From the exotic side of the high-performance powerboat world, the “good news story” of early 2010 has to be Mystic Powerboats in DeLand, Fla. According to John Cosker, the owner and founder of Mystic, the builder has four 50-foot-long catamarans—all powered by turbine engines—in production.

“We just shipped our first six-seater closed-canopy boat to John Arruda (the owner of Turbine Marine, Inc.) for pre-rigging, and then it’s going to Dave Hunter at Invisions for paint,” Cosker told me this morning. “The second one is right behind it in the paint booth.”

“We have the new My Way boat for Bill Tomlinson coming out of the molds this week,” Cosker continued. “It’s supposed to be ready for the Alexander Bay poker run in June. He (Tomlinson) bought the T-55 turbines I had in the Longlite boat. It’s going to be the fastest Mystic I’ve ever built. It will probably be able to hit 225 mph.”

In addition to those three canopied cats, Mystic has its first open-top six-seater in production. The boat will be powered by twin T-53/L13 turbine engines rated at 1,500 hp apiece.

“Basically right now, we have 16,400 hp going into these four boats,” said Cosker.

Twin hull molds for the 50-footer, said Cosker, are enabling Mystic to keep up with demand.

“We’re building boats parallel now, rather than in a line,” he added.