Mark DiMichele, who calls Canton, Mich., his home and Lake St. Clair his home-water, realized a long-held dream today when he took delivery of a 2019 Skater Powerboats 388 catamaran powered by Mercury Racing 1100 engines. An experienced operator, DiMichele and his wife, Joanie, have owned several high-end performance boats, the most recent of which are a Mystic Powerboats C4400 catamaran and an Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats SV 40.

The second catamaran at the top of this image, DiMichele’s Skater 388 is in good company. Photos by Ryan Wenk courtesy of Scrapyard Media.

Though he loved both of those boats, owning a Skater catamaran has been a long-held goal for DiMichele. Last month, he purchased the 38-footer, which originally was owned by longtime Skater man Danny DeSantis, through Michigander Ron Szolack. But he ran it for the first time this morning from Tampa Bay to Bradenton as part of the 25-plus-boat Florida Powerboat Club’s Tampa Bay Poker Run early arrival lunch run.

“My first impression?” said DiMichele. “It’s awesome. My Mystic cat was like a Cadillac. The Skater is more like a Corvette. Performance-wise, it’s a little edgier.”

After tomorrow’s poker run, DiMichele’s new prize will be hauled back to Miller Marina in St. Clair Shores, where he’ll keep it all season. He’s already signed up for this summer’s Boyne Thunder Poker Run and Skaterfest, both of which are Michigan-based events. He also plans to run it at the Lake Cumberland Poker Run in Kentucky at the end of the season.

Mark DiMichele has owned more than a few impressive go-fast boats.

Joanie Michele didn’t make it for this weekend’s Tampa Bay happening, but Mark is already confident she’ll love the boat as much as he does.

“It has a lower deck,” he said, then chuckled. “She’ll be able to see over the deck a lot easier.”

And that’s a particularly good thing given their summer plans.

“She’s going to start driving this year and I’m going to throttle,” he said.

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