my list, narrowed it down to four, saw three of the four while in Florida, identified my top two choices… and made exactly zero offers.
Why no offers? Well, that’s the gist of this story, believe it or not.
The bottom line is that I never made an offer because I was invited to the Palm Beach Boat Show by the good folks at Sandy Hook Yachts.
With 7 offices in Florida and New Jersey, Sandy Hook Yachts is a full-service new and used boat and yacht broker/dealer. They have represented top manufacturers like Sabre and Back Cove for over 40 years and today represent many other top manufacturers — including one I had never heard of: Marex Yachts.
Marex Yachts is a Norwegian boat builder (the Norwegians have been building boats for two millennia) founded in 1973 and now run by two sons of the original founder.
The main Marex facility is a 28,000 square meter (300,000+ SF) facility in Lithuania.
If you were in Europe, you would know Marex boats — you would see them in ports, and you would have read the reviews and awards for various Marex models.
One of those models is the Marex 310 SC (Sun Cruiser) — the model I purchased. It is a beautiful boat, named European Motorboat of the Year in the 45’ and under sports cruiser category in 2017, and winner of the German Design Award the following year in 2018.
The bottom line: Marex has a long and successful market position in Europe, and they are now partnering with a few select dealers — including Sandy Hook Yachts — to bring these beautiful yachts to the U.S. for the first time.
So there I am, sitting on the back of one of the very first Marex 310 Sun Cruisers in North America, at the Palm Beach Boat Show with one of the owners of Sandy Hook Yachts and broker extraordinaire Ken Main.
I feel ridiculous. I feel like a fraud — a poser. I am not looking at new boats. In fact, I never expected to buy a new boat. I needed to get an offer out on one of the two boats I had identified… but holy shit, this boat is cool.
It’s beautiful. It has aggressive lines. And this particular boat had every feature I had ever dreamt about — and some I hadn’t — like:
It has everything. I mean everything.
I must admit, I was a bit skeptical about the single engine (I have always had twin engines) and a bit concerned about the lack of dealer support in the U.S.
But after just a few days with Grace, my single-engine worry evaporated, and my concern over the dealer network was completely overridden by my love of the boat.
Grace is a truly beautiful and capable boat, and I am proud to own her and be one of the first Marex Yachts owners here in the U.S.
That’s it for this post. To summarize:
Pretty aggressive timeframe to complete The Loop as noted above — but I am going to give it a shot and am confident that I can.
Feel free to check in on my progress and experiences doing The Great Loop right here. And if you are ever in the market for an incredible sport cruising boat, reach out to Sandy Hook Yacht Sales and tell them you would like to see the Marex 310 SC.
You won’t regret it.
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