September 8, 2009 – Edgewater, Florida – EdgeWater Boats, manufacturer of award-winning fishing and family cruising boats ranging from 14 to 38 feet, has been named the exclusive builder of the new Summit 35 Racer/Cruiser sailboat model. The company was selected by high performance sailboat developer Summit Yachts because of EdgeWater’s proprietary high-tech construction methods and consistently excellent customer service index (CSI) ratings.

“EdgeWater has manufactured many semi-custom recreational and commercial projects since we opened our doors in 1992; however, this is the first time we have built a completely new design with an outside client,” said Peter Truslow, President of EdgeWater Boats. “We are very excited about our collaboration with Summit Yachts. The Summit 35 is a beautiful, efficient design and the type of world-class product we like to build.”  With several orders in hand, EdgeWater already is in full production on the Summit 35, which is scheduled to make its official debut at the Newport International Boat Show, September 17-20, 2009.

The Summit 35 Racer/Cruiser is a smaller sister to the highly successful King 40 Racer/Cruiser introduced by Summit Yachts in 2008, which was named Sailing World’s 2009 Boat of the Year.  Mills Design of County Wicklow, Ireland, created the dual-purpose concept for the new boat, combining optimum sailing performance across the full range of wind speeds with a complete interior suited to either racing or cruising. The Summit 35, which features a custom rig from Southern Spars, is designed to be competitive in the IRC, PHRF and ORR racing classes.

Working from Mills Design’s 3-D CAD files, EdgeWater collaborated with Marine Concepts of Cape Coral, Fla., to develop the tooling for the Summit 35. The hull and deck will be built using EdgeWater’s exclusive Single Piece Infusion® (SPI) construction process, ensuring a lightweight yet super-strong, one-piece boat that can endure the stresses produced by hard-core racing and offshore cruising.

“Our closed-molded, vacuum-assisted SPI process is ideal for building high performance sailboats like this one, which features relatively thin fiberglass skins and a PVC core infused with vinylester resin,” said Truslow. “Attention to weight was crucial to the project, and SPI’s strength-to-weight ratio is significantly higher than you would get using a traditional open-molded construction technique.”

Summit Yachts’ Barry Carroll, a well-known boat builder in his own right, and Summit 35 Project Manager Tripp Estabrook came to Florida to participate in the construction of Hull No. 1 with the EdgeWater team. “We needed a supplier that could meet our exacting construction standards for this project,” said Carroll. “After reviewing a number of potential manufacturers, we found EdgeWater and its SPI process more than fit the bill.”

The Summit project is one of several new ventures EdgeWater has taken on as it expands beyond its core base of building award-winning, high-quality saltwater fishing and cruising boats.

“The project has helped us to refine our technology. The knowledge we’ve gained has helped us with development work we are doing for the U.S. Navy, as well as to improve our existing EdgeWater line,” said Truslow, who added, “The Summit 35 and other custom projects have allowed our team to maintain steady production throughout 2009, even with the downturn in the boating industry.”

For more information on the Summit 35, please visit www.summit-yachts.com.

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