Will the new Stihl and Performance Boat Center Skater raceboats be ready for Key West? It’s going to be close. Photo courtesy/copyright Jay Nichols/Naples Image
With 2014 Superboat-Class World Champion Broadco on the mend from its devastating roll-over during the Super Boat International season-opener in Cocoa Beach, Fla., and reportedly heading to the 2015 SBI Worlds this November in Key West, Fla., a natural question occurs. Will the new Skater 388 catamarans for Stihl and Performance Boat Center—not just a new raceboat but a new Superboat-class racing team—be ready in time to give Broadco a run for its money?
Sure, everyone hopes so, but no one knows. Not Skater principal Peter Hledin, not John Tomlinson of TNT Custom Marine, which will handle the rigging of Stihl with Frank McComas-built engines, not Myrick Coil and the crew at Nauti-Marine, now under the Performance Boat Center umbrella in Osage Beach, Mo., the outfit that will rig the Performance Boat Center raceboat with engines from Sterling Performance. No one.
and then