Killer Cruiser

I don't know what Dick Simon's middle name is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Speed. A successful driver for 19 years at the Indy 500, Simon has hung up his helmet and is now a team owner. Dick Simon Racing fielded four cars this last year at Indy, competes on the 16-race Indy Car circuit nationwide, and is planning a five-car Indy effort for 1993. In his spare time (and because boating is his secret passion), he started Dick Simon Yachting to market Fountain high-performance sport boats in Southern California. From mowing lawns at the age of 12 to buy a 90 mph hydroplane (that his father thought was a rowboat), whatever Simon does, he does fast.

At the moment, however, we are skipping like a hard-flung stone across the waters off Dana Point, California, in Simon's personal Fountain 47 SC — 7 tons of howling energy that belies the incredible luxury belowdecks. Shoved along by three — count 'em — three supercharged 502-cubic-inch MerCruiser engines that produce a total of 1,575 horsepower, the big Nordskog speedometer indicates a steady 50 mph and the boost gauges show that the superchargers haven't even cut in yet!

Neither Simon nor I have much hair on the tops of our heads, so not much blew in the wind when he pushed the throttles steadily forward and the speedo needle twisted upwards, finally hovering just past the 75 marker. At that speed, we had a muzzle velocity of 110 feet every second, but this was a no-sweat run. Seas were long and oily, we weren't airborne and we weren't hanging on for dear life — we were just covering ground at an enormous clip. Catalina? Leave the hammers down for another 25 minutes and we'd be deciding where to have lunch.

If Dick Simon is a speed freak, then boat builder Reggie Fountain must have come from the same mold. While Simon was lapping Indy at 200 mph, Fountain was racking up an incredible three World and seven National powerboat championships as a driver for the nearly invincible Mercury Marine Racing Team, where he won 76 of 129 starts.

Asked to start testing some of Mercury's high-performance stern-drive engines, Fountain couldn't resist tinkering with the hull shapes of the test boats, which he didn't think were fast enough. It wasn't long before Fountain Powerboats was founded in 1979 in an abandoned used car dealership.

Today, the company boasts over 300 employees in a high-tech, 155,000-square-foot facility on the Pamlico River in North Carolina. And although he's the CEO of a multi-million dollar company listed on the American Stock Exchange, Fountain still logs more than 1,000 hours a year behind the wheel of his boats, either racing them hard on the offshore circuit or testing them equally hard for future owners.

Like both Fountain and Simon, the 47 SC (for Sport Cruiser) was born to run fast. There are other performance boats in this size range, of course, but the 47 has triple engines as standard equipment, and you can keep checking off options until you're in the running for the world speed record of V-bottomed boats, which the 47 set at 114.575 mph!

But there's more to the 47 SC than just all-out speed — lots more. Step into the cabin and, if you're no novice in high-performance boating, you'll be stunned to find the creamy leather upholstery on the settees or the spacious forward oversized double berth. At 75 mph, you don't expect to be carrying that sort of luxury, or the standard air conditioning, or a double Nutone food processor in a galley complete with Princess double electric stove, microwave and large refrigerator/freezer. You wouldn't expect to find headroom of well over 6 feet, or a private head compartment with a hot/cold shower, or an entertainment center with television, CD player and stereo. But those are all included in the base price of the Fountain 47.

The layout is bright and airy, with the playpen-like double berth behind curtains in the forward compartment, a comfy settee wrapped around a hi-lo table in the main salon, and the galley to port near the companionway so it's easy to pass food and drinks into the cockpit. Aft to starboard is the enclosed head, a bright and easily cleaned fiberglass compartment with Corian countertops and an electric vacuum flush toilet with holding tank.

Standard power for the 47 is a trio of 410-horsepower MerCruiser Magnums with Bravo stern drives, which give a solid 50 mph cruise and a top speed of 64+. Fountain claims the supercharged MerCruisers on Simon's boat push the boat to 72+ with a cruise of 55, but those numbers are definitely conservative. With a half load of fuel, three people and the added windage of a radar arch and radar dome that Simon had added, we saw 4-5 mph higher than the Fountain factory numbers. Both the supercharged and normally aspirated engines run happily on 92 octane fuel available at any gas dock, and, unlike many performance engines, either MerCruiser should have a long life given reasonable care.

The cockpit on the Fountain is just as comfortable at dockside as at speed, with a pair of heavily bolstered seats for helmsman and companion, and both seats have electrically operated bottoms that fold away for standing. A pair of rearward facing seats are opposite a bench seat with room for three more guests. The helmsman faces a simple black panel with 23 gauges including everything from racing compass and a trio of tachs to transmission oil pressures, but it's easy to scan. Steering is through a high-performance Latham hydraulic package that is power-assisted, and the wheel has the drive trim buttons on the spokes so your hands never have to leave the wheel. The trio of engine and shift levers are Kiekhaefer Zero Effort units, as are the trim tabs.

On most performance boats, going forward on the deck is a chancy trip but, on the 47, a set of steps lead from the cockpit to the deck, where a non-slip pathway between a pair of grab rails ends at a hidden anchor locker in the bow. Aft of the cockpit is a spacious sun pad for lounging or tanning, and the built-in swim platform on the stern has a hidden swimming ladder as well as a hot-and-cold shower for rinsing off.

Access to the engines is through a pair of hydraulically lifted clamshell doors under the sun pad, and there's plenty of space for the trio of engines as well as the Onan 6.5 kW generator, plus room for dive tanks, air conditioning and even a watermaker. A toggle switch at the helm actuates an electric cut-out to change from fully muffled engines in the harbor to an open exhaust system for peak performance at higher speeds, but the noise level remained comfortably low even flat out. Merlin and Seatek diesels to 600 horsepower. each are also available as optional power plants and, with twin Seatek diesels, the 47 SC was tested at 59 mph.

Racing is in the background of every major builder of performance boats, but Fountain has carried that to near extremes. A Fountain boat won first place overall and the Top Gun award at every race on the 1991 American Power Boat Association National circuit — a feat never before accomplished. Not content to leave the driving to owners, Reggie Fountain personally won eight of 10 events and then set the APBA speed record as well using a 47-foot hull. Even more important, the race boats and the boats shipped to private owners are built exactly the same way, using the same materials and lamination processes. In fact, a completely stock Fountain 38 won the Catalina Ski Race in near record setting time and, once the race was over, the racing numbers were peeled off the hull and it was returned to the dealer's showroom!

Construction on the Fountain is equal to the high-performance breeding of the boat, with bi- and tri-axial fabrics bonded with blister-resisting vinylester resin into a light and rigid unit that uses Klegecell foam coring for added strength. The hull and deck joint is not only mechanically fastened with stainless bolts but also bonded with fiberglass to assure a monocoque structure.

Fountain's raceboat expertise is obvious not just in the engine room, which is painted with glossy white and filled with Aeroquip stainless braided hoses in place of rubber, but also in the electrical system where the wiring harnesses are carefully color-coded to make adding additional equipment (or tracing a short) a cinch. The trio of aluminum fuel tanks each hold 170 gallons (510 gallons total) and are foamed and bolted in place, while the engine mounts are more often seen in race boats than in family cruisers.

Rather than mount through-hull fittings for the engine water pickups, Fountain builds a custom fabricated box-style pickup into the keel, and oversized water filters make sure the engines are getting pure coolant.

Once completed, each Fountain is taken for an in-water test run by one of Fountain's test drivers. Besides a comprehensive series of Zero-Defect checks, the driver prepares a report for the future owner, detailing the speeds and proper settings for drives and trim tabs at each 1,000 rpm increment for that particular boat. Finally, each owner gets a video owner's manual that not only shows the correct operation of the equipment, but explains how to get both safe and peak performance from the boat.

List price on the 47 with the 502 Magnums is $333,589, while the supercharged MerCruisers bump the tab to $375,375. Simon is offering the 502 Fountain for under $265,000 and the 525 for about $290,000, giving a buyer a sizable discount.

Simon, a former national parachuting and skiing champion as well, previously owned a 71-foot Knight & Carver motoryacht that he found he rarely used even for entertaining sponsors and clients. With the 47, however, he finds himself running up the coast to Newport with friends for dinner, or zipping across to Catalina for breakfast.

Does he miss having the largest yacht in the harbor?

"Nope," Simon says with a grin, "because now I've got the fastest boat in the harbor!"

For more information, contact Fountain Powerboats, P.O. Box 457, Washington, NC 27889, (252) 975-2000, fax (252) 975-6793.

Fountain 47 Sport Cruiser Specifications