Most marine speaker systems that come across my desk are designed to give wakeboarders and lake drunkards something to listen to while wasting time on weekends. Their boats have lots of pretty paint, comfy seats to take in the sun and compartments for coolers of beer. What we don’t see are gritty work boats, the kind that actually haul ass on the open ocean.
Changing it up, Kicker, the mobile audio manufacturer from Oklahoma, decided to choose a real live fishing boat as a demo vehicle. And, they went all the way, partnering with the Cornelia Marie, one of the risk-taking ships chronicled in the Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch. Captain Phil Harris and his crew loved the idea of a loud Kicker system and let the crew from Safe & Sound in Anchorage, Alaska, have at the king-crab ship.
The Marie received a 15-inch Solo-Baric L7 subwoofer, two 12-inch CompVT subwoofers, four sets of 6.5-inch RS-Series Component speakers, and three weather-hardy KB6000 box pairs. “Everybody in the fleet knows about the system and are completely envious of our gear,” Phil says. “Kicker has given us absolutely, bar none, the best-sounding system out there.” It’s also so loud that the Discovery crew that tapes the fishermen at work has had to ask them to turn it down a notch!
With the start of the summer boating season at hand, it’s refreshing to see a serious marine application. Don’t get me wrong; those pretty boats that you haul behind your truck make for some good times, but my kind of vessel is the kind that brings in a haul of tasty seafood.