Another Major Statement
Statement Marine made a splash in 2009 with its 42’ Ultimate V-bottom, and it looks like the same thing will happen in 2010 with its new 50-foot catamaran.
July 20, 2010
Todd Werner and Nick Buis of Statement Marine LLC are going to hate me for saying this, but they probably didn’t need bikini-clad models in a spa tub to attract attention to their brand-new, 50-foot-long catamaran at the 2010 Miami International Boat Show back in February. It’s not that scantily clad young women sipping champagne and hopping in and out of bubbly water chased anyone away from the Statement booth—and as a good reporter I kept my eyes on it—but they really weren’t necessary.
Statement's new 50 foot cat was the first pleasure boat to complete the Bimini Ocean Challenge.
Because the catamaran itself was a sexy showstopper. That said, it was, at the time, a completely unproven sexy showstopper.
No longer. At the Bimini Ocean Challenge in June, which consisted of offshore racing and high-performance pleasure boats running from Sunny Isle Beach (Fla.) to Bimini and back, the catamaran powered by twin T-53 engines rated at 1,450 hp a piece was the first pleasure boat to complete the run. It took all of 58 minutes, which meant the cat averaged more than 100 mph. Not bad for its third time on the water.
“It rode really well,” said John Tomlinson, who throttled the catamaran for the 103-mile roundtrip run. “Right out of the box, I thought it was really good.”
Ride quality is a big deal for Werner, who drove the cat and also holds an American Power Boat Association Super Cat world title that he earned in FlowMaster with Tomlinson on the throttles. In fact, you could argue that ride quality is the biggest deal for Werner. That’s why the new Statement cat is, like its V-bottom sibling, equipped with an air-cushioned cockpit.
Air-cushioning systems have long been used in the long-haul trucking industry, but Statement is the first builder to successfully adapt the ride-softening technology to high-performance offshore powerboats.
Spa girls at the Miami Boat Show.
To picture how it works, imagine the cockpit “liner” as a tub. Each corner of the tub is supported by a vertical rail or post. At the bottom each post, there is a stack of two pancake-style air bags that “suspend” the cockpit and absorb the bumps. The cockpit actually moves independently of the deck, which is at first disconcerting but soon goes unnoticed.
Monitoring and maintaining the air bags at a constant 10 to 12 psi is an on-board compressor with an extra-sturdy pressure switch. Werner describes the compressor as the “potential weak point” in the air suspension system. To minimize that potential, the Statement team went with a compressor rated to produce 100 psi but governed at 40 psi. In essence, the compressor is “loafing” in terms of maintaining pressure in the system. And should the system fail, the cockpit comes to rest on an 1-1/2-inch-thick rubber pad and the boat is still operable.
How well does it work? While I haven’t ridden in the catamaran, I have been in the Statement V-bottom at roughly 90 mph in 2- to 3-foot chop. And it was without question the smoothest I’ve ride ever taken in a V-bottom at that speed and in those conditions.
Like the V-bottom, the catamaran weighs 12,000 pounds. That makes it relatively heavy for a vacuum-bagged and post-cured boat constructed of Kevlar, E-glass and foam composite. According to Werner, that’s by design.
“We could have saved weight with epoxy, but our goal was never to build a feather,” said Werner. “We wanted to build a solid boat that didn’t rebound off the waves.”
Statement's 42V turned heads when it first appeared in 2009.
At present, Statement is fine-tuning the set-up—propellers, gear ratios—and so on. Poker run enthusiasts should see a lot of the cat on the circuit this summer.
Of course, it will be minus the swimsuit models and the spa tub. The catamaran really doesn’t need them to draw a crowd. But just to be sure, I’ll check as often as possible.
Bi-weekly columnist Matt Trulio is the editor at large for Powerboat magazine. He has written for the magazine since 1994. Trulio’s daily blog can be found on speedonthewater.com, a site he created and maintains, which is the high-performance arm of the BoaterMouth group.
