Speed On The Water

On August 4, I reported on the development Sterling Performance’s new 1,700-hp turbocharged engine. At that time, the engine was headed for dynamometer testing. Company principal Mike D’Anniballe told me he hoped to have the engines ready to debut in Bob Bull’s new 48-foot-long Marine Technology, Inc., racing catamaran at the 2010 Super Boat International Key West World Championships in November.

Unfortunately that won’t happen, according to D’Anniballe.

“We were scheduled to run in Key West, but I won’t have two sets of engines ready in time,” D’Anniballe told me early this morning. “We just ran out of time, so he (Bob Bull) is going to run our supercharged 1,500s.

“We should have the 1,700s ready by Christmas, and he’ll run them after the Key West Worlds,” he added.

D’Anniballe said that he was pleased with the results from the dyno testing.

“It went well—me made 1,690 hp and went through like ten drums of fuel,” he said. “Now we just have to tear the motors apart to evaluate them.”

Regardless of what you think of “West Coast custom” catamarans, no company builds them better than Dave’s Custom Boats in El Cajon, Calif. DCB’s workmanship and attention to detail in construction not only lead the genre, they rival that of any custom performance-boat builder east of the Mississippi.

That is, to borrow from the movie “Pulp Fiction,” a bold statement for sure. But it’s one I make based on experience with a wide variety product. As the guy with the second best job in the world as editor at large for Powerboat magazine—Jennifer Aniston’s personal sunscreen technician is job No. 1—I get to log hours in some of the most amazing high-performance pleasure boats on the planet. And DCB consistently blows me away.

But don’t take my word for it. If you happen to be strolling the docks at Captain Ron’s during the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout August 28-30 check out the DCB M-35 catamaran with Mercury Racing 1025EFI engines that will be on display.

“We’re going there to check it out and show our product—we’ve heard it’s just such a great event,” Dave Hemmingson, DCB’s principal, told me earlier today. “And from what I understand, it’s going to be a really big deal this year.”

Hemmingson said he’s not planning to enter the cat in the speed runs.

“But you never know,” he added. “We may be there, watch a little bit and decide we want to run.”

Last week I caught up with Mike Fiore of Outerlimits on the Bristol, R.I., custom V-bottom and catamaran builder’s in-house engine program. Near the end of our discussion, Fiore mentioned that he was in the final stages of sea trials for the company’s first quad-diesel-engine SV-52—four 560-hp Fiat Powertrain mills fill the engine compartment. The all-carbon, canopied 52-footer, which rides on a five-step hull and will be used for endurance racing by an overseas buyer, captured a lot of attention.

So about an hour ago I spoke with Fiore to learn more about the 15,000-pound boat. Here’s what he had to say:

In addition to four Fiat Powertrain diesel engines, your new 52-footer has four Arneson ASD drives with quick-change gears and Hering 35-inch-pitch propellers. How has the performance been to date in your sea trials?

Amazing. It’s a big freight train with a top speed of over 112 mph, and it’s very smooth.

How’s the fuel consumption?

Pretty modest, actually. At 90 mph, it gets 1.5 mile per gallon. So with its 500-gallon fuel tank that means it has a range of 700 miles at 90 mph. At 100 mph, it gets 1.2 miles per gallon, which is still pretty good.

Have you had the boat in rough water?

Yeah, and as I said it’s a freight train. It motors along effortlessly. It’s like sitting—it’s a five-place sit-down boat—in your living room. It’s going to be a really good endurance racer. And it handles flat and smooth. It doesn’t do anything wrong. The four propellers in the water work well. The setup is perfect.

This was your first quad-diesel-engine installation. What was that like?

(Laughs) It was a nightmare. It was a packaging nightmare. The forward two engines literally are under the back seats. The engine compartment has, like, a sea strainer “farm.” There’s four of everything in there, and it’s tight. Good thing the engines are diesels—they tend to last awhile (laughs again).

While the fastest catamarans and V-bottoms rightly get top billing at the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout—it is after all a top-speed event—the fastest entries don't comprise the entire fleet. Fact is there are plenty of production and semi-custom performance boats that compete in the Shootout, which still embraces and attracts a lot of "run what you brung" competition.

Case in point: Semi-custom builder Sunsation Performance Boats has at least three models heading for the Shootout according to Wayne Schaldenbrand of the Algonac, Mich., company.

“I believe we have an SS32, which is about two years old, with a pair of 496 Mag HO engines that will be going,” said Schaldenbrand. “There should also be a brand-new XRT (32-foot-long) with the new twin 8.2L, 502 engines with the catalytic converters. We blueprinted the bottom of that boat, applied Speedcoat, raised the X-dimension and went from 30-inch-pitch props to 32-inch-pitch props. It runs 90 mph.

“My dealer in Iowa also is coming with an XRT,” added Schaldebrand. “It has 496 Mags with Raylar upgrades.”

In Other Sunsation News

•The company reportedly received two orders for its new 36-footer, as well an order for a 28-footer this week. “There’s even a possible F-4 coming from a deal we put together at the (2010) Miami Boat Show, so we’re all pretty happy around here,” said Schaldenbrand.