Sitting across from Skater 368 catamaran owner Brandon Burgess of Michigan during lunch last Saturday the Naples Hyatt House in Southwest Florida, Michael Hledin—the son of Skater Powerboats founder and owner Peter Hledin—was all smiles. The younger Hledin was in town with Skater national sales manager Tony Cutsuries to support the Douglas, Mich., brand during the sixth annual Invitational Skater Fun Run organized by rabid Skater fans Chris LaMorte and Ron Muller.
Hledin had good reason to grin. This first Skater 26 catamaran hull is in the mold and should be completed “in the next month or two.” Originally designed for offshore racing’s single-outboard-engine, canopied Cat 300 class, which under the new International Hot Rod Association guidelines has been moved from a Spec to a Bracket category, it is the first new model in which he has been integrally involved.
The project began in 2024.
“The mold is done and we are laying up the first hull right now—laying coring and laminating as we speak,” he said. “Man, I am excited about it.
“We started from scratch with this one,” he continued. “My dad drew the model on drafting table and we were off to the races building a wooden plug.”
A deck mold does not yet exist for the 26-footer, so the Skater crew will have to build the first couple of decks by hand until they create one—and that is in the plan.
“The first couple will be open-cockpit, flat-deck pleasure boats, but we will eventually build a deck mold,” Hledin said.
Though the future of the Cat 300 class anything but certain, Hledin is confident that the Skater 26 catamaran will find a ready audience in the pleasure-boating realm.
“It probably should have two 300R outboard engines on it,” he said, then laughed. “But if someone wants to race one in Cat 300, we’d be happy to build it. That would be fantastic.”