racing catamaran racing boat

Skater Powerboats

Racing Pedigree

Founded in 1974

Flexible Design and Power

Fully Custom

World Leaders in Design

Welcome to skater powerboats.

Those who crave tear-duct draining, cheek-smearing velocity on the water know there is only only one king: Skater! When it comes to performance, the automobile world has Ferrari and Lamborghini, while motorcyclists long to ride a Ducati or BMW.

The Number One builder of high-performance catamarans in the world has been in business for 50 years.

Skater is the standard by which all other high-performance boat manufacturers are compared. The sleekest in design, the fastest, and the most sought-after Skater is the Bugatti of the water.

Founded and led by Peter Hledin in 1974, Skater prides itself on being at the leading edge of technology. The Skater, Michigan-based company that covers 95,000 square feet was the first to perfect the use of vacuum-bagging technology, S-glass, kevlar, carbon fiber, epoxy resins and other construction techniques in the high performance industry and we use those construction techniques on every boat we build.

Skater does not build ‘off-the-line’ boats. From the interior to the paint to the power package and everything in between, every catamaran is fully customizable to meet each client’s needs. From subtle to spectacular in design but always stunning in performance, Skater excels above the rest.

Handling Like No Other

Every Skater has world-renown on-rails handling and incredible responsiveness

The Standard Bearer in the Offshore World

Even though others have tried to replicate the Skater hull countless times, we’re still the industry leader in all-around performance and speed

No Duplicates

Like human DNA, no two Skaters are the same.  Each one is built to the precise standards and expectations of our clients

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Our Exclusive Models

Mercury Racing Partner

Choose from Mercury 300R's to 450s. The choice is yours!

4.6 Liter V8

The V8 FourStroke 450R cranks out the highest level of outboard power ever offered by Mercury Racing

Advanced Midsection

The rugged Advanced MidSection (AMS) features heavy-duty guide plates and stiffened engine mounts to stabilize the outboard for enhanced high-speed handling.

Water-Cooled Supercharger

A 2.4-liter belt-driven, twin-screw supercharger delivers zero-lag pressure charging for instant throttle response.

Gearcase Options

The surface piercing Sport Master gearcase delivers race-proven performance for boats capable of speeds exceeding 85 mph, with low water pick-ups and a crescent leading edge to maximize efficiency and speed.

32 Doug Wright

Racing pedigree.

With over 25 years of building offshore powerboats, we have brought home over 20 Championships in the Stock Outboard Class with plenty more in the future. Click on the link below to learn more and order your race boat today!

DOUG WRIGHT POWERBOATS

Sail GP: how do supercharged racing yachts go so fast? An engineer explains

Head of Engineering, Warsash School of Maritime Science and Engineering, Solent University

Disclosure statement

Jonathan Ridley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Sailing used to be considered as a rather sedate pastime. But in the past few years, the world of yacht racing has been revolutionised by the arrival of hydrofoil-supported catamarans, known as “foilers”. These vessels, more akin to high-performance aircraft than yachts, combine the laws of aerodynamics and hydrodynamics to create vessels capable of speeds of up to 50 knots, which is far faster than the wind propelling them.

An F50 catamaran preparing for the Sail GP series recently even broke this barrier, reaching an incredible speed of 50.22 knots (57.8mph) purely powered by the wind. This was achieved in a wind of just 19.3 knots (22.2mph). F50s are 15-metre-long, 8.8-metre-wide hydrofoil catamarans propelled by rigid sails and capable of such astounding speeds that Sail GP has been called the “ Formula One of sailing ”. How are these yachts able to go so fast? The answer lies in some simple fluid dynamics.

As a vessel’s hull moves through the water, there are two primary physical mechanisms that create drag and slow the vessel down. To build a faster boat you have to find ways to overcome the drag force.

The first mechanism is friction. As the water flows past the hull, a microscopic layer of water is effectively attached to the hull and is pulled along with the yacht. A second layer of water then attaches to the first layer, and the sliding or shearing between them creates friction.

On the outside of this is a third layer, which slides over the inner layers creating more friction, and so on. Together, these layers are known as the boundary layer – and it’s the shearing of the boundary layer’s molecules against each other that creates frictional drag.

A yacht also makes waves as it pushes the water around and under the hull from the bow (front) to the stern (back) of the boat. The waves form two distinctive patterns around the yacht (one at each end), known as Kelvin Wave patterns.

These waves, which move at the same speed as the yacht, are very energetic. This creates drag on the boat known as the wave-making drag, which is responsible for around 90% of the total drag. As the yacht accelerates to faster speeds (close to the “hull speed”, explained later), these waves get higher and longer.

These two effects combine to produce a phenomenon known as “ hull speed ”, which is the fastest the boat can travel – and in conventional single-hull yachts it is very slow. A single-hull yacht of the same size as the F50 has a hull speed of around 12 mph.

However, it’s possible to reduce both the frictional and wave-making drag and overcome this hull-speed limit by building a yacht with hydrofoils . Hydrofoils are small, underwater wings. These act in the same way as an aircraft wing, creating a lift force which acts against gravity, lifting our yacht upwards so that the hull is clear of the water.

While an aircraft’s wings are very large, the high density of water compared to air means that we only need very small hydrofoils to produce a lot of the important lift force. A hydrofoil just the size of three A3 sheets of paper, when moving at just 10 mph, can produce enough lift to pick up a large person.

This significantly reduces the surface area and the volume of the boat that is underwater, which cuts the frictional drag and the wave-making drag, respectively. The combined effect is a reduction in the overall drag to a fraction of its original amount, so that the yacht is capable of sailing much faster than it could without hydrofoils.

The other innovation that helps boost the speed of racing yachts is the use of rigid sails . The power available from traditional sails to drive the boat forward is relatively small, limited by the fact that the sail’s forces have to act in equilibrium with a range of other forces, and that fabric sails do not make an ideal shape for creating power. Rigid sails, which are very similar in design to an aircraft wing, form a much more efficient shape than traditional sails, effectively giving the yacht a larger engine and more power.

As the yacht accelerates from the driving force of these sails, it experiences what is known as “ apparent wind ”. Imagine a completely calm day, with no wind. As you walk, you experience a breeze in your face at the same speed that you are walking. If there was a wind blowing too, you would feel a mixture of the real (or “true” wind) and the breeze you have generated.

The two together form the apparent wind, which can be faster than the true wind. If there is enough true wind combined with this apparent wind, then significant force and power can be generated from the sail to propel the yacht, so it can easily sail faster than the wind speed itself.

The combined effect of reducing the drag and increasing the driving power results in a yacht that is far faster than those of even a few years ago. But all of this would not be possible without one further advance: materials. In order to be able to “fly”, the yacht must have a low mass, and the hydrofoil itself must be very strong. To achieve the required mass, strength and rigidity using traditional boat-building materials such as wood or aluminium would be very difficult.

This is where modern advanced composite materials such as carbon fibre come in. Production techniques optimising weight, rigidity and strength allow the production of structures that are strong and light enough to produce incredible yachts like the F50.

The engineers who design these high-performance boats (known as naval architects ) are always looking to use new materials and science to get an optimum design. In theory, the F50 should be able to go even faster.

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A New Kind Of Sailing Experience.

The Topaz 14 is an accessible but high performance cat designed for two medium to light crew. There is room on the trampoline for three for cruising. 

The Topaz 14 delivers tremendous performance and is light, responsive, nimble and beautifully behaved. The Topaz Catamarans have been designed by International multihull racing legends Yves Loday and Robert White. With such sailing experience and pedigree, not to mention their proven design track records, it comes as little surprise that the Loday/White team have produced such a stunning range of cats.

Topaz 14 Features

• High foredeck with lots of volume in the bow area is great for stability, handling and taut feedback for the helm
• The built-in skeg design hulls (so no need for Daggerboards) make for simple user friendly sailing, especially on the beach
• No boom makes life easy OnBoard when teaching novice sailors
• Lock-in beams provide a rigid sailing platform and firm hull performance
• Fully adjustable simple Rudder System allows you to adjust the rake of the blade usually found on expensive Racing Catamarans
• Fully battened mainsail provides exciting performance
• Durable and manageable Dacron radial-cut mainsail and furling jib as standard
• Reefing mainsail as standard
• Single-line ‘Race’ Gennaker System is easy and effortless to use
• Twin trapeze as standard
• Hard wearing injection moulded polyethylene rudder blade
• Incredible high quality fittings including ball bearing blocks and race specification cleats as standard
• Auto-ratchet Gennaker block as standard
• Foam filled sealed mast for extra safety
• Step hinged mast makes rigging quick and easy (even for one young person)
• High quality foot straps for trapezing
• Unique non-slip pattern is user friendly and provides extra grip when trapezing
• Total rigged weight of just 110kg
• TRILAM technology unique to Topper gives unrivalled strength to weight ratio and great uniformity, buoyancy, stiffness, dynamism, lightweight and durability

A great first racing catamaran

A wonderful 14 foot catamaran that is fast, fun and forgiving and is ideally suited to lighter weight crews.  The Topaz 14 has a twin trapeze and a powerful 9.98m2 sail area courtesy of a large Dacron main and jib.

Tremendous stability & speed.

The 14 X option generates even higher performance with an added 10.00m2 gennaker to provide a more powered up downwind ride – while still retaining the excellent stability. The result; far more control and fewer spills than you’d expect from a cat with this much power.

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Topaz 14 prices start at £8,495.00 (inc VAT.)

If you would like a more detailed quote to discuss you requirements, please contact one of our sales team for more information.

Our dedicated Sales Managers, Russ & Jon are always on-hand for any questions, or help you require.

We have an on-the-road parts and repairs shop and Russ attends various events across the country to fix or replace equipment. He is also a font of knowledge offering general advice and after-care for all our customers.

Below you will find all the support documents available for the Topaz 14 and 14 X. If you have any further questions or can’t find what you are looking for please let us know! 

Instructions

CE Certificate

UK Certificate

Topaz Manual

Topaz Range

F1x A-class foiling catamaran

World champion, lighter = better, craftsmanship, meet the foiling f1x a-class catamaran.

This is the ultimate singlehanded foiling catamaran of the moment: ultramodern, incredibly fast, very agile, extremely strong and feather-light, in an aerodynamic and ergonomic design. The perfect total package, packed in 1 foiling catamaran. This is the world’s coolest boat for singlehanded races and the winner of several A-cat world championships and many other sailing races.

The 2020-F1x A-cat is exactly the same foiling catamaran that made Mischa Heemskerk Vice-World Champion at the Herveybay Worlds 2018 in Australia and World Champion at Weymouth 2019. All our foiling F1x A-class catamarans come straight, ready to race and ‘Mischa-tuned’ from our factory.

Unique design enables top performances

The F1x A-class foiling catamaran is the ultimate reflection of our current design language. The aerodynamic design accentuates the performance qualities of this super fast foiling racing boat. The sophisticated deck plan provides clear control and minimal air resistance.

Foils The rudders and daggerboard foils used on the F1x A-class foiling catamarans are produced with the highest quality carbon pre-preg fibers. The foils are cured in our own Autoclave . Our winning foil design was created in close cooperation with Glenn Ashby and the designers of AC Team New Zealand .

Construction The F1x A-cat is manufactured entirely according to the carbon pre-preg/ Nomex production method, and cured in our Autoclave. This technology is the same as used in the aerospace industry and within other foiling boats like for example, the America’s Cup.

Design The design of the F1x foiling A-class catamaran was completely conceived by the DNA design team and made at DNA’s own yard. In the DNA design team Pieterjan Dwarshuis, Mischa Heemskerk and the renowned Dutch industrial design engineer Rudo Enserink worked closely together to create the perfect foiling A-class catamaran.

We build your new foiling boat!

Technical details.

The F1x A-class foiling catamaran has a number of unique features that improve performance. For example:

• Semi ridged trampoline. Gives extra torsional stiffness to the boat and increases its aerodynamic characteristics.
• Patented main-sheet-wheel-system. For more direct and faster trim of the main sail.
• Aerodynamically placed traveller car.
• Flexible daggerboard casings. For minimal water absorption in floating mode.
• Aerodynamically shaped ‘beams’.
• Adjustable T-rudders. Foiling with rudder differential is possible.

Specifications

LOA: 5.49 m BOA: 2.30 m Max. draught: 1.20 m Sail area: 13.94 m Total weight: ca. 53 kg Top speed: 31 kn Extra: All measurements according to IACA Class regulations.

Buy a champion's boat!

Are you excited to buy a F1x A-class foiling catamaran from DNA Performance Sailing? Please fill in our contact form:

Yes, I want a F1x A-cat!

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• Our Evolution
• Phoenix 32 XR
• Phoenix 34 XPR
• Phoenix 37 XPR
• Phoenix 37 XCC
• Phoenix 40 XCC
• Build Process

Uncompromising craftmanship Performance and Reliability

Every model from our 32 XR to the 40 XCC is handcrafted by the Chris Schoenbohm team.

Smart Performance Marine

Blending Art and Science

The Phoenix lineup of catamarans by Smart Performance Marine may be new to the consumer market, but their design and construction are the product of two decades of modifying, designing, rigging, and building high-performance outboard catamarans for offshore racing and pleasure boating.

Founder, owner and designer Chris Schoenbohm bought his first race boat in 2003 and won the Super Boat International (SBI) World Championships in 2014 driving a Doug Wright-built catamaran that he had cut in half, widened and modified heavily for better turning.

That boat’s modified running surface was the genesis of today’s Phoenix Variable Speed Running Surface, a third-generation design that places primary importance on handling, turning and driver feedback without sacrificing world-class acceleration, speed and efficiency.

Every Phoenix is built to the highest standards in the industry with state-of-the-art engineered laminates and coring, epoxy resin, and full vacuum infusion of hulls, deck and bulkheads, yielding not only an exceptional strength-to-weight ratio but also class-leading safety. We back our hulls with a limited LIFETIME warranty.

Explore our lineup of performance offshore catamarans, including the purebred 32XR race boat, the 34XPR and 37XPR race-inspired poker run boats, and the innovative 37XCC and 40XCC, high-performance, air-packing catamaran with a versatile center console layout. The Phoenix offshore racing and poker run boats are the premier performance catamarans.  Contact us to get details on your next performance boat .

The Smart Performance Marine Difference

There are numerous catamaran speed boat manufacturers offering racing, poker run, and even center console configurations. they vary widely in performance, build quality, aesthetics, amenities, and, of course, price point. most of them represent a good fit for the right kind of buyer, whether that buyer is most concerned with speed, versatility, luxury, value, or some combination..

So where do Smart Performance Marine and the Phoenix line of catamarans fit in? We’re guided by an unwavering commitment to several key ideas and characteristics:

Safety and Strength

Building safe, strong boats is our utmost priority. Our designs, materials and construction techniques are tested and proven on the offshore racing circuit under the most rigorous conditions on the planet. No production Schoenbohm-built hull has ever failed on the race course or anywhere else. We’re so confident in our hulls that we offer a lifetime warranty against structural failure.

Superior Drivability

Anybody can go fast with enough power hanging off the transom. We emphasize speed and performance through design. The Phoenix running surface has been exhaustively refined not just for acceleration and straight-line speed but also superior handling, especially through turns. Our hulls provide proper driver feedback for comfort, confidence and fun behind the wheel.

Personalized Service

Higher-volume production builders can turn out more boats for fewer dollars than a smaller, semi-custom shop like Smart Performance Marine. But it’s important to us that buyers have the opportunity to see everything about how we build boats and to be an integral part of the construction of their own. Each of our boats is personally built by owner Chris Schoenbohm and a core team of craftsmen. 

Solid Value

We’re not trying to be the lowest priced performance cat on the market, but we do strive to offer the best value. Counterintuitively, our 100% vacuum resin infusion process helps us do that by dramatically reducing waste of resin and other consumables and streamlining lamination. With resin infusion, we’re able to produce a lighter, stronger product using roughly half the resin and far fewer man-hours than would be required for conventional hand lamination or even vacuum bagging.

Racing Pedigree

Owner and founder Chris Schoenbohm is a widely experienced powerboat racer with a world championship under his belt. He has personally refined the Phoenix platform over the span of nearly a decade and is directly involved in the construction and rigging of every Smart Performance Marine boat. The Phoenix catamarans we build for our customers are identical in design and construction to the catamarans we race in the superboat stock class.

Innovation and Science

We innovate every day. Our team has a proven approach to creating some of the highest-performing catamaran boats available, but we never miss the to improve on everything we do. We constantly pay attention to our chemical mixtures,  our infusion process, flow rates and ultimately weight and rigidity of every boat. Each boat includes a lifetime warranty that we fully back due to the quality, innovation and science used to hand-craft Phoenix boats.

Every Phoenix Boat has the DNA of a racer embedded right out of the mold.

Hull one from seven years ago launched a new breed of Phoenix boats with the industry's best running surface.

GET IN TOUCH

Feel free to contact us. we’d love to hear from you..

Selecting the perfect Phoenix boat is a life-changing experience. We welcome you to see first hand how we build and perfect each boat.

CALL US TODAY

407-401-2998

Send us an email.

[email protected]

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Visiting orlando, airport options.

Flying Private: Orlando Executive Airport is the closest option with excellent amenities.

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Flying Commercial: Orlando International Airport is the hub for all major carriers and just a short drive to our headquarters.

• Transportation from local airports availble.
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• Visit, get a tour, see how we build your next Phoenix boat.

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• Yachting World
• Digital Edition

Some of the world’s biggest, coolest catamarans go racing

• January 16, 2024

As multihulls get bigger and faster, it’s no surprise owners want to test them on the racecourse, as Andi Robertson reports

The Yacht Club Costa Smeralda is one of the most prestigious yacht clubs in the world, its marble atrium and exclusive pool deck usually welcoming owners and crews of superyachts, Swans, and iconic classes like the Star, J-Class and TP52 . But this autumn the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup, the club’s season finale, broke new ground with three catamarans given pride of place at the YCCS’s race dock.

The three different, but equally exciting, powerful big cats went on the prowl in a newly introduced multihull division within the 45-strong entry at the showcase Maxi event. Lord Irvine Laidlaw’s brand new Gunboat 80 Highland Fling 18 lined up alongside Adrian Keller’s 84ft Irens-designed Allegra (launched 2014), and the new Gunboat 68 Convexity , campaigned by Don Wilson and Suna Said.

For the record, Allegra won overall by two points from Highland Fling which missed the second, windy race due to a ‘teething gremlin’, but then won races three and four when the breeze had diminished. Convexity finished 3rd, on equal points aggregate to Highland Fling .

Highland Fling 18 is Laidlaw’s first new build multihull , after he had an interim pre-owned ‘starter’ Gunboat 68 (hull No1) in 2021-2022 while the 80 was in build. The red-hulled beast is undoubtedly the benchmark for a growing breed of Maxi Multihulls which are now starting to become more popular in Europe as well as in the Caribbean and the USA.

She’s an out-and-out racer – indeed a day racer at that. Built entirely in pre-preg carbon fibre, using the same construction methods as the VPLP Ultims and IMOCA 60s , a focus has been on keeping weight down to the absolute minimum and, more importantly, carefully distributed.

The 80-footer, which has a 33ft beam, has aircraft-grade furniture inside and further weight savings were also made in the paint and glazing technology. The Gunboat 80 has long, asymmetrical L-shaped daggerboards, the rig set slightly further back for a better overall balance.

Brand new Gunboat 80 Highland Fling 18. Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget/Rolex

The boat was only launched in July, and racing in Porto Cervo in September the crew included many longstanding Fling team members, including the likes of Jan Dekker, and Kiwi (now Newport-based) match racer Cameron Appleton. Offshore legend Loïck Peyron has had an ongoing role with the boat and sails on board as the team’s resident multihull expert, working closely alongside the owner who, as usual, steers.

By contrast, Allegra has already earned a long, successful track record offshore, including back to back class wins in the Rolex Fastnet Race . The third entry was another new Gunboat, raced at her first event by Don Wilson, who is better known for his M32 programme of the same name.

There should have been five Maxi Multis forming this inaugural class, but two did not make it for fairly exceptional reasons: CoCo de Mer , the Gunboat 66, capsized in the Round the Island Race ; and Flow , a Gunboat 60, was damaged by fire in Barcelona. But the feedback from those in Porto Cervo is that next year should see somewhere between six and maybe eight big Multis racing in this class.

“I think this is only going to grow,” smiles the ever enthusiastic Paul Larsen of Allegra . “We were usually the first boats to start and we would take off and have some fantastic boat-on-boat racing, flying hulls, pushing it to the edge.”

Newly launched Gunboat 68 Convexity. Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget/Rolex

Making the transition

As the firepower increases and the multihull fleet grows, so more and more top pro sailors are making the transition to these high speed big cats.

“I was looking across at the start line and on the boat next to us there is Kinley Fowler, Taylor Canfield, Chris Nicholson, Charlie Enright all racing on one boat, that is a punchy line up of guys right there,” recalls Larsen. “And then there is Loïck [Peyron], Cameron Appleton, Jan Dekker and co on the Highland Fling and they are right here racing these multihulls, not over there on the Maxis!

“It’s great fun to be racing in that company. These guys are not paid to come second. Everyone is there with an interest in moving things forwards, and the owners have the budget to drive things forward. But while it is fun, I think Adrian [Keller, Allegra owner] is conscious of the rest of the fleet – for the other good boats we definitely don’t want to go forwards blindly and leave them behind.”

The Irens-designed Allegra has the most experience on the racecourse, here at last year’s Multihull Cup in Palma. Photo: Sailing Energy

Highland Fling tactician Cameron Appleton races everything from TP52s to RC44s and superyachts – so is not someone who is easily impressed. He has found himself doing more and more Maxi Multi racing and enthuses: “The new boat is a great evolution, it is a big step on. I did some sailing on the last boat, the Gunboat 68, and on the HH66 and other big multis. The fleet has some serious promise, without a doubt.

“For some older owners like Irvine it just has an extra comfort element. If he needs to take a break, or when we are waiting before or between racing, there is a lot of real comfort. When he is sitting inside he can see everything that is going on on the race course, nothing is obscured by any big amounts of heel. His rest is true rest for him then and that is important for him.”

Despite bringing a highly experienced crew on to the new boat, Appleton acknowledges: “We had a lot to learn. We have a lot of the original guys from the Highland Fling s, we had Loïck Peyron to help in terms of set-up and speed and just the way we approached sailing, the sail configurations. He was amazing, so alive, so electric and passionate. His biggest thing was all about when you had to choose your combinations, the whole ‘low load, low drag is fast’. It’s about not trying to overpower the boat, so that if you get caught out, this is step one, this is step two, you can ride this out this way… you can get yourself in trouble with this combination but not that one…

“The importance, [Peyron] was pressing on us, is in thinking ahead. These multis load up very fast. We have the ‘UpSideUp’ system which has the Vs, the cap shrouds set with an alarm at a certain load, we have a heel angle alarm that triggers the mainsheet, and we have a mainsheet load that triggers too. So there are three safety features. We are making sure we are sailing the boat within these limits.”

Gunboat 80 Highland Fling 18. Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget/Rolex

Costa Smeralda and the confines of ‘Bomb Alley’ – as the passage through La Maddalena archipelago is known – is a very different race track to the tradewind, open, choppy waters of the Caribbean where the biggest growth in these big multihulls is.

Racing in Sardinia brings particular challenges, as Larsen notes: “Porto Cervo is typically relatively flat and so you can push the boats to 100%. You have lots of corners and roundings and odd angles that you are sailing relative to the wind so you need to have very good crossover charts for all your sails. Because you have to push the boat all of the time, you also need to have the equipment and the people to get sails up and down very quickly – that’s where you can draw big tactical advantages from having a faster winch package for faster hoists, halyard locks and so on. If you can get inside someone at a mark and come out firing you gain.”

Appleton concurs: “These boats seem to love everything. We love reaching legs. Porto Cervo was great because the setting is so dramatic. You have all these different angles, you have acceleration through Bomb Alley, all the navigational aspects and the geographical bends, but at the end of the day long windward-leewards and triangle [courses] are good too.”

Alex Thomson has been racing the Gunboat 68 Tosca. Photo: PKC Media Tosca

Fresh playing field

At the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup the honours were shared across the different wind strengths, Allegra better in the breeze and Highland Fling better in the lighter winds. Going forward, the challenge is to fine tune the ORC Multihull rating system to ensure each has an equal chance in their less favoured conditions. Most of those asked seem to favour a multiple number system related to wind strength.

As ever, racing under different rating rules favours different styles of multihulls. On the offshore calendar one of the key, pinnacle events for this new breed of fast multihull is the RORC Caribbean 600, “There we clash with the MOD 70s under the MOCRA rule. It seems they struggle under MOCRA against our ‘style’ of boat,” suggests Paul Larsen. This year’s Caribbean 600 saw the Gunboat 68 Tosca , skippered by former IMOCA racer Alex Thomson for American owner Ken Howery, win the MOCRA division overall.

“On the other hand the CSA rating system seemed to favour the MODs hugely at Les Voiles de St Barth,” adds Larsen. “We feel it’s in everyone’s interest to help work to a common goal of creating a system more dedicated to our niche. That is the ORC Multihull rule. We’ve seen it work pretty well, albeit with a few bugs. Despite borrowing heavily from the ORC rule it still needs more data points to help refine it, as well as subjective input from the fleet to shape the direction the majority want it to go in.

Allegra defended her Fastnet class win. Photo: Rick Tomlinson/RORC

“There’s often a clash of interests when the European fleet heads over to do the Caribbean circuit as some of the more US-centred boats are optimised for the rules they know. That’s to be appreciated but you can’t help feel there should be an amalgamation. These are big, comfortable, fast ocean crossing boats and it’s got to be in every owner’s interests to be able to do as many events as possible.”

Long-time MOD70 skipper Brian Thompson, who’ll be racing the Gunboat 66 Mana next season, suggests: “Hopefully the ORC Multi rule is headed in the right direction because it is certainly a hard ask to rate the MOD70 against the Gunboats. But the way things are going hopefully the class will split to have a Gunboat/HH type class and then a trimaran class which would race separately. So I see it maybe reaching a point where we’ll have different classes similar to the Maxi monohulls, racers, performance cruisers and so on.”

Future proofing

Predicting the direction of growth is part of the rating rule challenge, trying to future proof it for diverse fleets including multis of very different configurations. Naval architect Quentin Lucet of VPLP summarises: “I’m sure there is room for improvement. I believe for these cats the configuration, the length and displacement appendage configuration is quite similar, so for now I suspect in terms of performance and handicap we should be able to put in place a proper system for everyone.

“What is different here [compared with rating monohulls] is when you get more weight in a multihull that is more righting moment and as soon as it is blowing more than 15 knots it is really such a benefit, much more than in a monohull fleet. I think the ORC are working on this.

The distinctive Bieker-designed Fujin is a Caribbean race regular. Photo: Christophe Jouany

“From our side it is not so complicated when the boats have the same configurations. But what will be tricky is if we have foils or ‘T’-rudders or things like this. At the moment we have the Gunboat-type boats and, say, the MOD70s coming together more.

“We see it in the Caribbean already with the different MOD70s with different appendage configurations. Some have big foils, T-rudders, some have conventional configuration, so this all might become a little tricky.” In terms of where he sees the growth in new boats in the near future Lucet concludes, “It is so much driven by the owner. Owners who want to do some cruising will not go so long [LOA]. If that is not the case what we will see will be more daysailers – like a TP52. What I suspect is that the cats will not go bigger than 80ft, and the development will be between 65ft and 80ft.”

Fujin chasing the new HH66 Nemo at Les Voiles de St Barths. Photo: Christophe Jouany

Regattas worldwide

For the International Maxi Association, this new class debut at the 2023 Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup is very much a case of dipping a toe into the waters for a European Maxi Multihull event. But there are other significant regattas around the world with performance multihull racing.

Les Voiles de Saint Barths attracts one of the biggest fleets on the burgeoning Caribbean multihull circuit. In 2023 there were no fewer than 14 big multihulls racing in a diverse class, won by Eric Maris’s MOD70 Zoulou. The French, typically, garner a particularly strong entry here, and in 2nd was Loïc Escoffier with the ORC50 Lodi Group, on which he also won the solo transatlantic Route du Rhum (just weeks after capsizing off Ireland in the Drheam Cup).

Marsaudon’s ORC catamarans (formerly TS) are regular performers offshore, Lodi Group winning class in the Route du Rhum. Photo: Marin Le Roux/PolaRYSE

Behind these two Todd Slyngstad’s HH66 Nemo finished one point up on brother Greg’s innovative Bieker 53 Fujin, with the fleet including a clutch of Gunboats and one-offs. Tech entrepreneur Greg Slyngstad has been a frequent attendee on the Caribbean multihull circuit with Fujin since its launch in 2015, racing hard and with much success. Nemo was launched in 2020 with the particular intention of competing against – and ideally beating – Fujin.

Meanwhile the Route du Rhum – always the soulful home of offshore multihull racing – last year attracted a clutch of performance-oriented Marsaudon ORC catamarans, Marc Guillemot’s custom 52ft Metarom MG5, and Roland Jourdain on his eco-friendly Outremer, alongside vintage Walter Greene and Dick Newick designs. This summer’s Rolex Fastnet Race saw many of the same catamarans line up against one another, with victory going to Allegra ahead of the Gunboat 68 Tosca.

It’ll be interesting to see how the different core fleets converge – or maybe they won’t. But for sure in the likes of Highland Fling 18 a new breed of cat has already been unleashed.

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The Excitement of Running a P1 Offshore Race Boat

• By Charles Plueddeman
• November 16, 2023

In this age of 70 mph pontoons , 90 mph center-consoles and 150 mph sport cats, it’s pretty easy to experience eye-popping velocity on the water. So, there you are, the wind flapping your cheeks as you hold that throttle to the stop, one watering eye on the speedo as you bump the trim hoping to squeeze out the last bit of speed it will take to be the first boat to the poker-run card pickup. Maybe you even imagine that’s Reggie Fountain , Steve Curtis or Shaun Torrente at the helm of the boat you are pursuing, and instead of a king of hearts, there’s a big trophy waiting at the finish line. Well, dream on, Speed Racer. You’re going fast, but you are not racing, and your production-built motorboat is no race boat.

Steve Curtis throttles a real race boat. The Victory catamaran Huski Chocolate carried Curtis and drivers Travis Pastrana and Brit Lilly to the 2022 UIM Class 1 championship in the Powerboat P1 Offshore series. Last summer, we met Curtis and this boat, now rechristened Huski Ice Spritz, at the Mercury Racing Midwest Challenge in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the fourth event on the five-race 2023 P1 schedule. The boat is owned by SVEA Racing Inc., based in Stuart, Florida, regarded as the benchmark in professionalism and experience in Class 1 and led by technical director Gary Stray, director of operations Scott Colton and crew chief Patrick Cleaveland.

Curtis, a 59-year-old Englishman and the son of Cougar Powerboats founder and racing catamaran innovator Clive Curtis, claimed his first Class 1 world championship in 1985 in Key West when he was 21 years old. In his career, Curtis has throttled more than 20 world champions. Who would be better to show us under the cowl of a Class 1 race boat than the acknowledged master of throttling racing cats?

Class 1 is the premier category of international offshore powerboat racing. A P1 Offshore event can include a number of classes, but only the Class 1 Championship is sanctioned by the UIM (Union Internationale Motonautique), the world governing body for all ­powerboating activities. Basic rules for Class 1 dictate a minimum boat length overall of 12 meters (about 39 feet) and a minimum weight of 5,400 kilograms (just over 11,900 pounds). There have been seven boats in the Class 1 field in 2023, ranging in length from the 43-foot Skater Monster Energy/MCON to the 51-foot Mystic dfYoung. The Huski Ice Spritz/SVEA Victory is 47 feet length overall, with a running surface of 41.5 feet, according to Curtis, and a 12-foot beam. Curtis explains that the bigger boats often have an advantage in rough conditions, but the smaller boats can be nimbler in a current on flatter water in a tight, multiturn closed course—the 5-mile course at Sheboygan had 10 turns.

“Courses have become smaller to make the event more spectator-­friendly,” Curtis says. “We used to run 40-mile laps and 200-mile races.”

The age of the Class 1 fleet is also surprising. Huski Ice Spritz/SVEA was built in 2007 by the Victory team in Dubai to a ­Michael Peters design.

“The boat has been rebuilt and repowered a number of times,” Curtis says. “I believe it was originally powered by Lamborghini V-12 engines. The boat has been crashed and repaired. The entire deck has been replaced, and the running surface adjusted as the engine package has changed.”

Carbon, Of Course

The overall theme of a race boat is that every element is functional, and this is the key difference between Huski Ice Spritz and your go-fast rig. Speed and safety are all that matter. The hull and deck are laid up with a combination of carbon fiber and Kevlar composite, with foam coring of various density. Bulkheads are carbon fiber, molded in a combination of triangulation and U-channel shape, and bonded within the hull. Each sponson has a pair of steps that are about 1.5 inches deep and a single strake. The tunnel between the sponsons is designed to trap and compress air, which lifts the boat at speed. The tunnel is about 33 inches deep at the bow but only 22 inches deep at the transom.

A V-hull boat could run in Class 1, but the catamaran offers a significant advantage, according to Randy Scism, who helped establish the Victory team as a force in offshore racing before returning to the United States in 1998 to start performance boatbuilder Marine Technologies Inc.

“A comparable V-hull boat will be 20 to 30 mph slower at top speed,” says Scism, who designed the 48-foot MTI Class 1 cat ­XInsurance/Good Boy ­Vodka. “In some conditions, it might corner better, but it could never make up the difference in total lap time. The air cushion under a cat can carry 30 to 35 percent of the boat’s weight, so the bottom is not even touching small waves and chop.”

Builders seek to produce a boat that is significantly below the class minimum-weight specification. This allows each team to make weight using lead ballast—water ballast is not allowed—that can be positioned right on the stringers to keep the center of gravity as low as possible to enhance handling and help trim the boat. Weight, either lead bars or bags of lead shot, can be placed aft to lift the bow in calm conditions or forward to hold the bow down in rough water. Fuel tanks are located directly on the boat’s center of balance so that balance does not change as fuel is consumed. At race venues, a crane fitted with a scale lifts the Class 1 boats from the trailer to the water; this way, each boat is weighed every time it goes in and comes out of the water to prevent cheating.

At Class 1 speeds, aerodynamics becomes critical. The boats literally fly over the water, and the deck is flush with the top of each sponson. The enclosed cockpit is a teardrop blister, hatch latches and cleats are carefully recessed and faired, and air intake is accomplished with low-drag NACA ducts. When conditions are ideal, these huge boats appear to levitate with a grace that belies the brutal thrust required to reach speeds that can exceed 160 mph on the open ocean.

Prescribed Power

There are no surprises below the engine hatches of a Class 1 boat. Since P1 led a revival of the class in 2019, the Mercury Racing 1100 Competition engine has been standard power, a spec engine for the class. The 9.0-liter V-8 engine features Mercury Racing QC4 quad-valve cylinder heads and is boosted by twin turbochargers. Power output is 1,100 hp and 1,100 lb.-ft. of torque per engine on 93-octane pump gasoline. Each big V-8 turns 6,000 to 6,500 rpm. The transmission is the stout model designed for the Mercury Racing 1750 engine with a stronger input shaft and ­internal components.

“Before the switch to the Merc 1100, we were running engines making 1,850 to 2,000 hp at 7,500 rpm,” Curtis says, “and top speeds pushed 190 mph. Those engines needed a rebuild after each race.”

The point of a specified engine for the class is to reduce cost and ensure power parity among teams with unequal resources. With that in mind, the engines are tightly controlled. Teams are not allowed to make any adjustments or modifications to the engines. With the exception of the valve covers, the engines are sealed with special fasteners. At the beginning of each race weekend, the Mercury Racing support team delivers propulsion control modules (PCM) to each team. The PCM units are painted bright ­yellow so they are easy to identify. ­Mercury ­Racing also installs a data logger on each engine.

“After every practice and ­every race, we download the data to make sure it makes sense and that nobody has tweaked on the engines and turned the power up,” says Steve Wynveen, Mercury Racing manager of development engineering. “The idea of Class 1 now is that winning is dependent on driving and boat setup, not on who has the most money to throw at an engine.”

The expectation is that if teams don’t abuse these engines by constantly banging into the rev limiter, each can last the season with just basic maintenance. Teams will put between two and three hours of run time on the engines at each race weekend. Teams are free to install their own PCM for testing between races.

The Huski Ice Spritz/SVEA team engineered a number of quick-disconnect fittings that allow it to remove an engine in about 20 minutes, according to Curtis. This team pulls its engines after each race for maintenance and inspects the bilge and engine mounts below the engines. Typical maintenance includes an oil and filter change, checking the valve lash and adjusting with shims, a compression and leak-down test, checking the turbocharger ­waste-gate adjustment, and ­torquing all fasteners and clamps.

Six of the boats in this Class 1 fleet use surface drives based on a BPM model to put power to the water. The Italian drive only articulates in the vertical plane, which provides a limited range of trim, generally less than 15 degrees or, according to Curtis, about 1.5 inches at the propeller. The prop is located about 58 inches abaft the transom. A drop box located on the exterior of the transom allows teams to quickly change gear ratios to best match engine torque to the prevailing conditions. Curtis explains that on today’s short courses, ­acceleration out of turns is often more important than top speed. Teams using a surface drive are limited to three prop sets but have unlimited gear ratios. Steering is accomplished by a center-mounted rudder—a knife-sharp polished stainless Italian Flexitab model on Huski Ice Spritz—and teams can change rudders based on water conditions.

A sterndrive is also permitted in Class 1, but if the sterndrive can steer, the boat is not allowed to use a rudder. The MTI XInsurance/Good Boy Vodka boat is rigged with modified Mercury Racing M6 sterndrives. Trim is retained, but the skegs are cut off and steering is locked. The boat is equipped with a rudder. Teams running sterndrives are allowed an unlimited number of propellers.

“The problem with trying to steer these boats with the sterndrives is that when you turn the drive, one prop is pushed into water and the other into the air coming through the tunnel,” Scism says. “The prop in the air loses thrust. You want to keep both props centered behind the sponsons. I prefer to use the M6 drives for the added trim authority. That drive is plenty rugged for these engines.”

Read Next: How to Boat Safely at Any Speed

Curtis throttles with his right hand gripping a pair of Mercury Zero Effort controls topped with red plastic knobs molded to the shape of his hand. To his left is a fixed, molded grip with radio/intercom control buttons, trim control, and a button to change the screen display. Curtis can communicate with his team using VHF and UHF radios, and a cellular connection. Below is a pair of Mercury ignition keys, which we were surprised to see.

“When we went to the standard Merc 1100 engines, we wanted to retain the entire stock wiring harness to prevent any sort of tampering,” Curtis says. “So, there are the keys, just like on your fishing boat. It was the ­easiest solution.”

Facing Curtis are a pair of Livorsi turbocharger boost gauges, a Livorsi trim indicator, and a multifunction display usually showing tachometers. In the center of the dash is a Garmin MFD split between navigation and a rearview camera. The driver sits before a quick-release steering wheel with a lap counter on top of the dash, which will also display a yellow-and-red flag signal from race control.

I wish I could describe the ­sensation of driving Huski Ice Spritz at speed while looking through the slit of a windscreen. But as it turns out, there is not enough liability coverage or legal cover to ever make that happen. Scism says MTI will build you a new 48 Race model to Class 1 specs, with a price tag of $2.2 million to $2.4 million with power. A $500,000 budget will cover a bare-bones Class 1 team for a season, Curtis says, with a well-financed team spending more than $1.5 million. SVEA Racing Inc. brings a crew of 10 to each race with a 70-foot race trailer, a tilting boat trailer and its Kenworth hauler, and a world-champion throttleman. They are not going to a poker run.

Safety First

When Steve Curtis won his first Class 1 championship, he was standing in an open cockpit. “There was very little concern for safety in those boats,” Curtis says. “If you stuffed the boat, it was very likely you’d be killed.”

Today the driver and throttle work in an enclosed cockpit that is all business. This is not your pleasure boat—there is no Alcantara upholstery, no bass-pumping audio system, and no LED-illuminated drink holders. Cockpit entry is through a hatch secured with four sliding bolts like a bank vault. In Huski Ice Spritz, Curtis throttles from the port seat, and the driver is at the wheel to starboard. Deep bucket seats have 2 inches of suspension travel, and the crew is strapped securely in place. “During a race, it can actually get rather violent in here,” Curtis says. “It’s not very noisy, but there is a lot of vibration, even in smooth water, because the boat is so rigid. We can feel pretty beat up after a race.”

A cage of carbon channels surrounds the cockpit, which Curtis says is backed by a very thick bulkhead. Crush zones around the cockpit are designed to absorb energy on impact. The interior is raw and black, with no thought of cosmetics. The forward portion of the cockpit structure is formed by a ¾-inch-thick polycarbonate shield modeled after a fighter-jet canopy. The clear portion is minimized for further crew protection. There’s an emergency escape hatch in the floor for egress if the boat flips. The driver and throttle have a 10-minute emergency air supply.

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