O/B Cat guys: XCat series?
 

Just got these photos from Ocke Mannerfelt of Batboat fame. He's working with the Victory guys on a cat for the X-Cat series. I had never heard of it (apparently, this is the first season), but I see that Whittier and Ballough are running it and finished second in the first race.

What do you experts think of the design?

Lets see the bottom...

Don't have that shot. I suppose that's probably why they painted it black?

It should be a great boat however Gary and Paul have never run it. The boat they run and finish on the podium with is their 32 Doug Wright

very nice lines. If it becomes competitive, which I'm sure it will be, I wonder who will produce it in the US?

From what I hear there is a stiff price tag on one without motors. Someone quoted it at 200K. Any chance of you getting that info for us C_Spray?

C_Spray. The Class III Racing Series over there is no called the X-Cats.

Sorry - Should have stated that Whittier/Ballough were running in the X-Cat series, not in this boat. There are two of these right now, one is #8 Victory, and the other is S-20 Servizi Fondiari. They expect to have four of these hulls running by the next race, and five or six by race #5.

Here's some video on the series. Looks pretty organized.
http://www.youtube.com/XCatPowerboats

Ask the man himself: Ocke at Ocke dot SE.

Gary and Paul on there boat across the pond. This was the boat that Gary ran over here before getting his new DW. This pic was given to Stickerboy from Gary.

Victory ran one all of last season.

Yes they did and it is the same boat as last year just repainted.

Here was the rendering from Ocke that was posted on his website last year I believe.

Whoops. Guess this isn't exactly "breaking news", then. Oh well, it looks cool anyway.