In the News

Unconfirmed reports that Frisini Motorsports, the parent company of the Sonic, Spectre and Frisini high-performance powerboat lines, is experiencing financial difficulties are false, according to Tony Frisina, the principal of the company. According to Frisina, all of the brands are “alive and well,” boatbuilding at the company’s Fort Pierce, Fla., plant is ongoing and its employees and vendors are being paid.

In a telephone interview this afternoon, Frisina said he believes the rumors of financial trouble started with his decision not to display at the 2012 Miami International Boat, which concluded two days ago.

“The state of Frisini Motorsports is that we are building boats, in business and not in any danger of going out of business,” said Frisina, who described himself as “extremely upset” by the rumors, particularly those on the online message boards. “I would have loved to show our boats in Miami, but you can’t go there with unfinished boats and expect to have a good show. It’s just not a good idea. That’s why I chose Desert Storm in April. My customers are coming with me to run and show the boats there. Our brands have always been thought of as ‘East Coast.’ I want to open up the whole country.

“Everything in my plant is paid for,” he continued. “The boats are paid for. The Mercury 1350s and 525s and 600 are paid for. The 300 Verados are paid for. The fiberglass and the windshields are paid for. There are some vendors I don’t have accounts with that I have to pay when their products arrive, but that’s because they don’t let you set up accounts with them until you’ve been in business for three years. Call Bill Tweedy at Myco Trailers and ask him if he has any trouble getting paid by us. All of my employees are getting paid. Does anyone think I would have guys like Chris Dilling (of Grafik EFX) doing work or me if I didn’t pay them?

“I invite anybody to come the factory unannounced and we will give them—even the naysayers, even the people who don’t like me—a tour,” he added. “Everyone is welcome. They can talk to the employees if they like. I have nothing to hide.”

Statement Marine debuted its 368 SUV Crossover at the 2012 Miami International Boat Show.By the end of the 2012 Miami International Boat Show yesterday, Statement Marine reportedly had received six orders for the 368 SUV Crossover center console, which debuted at the event, one 34-foot SUV center console, one 42-foot Ultimate V-bottom and had “several other deals in play,” according to Mike Flanigan, the vice president of sales and marketing for the St. Petersburg, Fla., company.

“We’ve also signed three new dealers and are in talks with a few others,” said Flanigan in a press release. “We can easily call this Statement’s best-ever Miami show.”

Read more: Statement Reports Record Sales at 2012 Miami Boat Show

After a couple of days of walking the Miami International Boat Show and demoing the P1-28SS Panther at the in-water portion of the show, Martin Sanborn, the P1 Director of North American Operations who organizes the P1 SuperStock USA Championship, was grinning from ear to ear. And from the sound of things, he had plenty of reasons to smile.

The competitive P1 SuperStock USA Championship features sporty 28-foot V-bottoms with 250-hp outboard engines, such as this Peters & May-sponsored boat.Coming off the heels of what turned out to be an exciting and competitive inaugural season, the one-design P1 SuperStock USA Championship has attracted even more teams for its 2012 season, which includes five races—so far—at three new venues. Competing in the spec 28-footers powered by single 250-hp Evinrude outboard engines, the P1 SuperStock USA teams will race in Detroit and Morehead City, N.C., as well as the three new venues: St. Cloud, Fla., Biloxi, Miss., and Pittsburgh.

“We were approached by a huge number of venues who are interested in bringing P1 SuperStock USA to their city,” Sanborn said in the 2012 schedule press release. “The amount of interest this series has generated throughout the U.S. is very encouraging and will be instrumental in bringing the championship to a regional level by 2013, reverting back to the APBA regional format from the late 1990s.”

The season starts in St. Cloud (March 30-April 1) at “Spring Fling” presented by the Rotary Club of St. Cloud. The kick-off event will bring powerboat racing back to St. Cloud for the first time in three years. The second race is scheduled for April 26-29 in Biloxi for “Smokin’ the Sound.” P1 SuperStock USA joined the Offshore Super Series event in 2011 as an exhibition race, but this year’s race will count toward the overall championship score.

One of the P1-28SS Panther models that will be competing in the 2012 P1 SuperStock USA Championship was on display for demo rides in Miami.After a two-month break in the schedule, teams travel to Pittsburgh to join the Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta on June 30-July 1. This year will be the 35th running of the event and an estimated crowd of 600,000 spectators is expected. Two weeks later, the racing returns to Detroit (July 13-15) for the 2012 Detroit APBA Gold Cup presented by the Detroit River Regatta Association and the Detroit Yacht Club. Last year, en route to the P1 SuperStock USA national championship, the JD Byrider crew picked up its first win of the season in Detroit and hoisted the coveted Garwood trophy.

The final stop of the season is in Morehead City (Sept. 14-16) for the Crystal Coast Grand Prix and the P1 SuperStock USA National Championship. Morehead City provided some of the closest and most exciting race action in 2011.

“We are excited to bring the national championship to Morehead City this year,” Sanborn said. “The competition was outstanding in Morehead City last year and the venue provides one of the best viewing areas of any race site. We consider Morehead City to be our home event since it’s only 90 miles from our P1 USA headquarters in Greenville, N.C.”

Joining a pair of stunning Rockit V-bottoms—the 39-footer and 29-footer—from Hustler Powerboats at the Miami International Boat Show were a couple of new entry-level focused models from the New York-based company.

Hustler Powerboats showed off its new entry-level PT221 sportboat at the Miami International Boat Show.Both models caught our attention upon walking into the booth to talk to owner Joe LoGiudice and his nephew, Paul. First was the single-engine PT221, which was equipped with a Mercury OptiMax 200 Pro XS outboard but also is available in a stern-drive package.

The simple and clean 21-footer starts at slightly more than $70,000 and features the company's Rockit deck technology. It includes two bucket seats and a rear bench, and is set up for skiing with a ski tow-eye and a sizable ski storage compartment.

Quite different and even more unique, Hustler had its prototype 288 center console model on display. The boat features a deep-V hull, extra-wide gunwales and abundant storage space ahead of the spacious center console, which has more than 6 feet of headroom.

The not-quite-complete 28-footer was only assembled a few days before the Hustler crew left for the Miami show. One thing that was very unique about the model was the rigging of the twin Mercury Verado 200 engines on the transom. Not only did the engines raise up to a near horizontal position, but rather than installing a rubrail where the hull and deck met, the company overlapped the deck to protect the transom from any water intrusion.

Click to enlarge photos.

One of the highlights of the Miami International Boat Show has to be the new complete turbocharging kits for Mercury Racing HP525EFI engines from Hardin Marine.

Hardin Marine's new HTX2 turbocharging kit of the HP525EFI engine looked awfully impressive at the Miami show.Scott Price, one of the principals of Hardin Marine, said the kits, which are offered in both 775-hp Stage I and 850-hp Stage II packages, were by far the hottest product offering in his booth. With a starting price of $11,995—including the exhaust—Price has high expectations for the turbocharged application.

Related story: Hardin Marine to Debut Marine Turbocharging Kits in Miami

For SpeedontheWater.com, the second day of the Miami International Boat Show included a trip to Sea Isle Marine for the in-water portion of the show as well as a return to the Miami Convention Center. Here's a quick look at some of the boats in and out of the water.

Read more: Miami Show Photo Gallery: Day 2

Notably absent from the ongoing 2012 Miami International Boat Show, new models in the Sonic and Spectre lines under Arrow Powerboats, a division of Frisina Motorsports, will be in full force at the Desert Storm event in late April. That’s the word from Tony Frisina, the owner of the company.

“We really wanted to be at the Miami Show, but I had to make a decision on whether to get all of our boats finished or go to the show,” Frisina explained. “We have four boats we’re finishing up, six in full-blown production and four in lamination.”

Frisina said all the new models will be at the Lake Havasu City, Ariz., event in late April.

“They’re all sold boats, so I am going to bring all my customers there and I am going to be there,” said Frisina. “We are going to bring the big 43-foot Frisina, two 32-foot cats, the new 38-foot Hypersonic and a 30-foot open-bow Vendetta, and were trying get our new 39-foot center console ready in time. We also just took an order for a 42-foot Aronoli. As everyone has probably heard, we’re going to be coming out with a 36- to 38-foot cat.”

Fortunately for performance-boat enthusiasts, there were quite a few new products to peruse, as well as a plethora of really cool, exotic stuff to check out. See for yourself in our Miami International Boat Show Day 1 photo gallery.

Read more: Miami Show Photo Gallery: Day 1

To put it mildly, it’s been a busy day for new high-performance powerboat and engine introductions at the 2012 Miami International Boat Show. The morning kicked off with the unveiling of the Mercury Racing 565 powerplant (Read the story). And that was just the beginning...

Ilmor showcased its new performance-focused MV8 570 engine at the Miami International Boat Show.Ilmor High-Performance Marine MV8 570

On the performance side of things from Ilmor High-Performance Marine, the company had its new MV8 570 engine on display. Hand-built to the same quality standards as its MV10 race engines, the new 570, which is based on Ilmor’s latest recreational engine, the 7.4L MV8, is more than 2 inches shorter and narrower than the company’s 8.2L big-block engines.

Read more: Miami Show Updates: Ilmor, Outerlimits and Statement

Two of the most successful dealers in the history of high-performance powerboats, Shogren Performance Marine and Pier 57 are joining forces. As this story went live, the Cigarette Racing Team and Marine Technology, Inc., powerboat inventories housed at Pier 57 in Counce, Tenn., were in the process of being moved to the Shogren facility in Waukegan, Ill.

The entire new business will be called Pier 57. The Shogren Performance Marine name will be retired.

“We chose to adopt the Pier 57 name with our merger because of its well-known brand position and for long-term branding opportunities we see within the high-performance powerboat industry,” said Scott Shogren in a press release. “This collaboration begins a new chapter—leveraging our combined strengths and well-known histories.

Read more: Shogren Performance Marine and Pier 57 Merge

In announcement that offshore racing fans can drool over, get ready, formidable competition is just around the corner for Miss GEICO. In Florida for the Miami International Boat Show, Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani revealed that the Qatar Marine Sports Federation (QMSF) plans to partner with Mystic Powerboats and Whispering Turbines to build a turbine-powered boat for the 2013 racing season.

The Qatar Marine Sports Federation announced it will campaign Spirit of Qatar, a turbine-powered Mystic catamaran, stateside for the 2013 offshore racing season.The Doha-based team will compete stateside in the Extreme/Turbine class in Spirit of Qatar, its new Mystic catamaran fitted with Whispering Turbine power plants and a Five Axis Industries transmission.

“Our idea is to expand the racing map that we participate in, as well as expand into new race categories to become the leader in powerboat racing,” said Sheikh Hassan in a press release. “We have raced alongside the Miss GEICO team in the past, but we were in two different classes and not far behind, even with the restricted engines we used in 2010.”

I caught up with Marc Granet, driver of Miss GEICO, this afternoon and the first thing he said to me was: “How cool is that?” And I could hear the smile on his face, especially since his team was so instrumental with the Qatar team’s campaign in the 2010 Offshore Powerboat Association (OPA) season.

“First, we’re really happy we’ll have a high-speed boat like ours out there again,” said Granet, who plans to spend some time with Sheikh Hassan at the Miami show this week. “Second, to know that we have very qualified and knowledgeable boat racers running the boat, that’s extremely important.”

Sheikh Hassan, the QMSF president, admitted that his experience with the OPA series was vital in his decision making for 2013.

“Racing in the USA opened our eyes to so many things, one of which is being part of an event where the social scene and interacting with other teams and people is a priority,” he said. “It also was interesting that we caught everyone’s attention when we spoke about Qatar.”

The team is confident that it will have the best package on the water for the start of the new season. Based on the performance of Mystic boats such as Miss GEICO, JBS Racing, AquaMania and My Way, Sheikh Hassan realized that the fastest boats on the circuit were Mystics, so he opted with the proven package.

“I first met Sheikh Hassan when he came to the U.S. with his boats to race at Key West,” said John Cosker, president of DeLand, Fla.-based Mystic Powerboats. “His team was based in the GEICO camp in Palm Beach, so he spent a bit of time around the Turbine Extreme Mystic that they are running.

Whispering Turbines will provide a pair of T55-L7C turbine engines like this one, which produces around 2,900 hp, for the new Spirit of Qatar boat.“Mystic Powerboats will be building the carbon-fiber boat for the team and working closely with Whispering Turbines on the drivetrain layout and installation,” he continued. “I think the Spirit of Qatar team entering this class will raise the level of competition and excitement tremendously. Mystic has dominated this class over the past five years and I feel that Qatar building a boat for the class adds great validity and shows that the most extreme competitors appreciate the challenge of this form of racing.”

The new boat will be powered by a pair of T55-L7C turbine engines, delivering around 2,900 hp each, which reportedly will propel it to a top speed 220 mph or more. Although he hasn’t said who will handle the boat-driving responsibilities, Sheikh Hassan announced that the team will attempt to break propeller speed records in Spirt of Qatar.

“Sheikh Hassan contacted me several years ago with questions about turbine power for another project and we have been in regular contact ever since,” said Tracy Bratvold, co-founder of Whispering Turbines, based in Hamilton, Mont. “He then became involved in the sport through the H1 Unlimited series and came to one of our hydroplane races and devised a plan to bring the sport to Qatar, where we have raced for three years.

“We will be there to support in any way we can and will continue to supply the same power plants for U-96 Spirit of Qatar in the H1 Unlimited series,” Bratvold added. “The engines were originally designed for the Chinook helicopter and make an excellent power plant for the marine industry, because they only weigh 700 pounds each and produce nearly 3,000 hp, depending on the fuel flow. We have waited for the perfect time to be closely associated in a project like this and hope to have a long and exciting future with the QMSF.”

Erick Ellstrom of Five Axis Industries said he was honored to be asked to be part of this new venture.

“The team will have complete access to all of our technology to produce and design whatever is necessary,” said Ellstrom. “The relationship between the QMSF and Five Axis is very strong.”

Sheikh Hassan, who will be switching his attention to the 2012 Class 1 racing season, which begins March 14 in Doha, is relishing the start of the new project.

“We are proud of our Spirit of Qatar team as being a multicultural and multinational operation, with crew from Qatar, Italy, the UK and Norway, and we want to continue to show that we are a truly international team and the very best on the water,” he concluded.

For the entire 2012 domestic offshore racing season, the Miss Geico Racing team is offering the ResQMe belt-cutting tool free to any team—registered with any sanctioning body—running a canopied race boat. That’s the word from Marc Granet, the driver of the 50-foot-long, turbine-powered Miss Geico Mystic catamaran.

“Our first order is for 300 of them,” said Granet. “The tool has a loop on one end that racers can easily zip-tie to their life preserver or dash. All you have to go is grab it and pull it and exposes a knife similar to a letter opener. We’ve tested them at our shop and they cut through seat belt webbing like butter.

“So now there’s no excuse for anybody not to have them on their boat,” he added.

Granet said that interested teams can stop by the Miss Geico Racing shop in Riviera Beach, Fla. The Miss Geico crew also will have them on hand at every race—and they’re planning on competing in 12 events this year—they run.

“As long as they provide us with a mailing address and tell us which organization they’ll be running with, we’ll even ship them,” said Granet.

The Miss Geico team worked with Task Force Tips, a firefighting tools manufacturer and supplier, to acquire the cutters, all of which will come in highly visible “Miss Geico” fluorescent yellow.

Emerging as one of the nation’s premier performance-boat events over the past couple of years, the FASTTRAC Texas Outlaw Challenge in Clear Lake, Texas, has even more in store for 2012, according to event organizer Paul Robinson.

This year's Texas Outlaw Challenge will be held June 21-24 in Clear Lake, Texas. Photo by Jamie RussellIn addition to its popular Stampede Street Party, Gunslinger Poker Run and Outlaw GPS Shootout, the event, which is scheduled from June 21-24, will feature the new Texas Outlaw Corral. Robinson said the new portion of the event is a first-of-its-kind activity for the poker run community.

“The new Outlaw Corral is a true boat buying and selling ‘stockyard’ opportunity modeled after the Old West history of driving your horses to Texas for the business of selling and trading,” Robinson said. “The theme continues with all participants enjoying the entertainment of a saloon-style party and famous Texas hospitality.”

Robinson is extending an invitation to all “in the market” performance boaters to come to the event and buy, sell, trade, test drive or just shop for their next boat and also join in the weekend’s activities. He expects the Texas Outlaw Corral to appeal to boat owners who otherwise feel like they can’t participate in a poker run because their boat is landlocked on a trailer for sale.

For this reason, Robinson added, preparation for the event began with a distribution list of more than 1,000 invitations—welcoming the return of previous guests and participants—as well as an expanded list of 500-plus performance boaters with a boat listed for sale nationwide.

Robinson expects participation in the Texas Outlaw Challenge to grow well beyond last year’s 85-boat count from six different states. Last year, organizers presented more than $20,000 in cash and prizes throughout the weekend. For more information on the event, you can call 281-702-8744 or visit the event website.

Related story: “Crew Swapping” Encouraged at Texas Outlaw Challenge

Click photos to enlarge. Photos by Jamie Russell

World champion offshore racer and throttleman for the Page Motorsports Skater, Joey Gratton died while racing at the 2011 Key West Offshore World Championships. Photo by Jamie RussellThe wrongful death lawsuit against Super Boat International and other defendants has been filed by attorney Michael Allweiss on behalf of Priscilla S. Gratton, the representative of the late Joseph B. Gratton, in the Circuit Court of the 17th Judicial Circuit in and for Broward County, Florida. The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages of “more than $15,000”—cases seeking lower damages are tried in civil courts in Florida—was filed Feb. 7.

Gratton drowned, according to the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s report, after the boat in which he was racing overturned on Friday, Nov. 11, during the Super Boat International Key West Offshore World Championships.

Read more: Gratton Lawsuit Filed

Because I live locally, and because it sounded like a nice way to spend the day with my little girl, I made the drive to downtown for the first day of the Los Angeles Boat Show on Thursday.

Featuring a new bottom design, the 290 from Hallett Boats was on display at the Los Angeles Boat Show.Obviously, since I wrote a story a couple of weeks ago about the changes at the L.A. Boat Show, I knew the performance-boat draw was going to be less than usual. While it was noticeably down compared to five to 10 years ago, where custom powerboats were a major draw to the show, the good news is that the builders that were in attendance were optimistic.

"Honestly things are a little more positive, I really feel that way," said Jerry Barron of Hallett Boats. "I've been in this business so darn long—you just get feelings, you know? And it hasn't felt good the past couple of years."

Read more: Opening Day at the Los Angeles Boat Show

Going fast on the water is especially accurate when it comes to H1 Unlimited drivers. Champions such as Dave Villwock and Steve David cross the 200-mph barrier frequently in their lightweight turbine-powered boats.

H1 Unlimited rookie driver Scott Liddycoat will be honored at the UIM Award Giving Gala in Monaco this weekend.Between their finely crafted boats and a solid support crew and sponsor, the two drivers seem to have battled every year for the past couple of decades for the series championship. Yet it's not Villwock or David representing the H1 Unlimited Air National Guard Hydroplane Series for the first time at this weekend's Union Internationale Motonautique (UIM) Awards Giving Gala in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

Rookie driver Scott Liddycoat will be honored at the Feb. 11 event for his victory at the 2011 Oryx Cup UIM World Championship in Qatar. Liddycoat, a 19-year inboard-racing driver from Norfolk, Va., finished third in the 2011 National High Points Championship behind Villwock and David, respectively. In addition to winning the season-ending Oryx Cup, he finished second twice and third once.

Read more: H1 Unlimited Driver to be Honored at UIM Awards Gala

This 46' aluminum Cougar v-bottom is being set up with triple 710-hp Ilmor Marine engines.

The team at AMF Offshore Rigging in Riviera Beach, Fla., is going big—literally. In addition to preparing Miss Geico, the well-known turbine-powered 50-foot Mystic catamaran, top rigger Gary Stray and his crew are working on three other big-boat projects.

One of the projects, a restoration of a 47’ Apache V-bottom headed for Trinidad, is being equipped with twin 1,450-hp turbine engines. Yet another classic high-performance powerboat, a 46-foot aluminum Cougar V-bottom, is being fitted with triple 710-hp Ilmor Marine V-10 engines. The boat will be used in the 2012 Cowes-to-Torquay endurance off the coast of England. On the less “vintage” side, AMF is installing triple Yanmar diesel engines in a 51-foot Outerlimits V-bottom.

Visible on the left is one of the turbine engines going into the 47' Apache to the right.

“I can look out my office window and see all three of the boats being work on,” said Scott Begovich, one of the partners in AMF Offshore Rigging and throttleman for Miss Geico. “It’s really cool.”

Another look at the turbine engines heads for the vintage Apache.

Sparing a few minutes of his time in between preparation for this week's Los Angeles Boat Show, which starts on Thursday, Eliminator Boats owner Bob Leach expressed his optimism for the 56th annual show.

Eliminator Boats will have one of its new 27 Daytona Speedster catamarans on display at the Los Angeles Boat Show."We've got some beautiful new boats on display this year," said Leach, admitting that sales were nonexistent for his company and other performance-boat builders in L.A. the last couple of years. "Hopefully we can sell a few boats at the show this week."

Leach informed us that the company has four new boats on order at the moment, and that he'd like to add more boats to that list by the end of this weekend. Eliminator will have four different models at the show—a 27 Daytona Speedster, a 28 Fun Deck, a 30 Daytona and a new version of its 27 Daytona with a walk-through and an open bow.

Leach and company will be at the L.A. Convention Center all weekend to answer any questions or walk potential customers through one of the catamaran models. While he serves as a board member for the Southern California Marine Association, which produces the show, he expressed disappointment in the drop off in performance-boat participation.

"I'd attend the show whether I was on the board or not," Leach said. "The bottom line is that we have to support this show—we can't just let it fail. It can and will be a great avenue for this business."

Related story: 2012 L.A. Boat Show preview

Statement’s 34-footer is just on of the high-performance center-console V-bottoms that will be on display at the 2012 Miami Boat Show.

Most trends in the high-performance powerboat world are cosmetic. A few years back, for example, a slew of go-fast V-bottoms with cut-down decks—meaning lower profile and no cabin—and sit-down cockpits—meaning bucket seats in place of stand-up bolsters—were everywhere to be found at the annual Miami International Boat Show Miami. OK, you could make a minor case that with the lower decks a few models picked up a little speed and that the bucket seats were super comfy, but for the most part it was all about looks.

A few years before that at the Miami event, you’d have been hard-pressed to find a go-fast catamaran more than 36 feet long that didn’t have some kind of cartoon theme or mural, which ranged from classic to classless. But again, it was a cosmetic trend, and cosmetics are about fashion. To borrow loosely from Oscar Wilde, “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”

Read More: Go-Fast Boats Get Centered at Miami Boat Show

Besides go-fast boats, Dean Loucks from The Art of Designs paints furniture, custom prints and even bombs.Next week, Dean Loucks, renowned performance-boat painter and owner of The Art of Design (TAOD) in Elkhart, Ind., is hosting a grand opening of Dean's Place Art Gallery, his new fine art studio in Granger, Ind.

Loucks, who has created some of the most famous paint jobs on high-performance boats from Cigarette, Outerlimits, Skater and more, will have many of his custom wall paintings on display, as well as pianos, coasters, furniture and even custom-painted bombs (talk about unique). The gallery will be open to celebrate the occasion every night from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., from Wednesday, Feb. 8 to Saturday, Feb. 11. An official ribbon-cutting ceremony with the mayor will take place Saturday at 3 p.m.

"A lot of hard work has gone into this gallery," Loucks said. "Art, as you know, is something that causes an emotional response from someone. We try to do things our own way that really evoke emotion. This gallery features a lot of art I've designed using special painting techniques. We've got some neat things in store."

Dean's Place Art Gallery is located at 918 East University Park Drive in Granger. Accompanied by food and drinks, Loucks and company will be on hand to show off the fine art as well as talk shop about some TAOD's most recent work, which includes painting the PUMA Ocean Racing sailboat, teaming up with Liberty Coach to paint the company's RVs and various other boats his team has painted.