I saw the new plug for the deck of what is going to be a new 39 ft. vee bottom from Douglas marine last night. I was surprised as hell to see that they were going to be making a vee bottom boat. The plug was not at Douglas but at a fiberglass fab shop that designed it for them. it looks pretty good and has a 9 ft. beam. The man also told me it will have a quad step designed hull, with a standard cockpit layout, and meet the requirements for F-2 (or similar class he was not sure). They called the deck "the bat boat" because it had that kind of look to it. It has raised bubbles on each side above the rubrails, kind of like the baja .38 special but them comes back down in the center so it still looks very sleek, and not big and clunky. The wind fairing was laid back at a big angle, and swept up gradually toward the cockpit, and reminded me of the fairing on the 50 ft. hustler. Just thought I would share the info.

I thought Douglas was building Baja's F-2 boat...could that be what you were looking at?

Sean,

That's was I was thinking, but IIRC, I read a story a couple years ago (maybe in Powerboat?) about Skater building its own V-hull. Haven't seen or heard anything since then, though...

Lot's of west Michigan guys on the board - someone's got to know something!

Baja backed out of the deal, supposedly because of the stepped, bottom and it is 100% douglas marine. That is what the plug builder told me. I think it is funny that one of the older baja pace boats had a stepped bottom on it, but they don't want anything to do with them.

Are you sure they backed out?...Trullio was just talking about seeing the Baja/Douglas boat out of the mold in this last month's Powerboat...

It says a lot for Skater when they are asked to build and design a V hull for the cigarette Rio Roses race boat and now for Baja as well. Didn't Peter build a V hull for Reggie some years back as well that was used in super V class?

There were several Fountain Super Vees built by Douglas. I think the ones with the two bubble caonpies were.

..weren't they Fountain designed and Skater built??

Popeyes and the Instigator, right?

After Craig Berry seperated from Cigarette, he was doing a 39 V with or at Skater. Nothing materialized as far as I know.

The Jawana/Dramamine boat was done @ skater as well... its currently oneof the pier 57 boats .