We designed Southport boats and Southport boat-building processes beginning with a clean sheet of paper. This enabled us to take advantage of all the best methods and materials. Instead of fitting our products and processes into a mature manufacturing system, we actually designed to take advantage of the technological advances available to the 21st century boat-builder.

Old school boat builders are shackled with molds and materials used before computers reduced build tolerance levels to the hundredths of an inch. Consequently, most competitive boats are pieced together with plenty of inserted parts, screws and fasteners. A Southport, on the other hand, is a cleaner design because the laminate parts are more intricate and the tolerances more precise. Clean cuts and precise fits on a Southport are more common on custom sports fishers and have no need of plastic trim to cover seams and edges.

In fact, the only fasteners and screws you’ll see on a Southport are on the console and lean bar bases and access hatches or drawer assemblies that might need to be removed at sometime in the future for maintenance. We even designed our storage around this access, so you’ll not find the round cover plates dotted all around the boat like so many other builders. (Cover plates are the easy way to provide access, and we think, poor design.)

Laminated parts are built from the outside in, so the gel coat is the first layer in the mold. Large parts like hulls are laminated in place then transferred by large overhead cranes to the next stage of the build process. This minimizes mold movement and consequent damage. The finish of the mold determines the finish of your Southport boat.

Val Jenkins’ racing heritage shines in the knit glass laminates used to build our hulls and decks. Knitted glasses carry less resin weight than woven roving laminates used in competitive boats. Vinylester skins coats are followed by two layers of vinylester barrier coats before the knitted biaxial glasses are applied to protect against blisters and print.

The strakes of a Southport are cored with high-density foam for longitudinal and compressive strength. Two layers of 45-degree bias knit glass are layered in the strakes. Then, the foam core is bedded in the strakes and sanded smooth with the hull surface before the interior hull laminate is applied. This application, in effect, gives a Southport external stringers and extraordinary longitudinal and compressive strength for punching through big seas.

Both 45-degree bias and 90-degree bias glasses are hand layered into the hull sides and bottom before a layer of chopped strand mat is applied as a “core”. Many manufacturers use balsa coring or other coring materials in their hulls and hull sides for extra stiffness. At Southport, we use a “single skin” or solid glass laminate in all our hulls. That means you never need to worry about delamination of a core material in a Southport hull.

After the mat “core” is applied, hull sides receive another layer of knitted fiberglass material while the hull bottom receives a double layer of 36 ounce woven roving for substantial hull bottom thickness and stiffness.

Nowhere is the advantage of CAD design more visible than in a Southport stringer system. Engineered precisely for strength, the intricate stringers aren’t built of fiberglass-covered plywood or foam sheets as in other boats. They are laminated on a mold and contain all the wiring and plumbing chases, the fuel cell compartment and even the floors for consoles and storage compartments.

Before the stringers are bonded to the hull, patterns are laid on the laminated hull surfaces. Then a 21st century bonding material called methacrylate is applied. Methacrylate is a perfect boat-building material in that it has a tensile (pull apart) strength of 4000 pounds per square inch — 3 times that of fiberglass laminate — yet never gets brittle like putties and glass mat. That means your hull can take a big hit, absorbing the blow and flexing, without a worry of delaminating the stringer system.

In order to achieve an automotive-like fit, the stringer system is positioned with steel fixtures that utilize registers on the hull mold itself to ensure precision and repeatability. This means the stringer structure on your Southport isn’t located by hand, it’s precision fit.

The methacrylate bond of the stringer system to hull is so strong, that 3 hours after the stringers are fit, the hull is lifted from the mold using the stringer system. Overhead cranes take the hull to the next stage in the process, foaming the stringer system and hull.

The hull stringer system in a Southport is completely filled with foam and cavities not used for storage or fuel cells are filled with foam as well. This gives your Southport superior strength, basic flotation, and absorbs vibration.

In the assembly area, plumbing, electrical and fuel systems are located within the stringer system grid. Notice that the wiring chases are gel-coated fiberglass, so there is never a worry about rough glass chafing wiring and hoses. Even the polyethylene fuel cell has its own gel coated compartment — designed in.

Before the cockpit inner liner is fitted into the hull, beads of methacrylate are placed on the tops of the stringer system grid. In the area above the fuel cell, 4200 sealant is used in place of the methacrylate bond in the unlikely event that the polyethylene fuel cell ever needs replacing.

Steel fixtures precisely locate the cockpit inner liner on the stringer system. With the hull, stringer system and cockpit liner filled with foam and bonded together with 4000-pound-per-square-inch methacrylate, your Southport uni-body is incredibly strong, solid, and quiet — by design.

Some parts like the consoles, instrument panels and helm seat/livewell pods are built off-line in the subassembly areas before they are installed on the boats. After complete assembly, every Southport gets a thorough detailing so that you receive the Southport you deserve. After the boats are detailed, each is wrapped from the gunwale up to ensure that your Southport arrives at your dealership the same way it left the factory. After all, every one has our name on it: Southport.