Speed On The Water

In February this year at the Miami International Boat Show, the public got its first look at the Indy stern-drive from Ilmor Marine. Expectations were justifiably high given Ilmor’s reputation—built on its stellar V-10 engine line—for top-shelf engineering, quality construction and reliability.

That’s probably why a few mechanical issues in the earliest production-model Indy drives released in June raised eyebrows a bit higher than they should have been raised. Ilmor set a high bar for itself with its engines, which made anything less than perfection—from day one—unacceptable for the Indy drive. So the naysayers had a field day.

“Some of the problems showed up right away, but they were not design flaws, just niggling little things that happen when you make the transformation from production to prototype,” Paul Ray, Ilmor’s president, told me last night. “We had a few teething troubles, and we’ve handled them as professionally and fairly as we could. We think we have a bulletproof product now, but you really don’t know that until you have hundreds of units in the field.”

Right now, there are 25 Indy drives in the field, including two on the transom of an Eliminator 28 Speedster catamaran powered by twin 725-hp Ilmor engines.

“It’s running 152 mph,” said Ray. “That’s pretty impressive, but we think there’s even more in there.”

Hate to say it, but offshore powerboat racers usually give lousy interviews. They tend to provide general answers—the standard go-to being something about “seat time”—to specific questions. They are often evasive about things that are far from top secret. They occasionally bend the truth. That can make covering the sport in any meaningful, incisive way an exercise in frustration.

The good news? Offshore raceboats in action tell you everything you need to know about what happened and why, and that’s the beauty of “The History of Skater,” the latest DVD release from Big Seas Productions. Sure, you’ve got intelligent, thoughtful narration from Rich Luhrs, a veteran offshore observer and reporter. To his credit, Luhrs keeps the story of Skater catamarans—and their creator Peter Hledin—simple and lets the video tell the tale.

And the video in “The History of Skater,” which is assembled from archival footage, is nothing short of spectacular. That’s not because it’s shot from special angles or full of crashes and deck-to-deck drama. It’s spectacular because Skater catamarans, from the first 24-footer to the dazzling 46-footer are spectacular when they run. There’s a commonality in the way they dance on the water—pardon the flowery language—that says they could be nothing other than Skaters.

Offshore history lovers will find much to love about this DVD, from the hubris of racer Stuart Hayim saying, “I challenged Peter to take something good and make it great” to the cagey “yes” and “no” answers from a grinning Joe Mach, another noteworthy Skater racer, in an interview with Luhrs.

The highpoint of the DVD? It’s a no-brainer—the footage of Joey Imprescia and Pat Patel, one of the best duos in the history of offshore racing, flawlessly running Patel’s 40 Skater In Contempt in menacing seas off Point Pleasant, N.J.

The only thing missing from “The History of Skater” is significant interview footage with Hledin. The video does contain a short interview with the genius behind these world-beating catamarans, but a little more of Hledin’s perspective would have been welcome.

Then again, Hledin isn’t much of a talker. Like those who’ve raced Skater cats for the past 30-plus years, he lets his boats tell the story.