Hinckley will be adding a 35-foot, outboard-powered boat to its lineup, set to debut next summer. The builder says it tapped Michael Peters Yacht Design to “create an optimized hull shape with wider chines and strakes providing lift and stability for outboard-powered speeds up to 48 mph.”
Power will be twin 300-hp Mercury or Yamaha engines.“The 35 represents a new chapter in Hinckley’s extraordinary story,” sales and marketing vicw president Scott Bryant says. “Its design and construction deliver new levels of speed, safety and strength. Yet it still offers the timeless experience of style, comfort and craftsmanship that a Hinckley owner deserves.”
The first outboard-powered Hinckley outside of the Sport Boat line, the 35, while reminiscent of the Picnic Boat, falls into its own distinct category. However, Hinckley marrying outboard performance with its Down East aesthetics is nothing new; its Sport models — the 40C and 40X — have seen strong sales over the past couple of years.
“Our Sport Boats are more of a sport-utility, wash-and-wear version. This is really a true Hinckley — in Hinckley dress,” Bryant says. “We’re reserving the Picnic Boat moniker for our jetboats.”
Asked if there will be more traditional Hinckley models with outboard power, Bryant was non-committal. “We’re known as a technology company; we’re always looking forward to the next thing,” he says. “One word that best describes our brand is evolution. We watched the changing desires of our customer base when we started looking into this … but we weren’t going to just do something for the sake of doing something.”
Revealing only renderings, Hinckley says it has already sold three 35s to a combination of returning and first-time customers.
This article was originally published in the November 2020 issue.
