The real reason to have satellite TV on your boat

So what if it's still only pre-season...Go Sawx! (live game broadcast courtesy of the KVH TracVision M5)

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a dome

Shows like this aren’t just for selling boating gizmos, gadgets, and shirts decorated with palm trees and drinks with little umbrellas. They’re also for showing off and selling (or buying, depending on your perspective), boats – everything from inflatable lifeboats to small dinghies and Boston Whalers to multimillion dollar yachts. Of course, from KVH’s perspective, it’s the big boats that we care about…the ones with TV, the ones that truly can become home away from home. And walking around the docks today, you couldn’t miss the fact that all of them have TV and most of them have KVH TracVision systems.

Better Late than Never, I Suppose

OK, welcome to Day 1 of the 2007 Palm Beach Boat Show…well, actually, the end of Day 1 of the Palm Beach Boat Show. The very end, like 11:00 PM-in-the-hotel-when-normal-people-are-heading- to-bed-and-the-blog-writing-is-just-getting-underway the end. As it turns out, the concept of a near-real time report from the show never made it out of the concept stage due to a lack of good laptop typing space and spotty Internet connections. So instead, the blog will be a series of entries this evening and some more after the show tomorrow.

Palm Beach is the last of the bigger boat shows before the spring fitting-out season really gets underway, following close on the heels of the Miami show. The show is pretty spread out, with many exhibits across town in the Convention Center and the rest outside along the Intracoastal Waterway (where we are).

Exhibit Row at Palm Beach 2007

We’ve got a lot packed into a fairly tight space – 10 ft by 20 ft – with the full suite of TracPhone Fleet products, the full set of TracVision M-series products, a working TracNet 100, and a working TracVision M5…plus two chairs, several briefcases, and a partridge in a pear tree.

The KVH exhibit

Unlike other shows – CES, SEMA, Miami – we’ve got a fairly small team in town for this show. However, our Florida distributor is attending and several of our dealers from the east coast are here as well so there’s a wealth of TracVision expertise on hand.

Rick Garrison gets the TracNet 100 up and running

Steven Buckingham (aka Buck) assists some potential TracPhone buyers

Ian Palmer and a boat owner discussing Inmarsat airtime

Jim George (right) chats with Buck and KVH alum Rob Solomon

At the end of the day, Buck shows how he's learned to win friends and influence people