Reggie Fountain Planning New Custom Catamaran and High-Performance V-bottom

What began as Real Fast Powerboats more than a year ago and morphed into Real Fast Marine several months later has become Fountain Performance Marine, according to Reggie Fountain, the founder and former chief executive officer of Fountain Powerboats in Washington, N.C. During a telephone interview earlier today, Fountain said he plans to expand the company’s current operations from service and renovation work to building custom “one-off” high-performance boats.

“We are looking to build a 40-foot catamaran, one 43-foot V-bottom, a 39-foot center console fishing boat with a cabin and a 32-foot center console with a cabin,” said Fountain. “The 39 will have triple outboards, and the 32 will have twin outboards.

“In addition to my sons, working with me on the tunnel boat (catamaran) will be Benny Robertson and Billy Seebold,” Fountain continued. “Benny, Bill and I have won more than 1,000 races in tunnel boats between us.”

When Fountain parted ways with then-Liberty Associates-managed Fountain Powerboats more than a year ago, he announced immediate plans to build new custom boats. The new models, however, never materialized. Fountain conceded that people will rightfully have doubts regarding his current new-model plan, but will push forward with them nonetheless, economic circumstances allowing.

“When all this stuff happened from 2009 to 2011, money was in short supply,” he explained. “When we saw the amount of money we would need and the amount of money our customers would have to spend to get us going, we had to put our plans on hold. That’s why we changed our plans from building new boats to servicing boats. Right now, we’re a service business and that’s been doing very well for us.

“We have some (new boat) customers we are negotiating with, but until those deals are sealed we are going to move forward slowly and carefully, and we’ll continue our service business regardless,” Fountain continued. “If things in the economy get worse, you will see our new-model plans get delayed. If things get better, you’ll see them speed up.

“We want to distinguish ourselves from Fountain Powerboats,” he concluded. “We are not Fountain Powerboats—we are a completely different company. All the people we have with us now are the people who helped build Fountain Powerboats. Fountain Powerboats cannot do what it did when we were there.”