“It was rough—it was pretty brutal,” said Steve Miklos, who throttled his 29-foot Extreme Sun Print V-bottom with Gary DeCiuicies driving to victory in the Superboat Vee class. “The boats were disappearing between the waves.”

“We had a good setup,” he added then laughed. “We were ‘committed’ to it. Had it calmed down, we might have finished last. Cocoa Beach has been good to us. We have won every year we’ve raced here, except for one year when we miscounted laps and pulled off the course a lap early.”

Earning their first victory of the year in Superboat Stock class in the SOS Venezuela 32-foot Doug Wright catamaran were driver/owner Chris Schoenbohm and throttleman Ryan Beckley. Photo courtesy/copyright Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

The Superboat Vee class reportedly saw the most frightening incident of the day when Absolutely Not, a 30-foot Fountain rolled and came to rest right side up. The cockpit duo of Jerry Haney and Mark Gibbons reportedly emerged from the wreck without serious injuries. (Additional details were not available when the story went live.)

Earning their first victory of the year in Superboat Stock class in the SOS Venezuela 32-foot Doug Wright catamaran were driver/owner Chris Schoenbohm and throttleman Ryan Beckley. Of the six cats entered in the class, SOS Venezuela was the only one to finish all eight laps.

“Boats just kept falling off, one by one,” Beckley said. “It was really rough, every bit of 3 to 5 feet. Chris and his guys did a great job prepping the boat and getting it back in shape after Key West last year.”

Feeling more than a little snakebit after falling out of their first two races of the season with mechanical issues, the 44-foot Victory cat Miss GEICO throttled by Scott Begovich and driven by Marc Granet outgunned driver Sheik Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani and throttleman Matteo Nicolini in the Spirit of Qatar during the closely contest Superboat Unlimited-class battle. Both catamarans finished all their laps, but Miss GEICO was able to maintain an average lap speed of 90 mph, which put just one mile per hour ahead of Spirit of Qatar.

“That was brutal, but it was an excellent race,” Granet said shortly after the event. “I think we both knew that we had to pace ourselves. That’s one of things we’ve learned in our experiences at Cocoa Beach. You have to pace yourself in rough water if you want to finish.”

Editor’s note: Speedonthewater.com will add more photos to this story via a gallery as they become available.

Super Boat International 2014 Space Coast Super Boat Grand Prix Results

Superboat Unlimited

1. Miss GEICO, 2. Spirit of Qatar, 3. Lucas Oil SilverHook

Superboat Extreme

1. Instigator

Superboat

1. Stihl, 2. WHM Motorsports, 3. Spirit of Qatar

Superboat Vee

1. Sun Print, 2. Scott Free Racing, 3. Phantom

Superboat Stock

1. SOS Venezuela, 2. Rollin’ Vengeance, 3. GB Racing

Manufacturer Production 3

1. Black Pearl, 2. The Developer, 3. Second Amendment

Manufacturer Production 4

1. Dare Devil, 2. Two Cruel, 3. Not Crazy

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