Motorboating's November '06 issue highlighted Formula owners Doug and Melanie Schindler in their "IPS: Up Close & Personal" article. "Doug and Melanie Schindler of Jeffersonville, Indiana, on the Ohio River, took delivery of their first boat, a Formula 40 PC, in May. They immediately headed north to Canada with their 20-year-old daughter, Amelia...The Schindlers went to the Louisville Boat Show last winter with two friends, one of whom wanted a Formula 37 PC." When they became interested in the Formula PC line, but wanted something bigger, the dealer told them there would be a 40 PC at the upcoming Miami show.

"'We flew down and looked at the 40,' says Doug... It had the IPS 500 package, which Doug had never heard of. 'I couldn't get over a boat like that going so fast. I don't think anything in its class can keep up with it.'" Of the IPS controls, Schindler said, '"I just played with it some around the docks.' He was so confident so quickly that, with no cruising experience, Doug, his wife and his daughter were soon on their way aboard Clarabelledown the Ohio River to the Mississippi, then up to the Illinois River and into Lake Michigan, through the Straits of Mackinac into Lake Huron, and down the St. Clair River to Detroit. By the time they got home, the Schindlers had put 360 hours on Clarabelle without the IPS system missing a beat."

Doug relates how easy their trip was aboard the Formula 40 PC, "'We went through 38 locks and didn't put a scratch on the boat. It will turn on a dime, and with the bowthruster I can put it in a slip sideways. At my marina people say, 'When you bought the boat you were the most inexperienced boat handler here. Now you're the best.' I tell them it's the boat.'"