![]() The MKIII is wider and longer than the original Picnic Boat with twin Yanmar diesels instead of a single, but the granddaddy design still plies the waters from Maine to Florida and beyond, turning heads with her classic good looks that seem destined never to go out of style. Today, somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 to 500 Picnic Boats (and still counting) have been delivered, with the current model, the MKIII, having premiered in 2010. Plenty of other builders tried to copy her, and Hinckley even sued a few of them to protect its design, but none ultimately succeeded the way the Picnic Boat did. ![]() She was not only stunning to look at (even Martha Stewart had one) but also easy to skipper, economical with a single Yanmar engine and safe to bring into the shallows-a quartet of features that made the her one of the best-selling models in America from 1994 through 2010. The original 36-foot Hinckley Picnic Boat was a Bruce King design that married Downeast styling with JetStick helm technology and Hamilton water-jet propulsion. The classic Hinckley Picnic Boat is as stylish today as she was when she first launched. Builders around the world took notice, and a raft of would-be competitors soon emerged as Hinckley went on to create a whole line of Downeast-style jet boats from 29 to 55 feet long. After the Picnic Boat was displayed at a few boat shows, Hinckley became known as the builder of the Downeast-style dayboat that everyone had to have. When its 36-foot Picnic Boat premiered in 1994, The Hinckley Company was known primarily as a builder of custom sailing yachts on the coast of Maine. Lots of boatbuilders use words like groundbreaking and revolutionary when describing new models, but few can throw around the word iconic with the gravitas of Hinckley Yachts.
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