Mystic M3800 Center Console Goes West

Continuing to build sales momentum with its M3800 luxury center console, Mystic Powerboats has delivered its first 38-footer to an owner on the West Coast . The boat, which is powered by triple Mercury Racing Verado 400R outboard engines, went to Chris Owens, a health care company executive who lives in Huntington Beach, Calif., during Thanksgiving week.

A lifelong boat owner, Chris Owens found everything he wanted in his new Mystic Powerboats M3800 center console (click image to enlarge). Photo courtesy/copyright Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

Owens grew up in the Boston area and spent summers sailing and lifeguarding on Cape Cod. His first powerboat was “an 11-foot inflatable with a 3.6-hp Mercury outboard,” and his most recent boat was a twin-engine Monterey 298 Sport Cruiser.

For years, the 29-footer was ideal for Owens and his wife, Jennifer, who have three- and one-year-old children. Still, Owens, an engineer by formal education with a master’s degree in the discipline, wanted something a bit more spirited and seaworthy.

“I always wanted to gravitate more toward the ‘super boats’ but wanted something with craftsmanship, great hull design and speed,” he said. “I started looking at all the variances, including (high-performance) catamarans. But they weren’t as practical.”

While Owens’ Mystic is the first M3800 to find a home on the West Coast, it’s not the first Mystic center console in the region. As luck would have it, Mystic sold an M4200 model to a California-based buyer who keeps the vessel in Huntington Harbor—the place that the Owens family also calls home. During a stand-up paddleboard outing one day, Owens bumped into the owner of the 42-footer while he was on the boat at the dock and struck up a conversation.

“He has to be one of the nicest guys on the planet,” said Owens. “He talked to me for almost 45 minutes.

“I had been sea-trialing a lot of center consoles but it still took me about a year to contact Greg Weber at Mystic,” he continued. “I called Greg and we set up a sea trial at the Lake of the Ozarks this year. The thing I like about the Mystic M3800, and the M4200, is that they have significantly more freeboard than anything else in their size range. They are really beefy, substantial hulls with a very dry ride.”

That experience on the Central Missouri waterway was enough to convince Owens that the 38-footer was the right choice and he ordered one. But before the DeLand, Fla., delivered it to his home in Southern California he took it on the Florida Powerboat Club’s Key West Poker Run earlier this month. The boat particularly impressed its owner with its ride quality in the final 30-miles of Atlantic Ocean running before Key West.

“We running 58 mph with the Seakeeper system on,” he said. “There were solid three-footers all the way (though the final 30-mile leg) and my wife actually fell asleep.”

Yet what impressed Owens most was the process of working with Weber, Mystic production manager Ryan Zvitski and company owner/founder John Cosker, who took his new customer out for a two-hour, instructional sea-trial before in advance of the poker run.

“I can tell you this about Greg, John and Ryan, they make great boats but they’re even better people,” he said. “They value craftsmanship and attention to detail and customer service. They had suggestions with things I hadn’t thought of when we were building the boat—it was such a collaborative environment. They must have called me 10 times since they delivered the boat. It was an amazing process, and the people involved were phenomenal.”

Owens used his M3800 five days in a row after taking delivery. The breakwater-protected waters of Seal Beach, Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles are less than a mile north, while Newport Beach Harbor is an equally easy run to the south. Within all the local marinas, there are myriad waterfront restaurants and watering with ample dockage, and Owens plans to spend much of his time running to those places.

But he also plans to run the center console to Catalina Island as often as possible.

“Even with my sport cruiser, I’d go there every other weekend,” he said. “It’s only 26 miles straight out from here. And now we can be there in 30 minutes.”

Mystic M3800 Center Console Goes West

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