Outerlimits Releases First New 46-foot Catamaran

Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats has delivered its 46-foot “SC” Carbon Edition catamaran. Images of the new, all-carbon-fiber-and-epoxy cat went live on the Bristol, R.I., high-performance boat builder’s Facebook page this morning. The boat is powered by twin Mercury Racing 1350 engines.

Meet the new Outerlimits 46 SC catamaran, which was delivered to its new owner today. (See more images here)

The first 46-footer is one of two that the Bristol, R.I., boat builder has had in production since the beginning of the year. Both cats are going to existing Outerlimits customers.  As reported in a previous speedonthewater.com article, renowned high-performance catamaran man and offshore racing world champion Steve Curtis worked with the Outerlimits team on the development the 46-footer, as well as the entire Outerlimits catamaran program (read the story).

“The boat is pretty amazing,” said Mike Fiore, the owner and founder of Outerlimits, who delivered the boat with Curtis to his customer this afternoon. “Steve and I ran it back in Rhode Island on a rough and windy day that wasn’t exactly optimal for speed runs, and it ran just under 170 mph. The acceleration was pretty close to that of one of our V-bottoms—it gets with the program pretty fast. To say I am extremely pleased would be an understatement.

“One of the most impressive things I saw when Steve and I tested it was the handling,” he added. “We were running about 155 mph and had to turn to find clearer water, and the boat turned perfectly. It didn’t skip or hop. We’re running a very conservative setup with inboard propeller rotation and the boat does everything extremely well.”

Outerlimits has another 46-foot catamaran in production. 

Fiore plans to run the 46-footer at the upcoming Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Missouri in August. “With calmer water and bigger wheels, this thing will run deep into the 170s—we have some bigger propellers being made now because after our initial test run we knew the boat would exceed our performance expectations,” he said. “We need to do some more calm water testing. In calm water, I would not be shocked if it ran 180 mph.”

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