As a viable offshore powerboat racing class with lots of competition, the Extreme category is long-dead. Exactly two Extreme teams—American Custom Marine and the Spirit of Qatar—registered for the November 2-9 Race World Offshore Key West World Championships.
And based on recent history in the sport, that’s a big turnout.
The American Custom Marine team is running a 42-foot Fountain V-bottom powered by Mercury Racing 1350 engines. The Spirit of Qatar team is running a Victory catamaran with a yet-to-be-released power package. Unless the teams agree to “keep it close” for the fans, the chances of them running head to head are nil.
And yet there is something inherently compelling about the Extreme class. During the years, it has attracted wild raceboats powered by marinized surplus helicopter engines of the turbine and monster supercharged and turbocharged piston engines. Minus spec-class power limitation such as those for the Super Cat and Pro Class 1 ranks, the boats live up to their category name. They are extreme.
Still, why bother? Here’s why.
The owner of American Custom Marine, a full-service Nor-Tech dealer in Kimball, Mich., Michael Knoblock is not a Fountain dealer. But he is a certified Mercury Racing/Mercury Marine dealer. So the 42-footer he’ll run in all three Key West races next is a sales tool. Go figure—Knoblock wanted to build V-bottom raceboat with power he actually sells. So while he doesn’t make a dime from offshore racing—the cash-flow goes the other way—his Fountain raceboat is a marketing vehicle.
Steve Curtis and Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani of the Spirit of Qatar team, have no such motivation. They’re just a couple of offshore racers who last shared the cockpit together some 11 years ago. Their biggest achievement didn’t happen on an offshore racecourse. It occurred at the 2014 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout when they reached 244 mph in a turbine-engine-powered Mystic catamaran.
Curtis and Sheikh Hassan are coming to Key West because they want to race together again. That may lead to something more next season—that’s the plan at least—but there are no guarantees.
“The goal, of course, will be the podium and to set plans in motion for the 2026 season,” Sheikh Hassan said when their plan was first reported. “It will be a new boat for us to run together but I am sure that Steve and I will settle in quickly.”
Even if those plans don’t come to fruition, fans in Key West will have the extreme pleasure of catching the Spirit of Qatar and American Custom Marine in action the same racecourse. It likely won’t be a head-to-head, nail-biting battle.
But it will be damn fun to watch.