Performance Boat School founder and hull design consultant Tres Martin is working today with Sunsation’s Wayne Schaldenbrand to perfect the setup on the Algonac, Mich., company’s first 32-foot center console powered by triple 400-hp Verado outboard engines. Martin, who stopped in Michigan on his way to teach a driving school course to the new owner of a 50-foot Statement Marine catamaran (read the story) in Ohio, actually designed the hull for the 32 CCX model.

Today’s dial-in work for the Sunsation 32 CCX with triple Verado 400R outboard is focused on hull strakes.

“It’s perfect with two outboards, but with three it’s not happy at the top end,” Schaldenbrand said. “It’s dipping and diving a bit up there.”

Schaldenbrand explained that the third outboard engine has created center of gravity issues for the 32-footer. To resolve the boat’s top-speed stability problems, he and Martin have been physically relocating strakes, a painstaking and methodical process that involves grinding off the original strakes, attaching temporary strakes and then running the boat.

“We’re making progress,” Schaldenbrand added. “We’re doing it little by little, one step at a time.”

The Schaldenbrands are planning to run the Verado 400R outboard-powered 32 CCX at the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in August. To date, the boat has reached 92 mph, according to Schaldenbrand. “And there’s more left,” he said. “I don’t even want to guess at what the top speed will be in the shootout.”

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