Reggie Fountain on Real Fast Powerboats: “This is no time to put millions into tooling.”

While Real Fast Marine, the service and customization business founded by Reggie Fountain in Washington, N.C., is up, running and reportedly going strong, would-be performance-boat buyers will have to wait for new offerings from the founder and former owner of Fountain Powerboats. The new models will come from Real Fast Powerboats, another business established by Fountain.

“This is no time to put millions into tooling,” said Fountain. “When we do build boats, we will build one catamaran, one V-bottom performance boat and two fish boats. I will be working with Benny Robertson and Michael Seebold on the cat.

“Now, what does Reggie Fountain know about building a cat?” he continued. “What people don’t remember is that I won more races in tunnel boats than in a V-bottom. I think between us we have plenty of experience.”

Fountain declined to provide a timetable for new-model production from Real Fast Powerboats.

“My timeline is based solely on the money line,” said Fountain. “Right now, we have a number of funding sources we’re looking at. As funds permit, we will go forward but without me having to get highly leveraged in a terrible economy.

“We are continuing to move forward with Real Fast Marine, which is basically a customization and service company for the 10,000 boats I built, worth almost $1 billion, before the new ownership of Fountain Powerboats,” he added. “But we’ve had boats in from a number of manufacturers. If you want to make your boat run really good, handle really well and run really fast, I think we have a good reputation for that.”