The Big Picture: The Fastest Show on Water
Powerboat magazine’s annual 100-mph roundup attracts some of the fastest recreational powerboats on the planet.
In the middle of a moonless night on a two-lane desert highway, 80 mph feels awfully fast. And there I was, heading from Parker, Arizona to catch a 6:30 a.m. flight from Las Vegas to San Francisco, driving 80 mph in my rented PT Cruiser, and thinking, “Two days ago I went twice this fast on the water. So why does this feel so much faster?”
I never did come up with an answer. Maybe a PT Cruiser is not the best vehicle in which to break the speed limit on a desolate Arizona highway at 3 a.m. Maybe I was just tired enough to feel a little twitchy.
You’ve probably never heard of Parker, Arizona, and this is good. If you were driving through the middle of sun-scorched nowhere, eventually you would stumble onto Parker. It’s one of those dusty desert towns where you keep asking yourself, “Who lives here?” But Parker has a least one thing going for it other than the new Starbucks in the Safeway market. Parker is on the shores of the stunning Colorado River.
Combine the middle of nowhere with the Colorado River and you get the ideal place to test some of the fastest powerboats in the world. There are 22 miles of river between Parker Dam to the north and Davis Dam to the south, and within those 22 miles there is a 7-mile straightaway near the Buckskin Fire Department, (affectionately called “BFD” by the firefighters who work there—I don’t make this stuff up). That section of river is, too some degree, the ultimate aquatic drag strip.
This Eliminator Daytona 28 Speedster catamaran reached 155 mph during Powerboat magazine's 100-mph roundup in Parker, Ariz. Photo courtesy/copyright Robert Brown.
I’ve come to Parker each fall for the past 15 years as part of Powerboat magazine’s test team for it annual Performance Trials. Powerboat has conducted its Trials for more than 35 years.
In addition to being Powerboat magazine’s editor at large, a fancy title for feature writer, I am its lead co-pilot. That means I hold onto a radar gun, a stopwatch and dear life while either Bob Teague or John Tomlinson, our professional test drivers, puts each boat through its paces.
About 12 years ago, we decided that an annual “speed and technology” issue would be a great thing to offer our readers in the summer. And for the centerpiece of that issue, we thought that a 100-mph powerboat roundup would be perfect. We knew we’d have to create East and West Coast locations for that roundup, and for the West Coast leg segment Parker was the obvious choice.
The first year, the fastest boat in the roundup ran about 120 mph. Earlier this week in Parker, I rode in two boats that ran 160 mph and two boats that ran 155 mph.
Those are not typos. I did not forget a decimal point and I am not delusional. We’re talking about fast, fast boats. We’re talking about speeds that should not be approached by anyone other than a professional test driver with a rescue crew at the ready.
So, what kind of powerboats can run those speeds? Catamarans, which are particularly efficient at producing speed thanks to their lift-producing air-entrapment hulls, with powerful, supercharged engines.
Topping 160 mph was a 35-foot-long cat with twin 1,200-hp engines from Dave’s Custom Boats in El Cajon, Calif., and a 48-foot-long cat with twin 1,300-hp engines from Outerlimits in Bristol, Rhode Island. A 44-foot Skater cat with pair of 1,200-hp engines from Douglas Marine in Douglas, Mich., and a 28-foot cat with dual 1,000-hp engines from Eliminator Boats in Perris, Calif., hit the not-too-shabby 155-mph mark.
Did I mention that 155 mph in a 28-foot boat feels a hell of a lot faster than 160 mph in a 48-foot boat? Did I have to?
The fastest V-bottom during the Parker event was a 42-footer from Nordic Powerboats in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. The boat just cracked the 100-mph mark—likely we’ll see V-bottoms in the 120-mph range when we head for more tests in Fort Myers, Fla., in early May.
Gregg Mansfield, the editor of Powerboat, will pick me up in a rented mini-van in Fort Myers, so I won’t have to rent a car. Gregg is a stickler about speed limits—OK, he drives like an old lady—so I’ll have no chance of cracking the speed limit on land. But I fully expect to crack it, as in wide open, on the water. Stay tuned.
