I would never complain about my job—at least publicly—but I confess that after four days at Lake Havasu covering Desert Storm I was ready to bail come Sunday evening. Yet Jason Johnson, the editor of the Powerboat magazine, had asked me to stay Monday to help the Powerboat crew test boats and I agreed.

Of course, I’d have been an idiot not to. First, it’s part of my job and I’m really fond of income. Second, it gave me the opportunity to hang with people I don’t see nearly enough including Johnson, Bob Teague, John Tomlinson and photographer Robert Brown, who in addition to being an ace with a camera has a wicked, irreverent sense of humor. Third, the six boats we tested, all of which will appear in the next few issues of the magazine were top-notch.

They were:

•A 48-foot-long Marine Technology, Inc., catamaran called “Terminator,” which is powered by twin Mercury Racing 1025/1200 engines and owned by NFL All-Pro defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth.

•The first-out-of-the-mold 36-foot-long Bullet V-bottom from Howard Custom Boats, powered by a pair of Mercury Racing 525EFI engines.

•A 32-foot-long Spectre catamaran with twin 300-hp outboards.

•A 31-foot-long wide-body M-31catamaran from Dave’s Custom Boats with a pair of 985-hp engines from Teague Custom Marine.

•A brand-new, Mercury Racing 525EFI engine-powered 29-foot deck boat from Nordic based on its Thor catamaran hull.

•A 26-foot Redline Revolution Performance Marine catamaran powered by a 1,000-plus-hp, supercharged 540-cubic-inch custom-built engine.

Though it’s nice to know what’s coming, you’ll have to wait for the magazines to print to get the low-down on these boats. I can tell you this: The fastest boat topped 160 mph. The slowest ran in the low-70-mph range.

It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out which was which.