Image of the Week: Flying Home Before Dark

Although Saturday is an “off day” for the racing teams during the annual Super Boat International Offshore World Championships in Key West, Fla., there’s still plenty of go-fast boat action for photographers to capture. There is, after all, a huge Florida Powerboat Club Key West Poker Run fleet—in the 170-boat range this year—that comes down late in the week and populates the waterways and docks for the weekend. Plus, on Saturday a hefty, heaping portion of that fleet and more heads out for the FPC Raft-Up on Boca Grande. (Read the story.)

While beating the dying light in Key West, this driver and his crew aired out their Cigarette V-bottom. Photo courtesy/copyright Jay Nichols/Naples Image. (Click image to enlarge.)

Late Saturday afternoon during the SBI Key West Worlds earlier this month, photographer Jay Nichols was on his usual Pier House balcony perch, courtesy of one of his Fort Myers Offshore friends, when he spied the Cigarette in the photo above returning from the Raft-Up. And judging from this image, it’s safe to say the driver of the boat and maybe even his passengers were in a hurry to beat the coming darkness.

“Those guys were getting it done, all the way in,” said Nichols. “It was right at Sunday, they’d probably been at the Raft-Up all day and they wanted to get home. They were flying.”

Thanks to Nichols, we have the photo to prove it.