Miss GEICO And Offshore Racing Services Creating New Deck Tooling For Damaged CT Marine Cat

That no one was injured when the 44-foot CT Marine Victory-built catamaran launched off the back of the 52-foot CMS catamaran during the second day of racing in the Super Boat International Offshore World Championships in Key West, Fla., last month was miraculous. But the launch, landing and rollover of the CT Marine cat owned and driven by Andy Strobert and throttled by Billy Moore left the 44-footer’s deck mostly destroyed.

Creating new deck tooling for a fellow Unlimited-class competitor’s Victory catamaran is in process at the Miss GEICO shop.

As bad as the damage looked, the boat won’t be headed to the scrap heap—far from it, in fact, thanks to the team at Miss GEICO Offshore Racing in Riviera Beach, Fla., and the crew from Offshore Racing Services, the Orlando-based outfit that sold the CT Marine boat to Strobert. Using the 2017 Unlimited-class world champion Victory catamaran, which has an overall length of 47 feet thanks to its transom bustle but originally was built from the same Victory tooling as the 44-footer, the Miss GEICO and Offshore Racing Services outfits are working at the GEICO shop to create new deck mold for the CT Marine cat.

“We’re in the process of creating a deck mold from the boat we ran in Key West this year,” said Gary Stray, the Miss GEICO team’s crew chief. “We taped the entire deck and covered it with four or five coats of wax, and built a return flange around it. This afternoon, the guys will put down tooling gelcoat and then start laying down fiberglass and resin so that we can pull tooling from the deck. Once it’s finished, we’ll send the tooling to Doug Wright who’ll be building a new deck for Andy and Billy.”

After its own 44-footer was seriously damaged during a tragic accident at the Offshore Powerboat Association St. Clair River Classic race in Michigan this summer, the Miss GEICO team leased the 47-footer from Offshore Racing Services, which owned by Steve Curtis, who throttled the cat to its world title this year. So the collaboration among the Miss GEICO, Offshore Racing Services and CT Marine groups in creating the new tooling was a natural.

Stray said he expects to deliver the new deck tooling for the damaged CT Marine Victory cat to the Doug Wright Designs facility in Melbourne, Fla., by Dec. 20.

The incident between CT Marine (airborne) and CMS at the SBI Key West World made national news—and left the CT Marine cat significantly damaged. Photo by Sam Sam Jirik.

“It should be a perfect match,” he said. “We used the Maritimo boat to do the same thing to repair our 44-foot Victory hull last year after Key West.”

Editor’s Note: While the running surfaces for Victory catamarans come in two sizes—approximately 42 and 44 feet—their overall lengths tend to vary depending the dimensions of their hull bustles.

Miss GEICO And Offshore Racing Services Creating New Deck Tooling For Damaged CT Marine Cat

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