Back in the days before the center console market exploded, there was the Marlago. No one could have predicted where the market was going… no one but David Shaw. Back in those days Jefferson Yachts was building motor yachts, big beautiful, motor yachts! David envisioned a new boat, a big center console, bigger than anyone else was building, and the Marlago was born.

Marlago still builds one of the finest, fastest, and most efficient large center consoles on the market today. The Marlago 37SS has a top speed of over 60 mph, and a solid cruise in the mid-40s, at an amazing fuel rate of 1.7 mpg! With twin Mercury Verados (you read that right…TWINS) we are achieving faster speeds and more efficiency than our competitors!

We go faster, ride smoother, and burn less gas! The 9’2” beam gives the owner the ability to trailer to endless destinations to explore. A stainless windshield frame, large sun pad, and twin berth cuddy (with optional AC) puts the Marlago ahead of the rest of the pack, leaving them with a smooth wake to follow.

With more than two decades of experience, Marlago has it right!

When we say “race inspired”, we mean it! Back in the days of true offshore racing, one name stands out in the history books, Don Aronow. Dons designs made him an American Legend.

Aronow’s boats won over 350 offshore races and he was a two-time world champion and three-time U.S. champion. He had been elected to every powerboating Hall of Fame in existence, he and Gar Wood were the only two Americans to have ever received the UIM Gold Medal of Honor.

The original Marlago traces its lineage from there. Although the relationship between founder and owner David Shaw and those boats has been a closely held secret, it does in fact exist.

The modern day Marlago boasts comfort and luxury never imagined in those days. All stainless T-top frame surrounded by a glare reducing Solex windscreen, cockpit electronics are mounted in a smooth and sleek, angled “glass dash” designed for the helmsman’s comfortable view. A double berth cuddy and interior features such as sun-lounger, forward seating with storage, huge fish boxes, and contoured combing pads.

When you experience the smooth offshore speed of the Marlago, you are at the helm of a true descendent of history.

No one goes faster, smoother than Marlago!

David Shaw… Keeper of the Legend

In 1960 Leon Shaw along with a friend began a course in the boating industry that has landed Marlago Boats squarely in the sights of the history of what was later known in the 70s as Thunder Boat Row.

From a small town in Indiana Kentuckiana Yacht was born. Leon opened his first location on the corner of Spring Street & Riverside drive in Jeffersonville Indiana selling re furbished boats.

Being located on the banks of the Ohio River, houseboats were the rage and to meet incredible demand Leon founded Gibson Houseboats in 1968.

But this is but a sliver of the story that became the Shaw Family boat building legacy.

Along the way the Shaw family founded Jefferson Yachts. The focus of Jefferson Yachts was luxury, Incredible luxury ranging from 41’ and up, up to the pinnacle of the brand, the 82’ Starship.

Leon’s son David joined the company in 1985 and quickly became the companies chief engineer and designer. Under David’s design direction the 42’ Sundeck was introduced. The Sundeck was a hit and set record sales for Jefferson.

“Building boats is all that I had ever known” David said, “it’s what our family did.” And while wildly successful, David’s attention was always further south, Miami’s Thunder Boat Row. There, they were building fast sexy boats that were winning races all over the world.

In the early 90s, an incredible stroke of luck fell in David’s lap. David had for years wanted to build the kind of boats that had the world’s attention, the go-fast racing boats that were being built by legends of the business, like Don Aronow, and being raced by drivers like Roger Penske.

The quest was on for what David envisioned as the “next hot boat”, a big, fast, sexy center console. In those days center consoles were thought of as only fishing boats. The Marlago project was born in secrecy. No one would expect a yacht builder to create what the Marlago would become.

In a small classified ad newspaper called the “Bargain Mart”, David found an ad that caught his attention. It was an ad from a farmer in Lexington Kentucky for boat molds.

The farmer told David that many years before the molds were abandoned on his property from “some guys from Miami”. David studied the pictures and thought “could this be what I think it is?”  Now if you’ve ever seen the outside of a fiberglass mold you know its pretty hard to figure out what comes out of it, they are crude and industrial looking structures, braced by steel bars and frames. But David said he just had a feeling this was something worth looking at.

He made the trip from Indiana to Lexington and met the farmer, they drove to the spot in a field where the molds were stored, after closer inspection it was what he thought. Don Aronow’s famed 40’ Cigarette, the first of which was bought by Roger Penske. It was the foundation for the Marlago hull.

After having the molds moved back to Indiana, it was all David could think about. The hull shape was studied, cut and modified into a 35’. The transom was notched and built to hang outboards, the signature of a Marlago.

The 35’ Marlago FS was so successful that a 2nd location in Jeffersonville had to be added to support the production demands, even then customers often waited up to 2 years for their boats. Well over 600 of the 35’s were built.

In 2015 the Marlago became the 37 SS “Super Sleek” with the Don Aronow race inspired hull underneath. The same flat running, smooth wave cutting characteristics that made world class champions is to this day what Marlago is known for.

And if you are wondering what happened to the original 40’ Cigarette mold? Yes, it still exists, straight from the historic Thunder Boat Row. David Shaw is in fact… “The keeper of the Legend”