With an 80-footer that runs 60 mph, Nor-Tech makes a stylish push into the performance-yacht market.

By Matt Trulio

Think of Trond Schou and Nils Johnsen, founders of Nor-Tech Hi-Performance Boats in Fort Myers, Fla., as the Penn and Teller of high-performance boats and you won’t be far off the mark. Schou is Penn, the frontman with an upsized personality and a quick wit. Johnsen is Teller, the fiercely intelligent, yet quiet foil to Schou’s gregarious bluster. Together, they’ve made some pretty serious magic in the go-fast boat world.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout didn't miss a beat at its new location.

By Jason Johnson

No one has won more Top Gun titles than Dave Scott in the history of the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout. Yet remarkably, Scott has been in the midst of a six-year Top Gun drought.

Boat racing could return to Miami Marine Stadium after receiving historic status.

By Gregg Mansfield

Less than two years ago when real estate was still booming in Miami, the city had plans to raze the graffiti-covered Miami Marine Stadium. But thanks to a grass-roots effort, future generations may have a chance to see boat racing in the stadium once again.

MerCruiser and Volvo Penta now produce engines with catalytic converters. Here’s how they pulled it off.

By Matt Trulio

Greatly simplified, a catalytic converter uses extreme heat to reduce an engine’s emissions of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. The proven technology has been standard fare on automobile engines for decades, but on the marine side—at least in the pleasure-boat market—catalyst-equipped engines only arrived on the scene this year.

The enthusiasm of those behind the second generation of High Torque Marine—HTM2—shows in the new SR-24.

By Jason Johnson

Rod and Renee Devries admit they weren't experts in the boat business before they decided to buy High Torque Marine 2 about a year ago. But the husband and wife understood that HTM had loyal customers and a strong lineup of boats to expand upon.

Fuel-efficient 650- and 700-hp marine engines? That's how Dyno-Flo touts its 540 and 598 Mileage Master packages.

By Matt Trulio

At face value, the terms "fuel efficient" and "high-performance marine engine" should probably never be used in the same sentence. Then again, high-performance marine engines make big power. Consider this: A 400-horsepower engine in a wicked street car is monster power. In a performance boat such as a 38-foot V-bottom, it's about half of what you need for halfway decent performance.

Looking for a reason to buy a new boat in 2009? Boatbuilders from across the country are releasing 25 performance-boat models to tempt you.

By Matt Trulio

Given the less-than-glowing state of the U.S. economy, you might guess that most domestic boatbuilders have nothing new to offer for 2009. After all, the costs of developing, tooling and producing a new model can be exorbitant, and with sales of existing models slumping, you would imagine that most builders would hold back on new introductions.

That's not the case. Fact is, every builder you'll read about in the following pages—and that represents the majority of the high-performance powerboat industry—has something new for 2009. And there is also a handful of builders not in this preview, such as Cigarette Racing and Magic/Sleekcraft, that have new projects "in the works" but didn't want to release details at press time.

With the first models rolling off the production line in Washington, N.C., Reggie Fountain tells the Baja nation why they’ll love the new models.

By Gregg Mansfield

On the Pamlico River outside his factory in North Carolina, Reggie Fountain is putting a 26 Outlaw through a series of turns and touting the boat’s improved handling to a passenger.

“The Baja nation is going to recognize these changes and be appreciative of it,” he said.

Nothing could prepare a group of adventurers for what they would encounter as they set out to break the Key West to Cancun record in a Nor-Tech 5000 V.

By Terry Tomalin

Five years ago, Bob Barnhart was flipping through Powerboat magazine when he saw an advertisement for Fountain Powerboats.

"Reggie (Fountain) had just broken the speed record from Key West (Fla.) to Cancun (Mexico)," Barnhart said. "I thought to myself, 'Now that would be a cool thing to do.'"

Mercury Racing revises the NXT1 drive skeg for single-engine applications.

By Matt Trulio

More years ago than I care to count, I took my first ride in a twin-engine performance boat with Bob Teague, this magazine's lead test driver. I was as green as a head of lettuce when it came to the performance of go-fast boats, and I made the mistake of framing a question to Teague as a statement.

Eliminator Boats relocates to new state-of-the-art facility.

By Jason Johnson

Nearly 40 years after calling an empty gas station home in Huntington Park, Calif., a new era of Eliminator Boats is beginning in Perris, Calif. The largest performance boatbuilder on the West Coast is relocating to an impressive 100,000-square-foot facility built by the company as part of a larger complex with more than 400 indoor boat and recreational vehicle storage units and a handful of commercial buildings.

Offshore racers know quite a bit about performance boats. Lucky for you, a few of them are available to teach you how to hone your skills.

By Ben Gallagher

Think back to the first time you stepped on a performance boat and prepared to drive. There were gauges and controls to worry about, let alone an array of emotions, from apprehension to excitement, to overcome.

Offshore racers know quite a bit about performance boats. Lucky for you, a few of them are available to teach you how to hone your skills.

By Ben Gallagher

Think back to the first time you stepped on a performance boat and prepared to drive. There were gauges and controls to worry about, let alone an array of emotions, from apprehension to excitement, to overcome.

A cradle for your baby, trailer bunks need periodic service.

By Brett Becker

You probably don't give trailer bunks much thought, right? But if you think about it, you'll find that trailer bunks are in contact with your boat more often than you are. And that means they're important enough to warrant your attention and periodic maintenance.

Offshore racers, poker runners and thousands of performance-boat enthusiasts transformed Arizona's Lake Havasu into powerboat heaven.

By Jason Johnson

Watch out Key West. A lake in the middle of the desert is threatening to become the "performance-boat capital of the world." How can that be? Ask anyone who made the trip to Lake Havasu in Arizona for the Desert Storm Poker Run and its surrounding festivities and you'll understand how.

To gauge or not to gauge, that is the question. The answer depends on who you are—and maybe even which generation you're from.

By Matt Trulio

If you're of a certain age—what the heck, let's make it my age (47)—you grew up with gauges. You learned to glance at a speedometer and, without actually "reading it," know you were going 80 mph. (And back in the day, that used to be really fast in a powerboat.) You could look at a tachometer and see engine speed without actually "seeing" the number. You could look at an oil-pressure gauge showing zero pressure and realize, as your engine came apart, that you should have looked at it more often.

The only thing more amazing than the sheer amount of amenities Formula Boats manages to pack into its Sun Sport models is that none of the Sun Sport editions feel particularly "packed." On the contrary, every luxurious offering in the Sun Sport line feels spacious and open. Sure, they boast lots of "stuff," but none of it gets in the way.

That holds true for the latest—and what could well be the greatest—model in the lineup, the 350 Sun Sport. The 35-footer is undeniably plush and filled with features, but from an interior standpoint it feels roomy and, frankly, a whole lot bigger than 35 feet.

Top speed definitely gets top billing in the performance-boat world. Magazines, manufacturers and consumers focus—if not occasionally fixate—on it. But top speed is merely an aspect of performance, and it is far from the most important one. Without handling and stability, a "fast" boat is worthless.

No builder pumps up speed in its marketing campaign more than Fountain Powerboats, and for good reason. Fountain does build efficient stepped V-bottoms that make excellent use of whatever power package happens to be under the hatch. But what tends to get lost, or at least obscured, is how well Fountain offerings handle and how connected they feel when they're running fast.

A study in feature refinement, the elegant Wakesetter 23 LSV from Malibu Boats simply blew us away this year. From build quality to amenities, no tow boat we tested better exemplified the best of the breed. In an ultracompetitive market that includes some of the best boatbuilders in any genre, that's quite an accomplishment.

On the high-end techie side of things, there was Malibu's new-for-2008 MUX digital electronic system that could—among other things—recall and reset the Wedge Hydrofoil and Malibu Launch System water ballast setup for the preferences of multiple riders. It could even recall and play their favorite radio stations, with the tunes pumping through speakers integrated in the boat's forward-swept, carbon-fiber Illusion XS tower.