MTI At 25—The NFL Connection – Speed on the Water

Though it’s always cool when professional athletes enter the high-performance boating world—at least if you’re into pro sports and enjoy go-fast boats—they don’t tend to last long. They usually buy something exotic and wild, run it a bit and then sell it a few years later. Then they’re gone.

Terminator was Albert Haynesworth’s second MTI catamaran.

There are exceptions, of course. Former NFL All-Pro Tennessee Titan Albert Haynesworth stuck with it for several years and even enjoyed several Florida Powerboat Club poker runs. In 2011, he took delivery of Terminator, a new 48-foot MTI catamaran powered by Mercury Racing 1025/1200SCi engines, and ran it in the club’s Miami Boat Show Poker Run.

“It’s a badass,” he said at the time. ”I’m actually going to keep this one for a few years.”

But Terminator wasn’t Haynesworth’s first MTI creation. A couple of years before he stepped up to the 48-footer, he owned a 44-foot catamaran dubbed Hellraiser from the Wentzville, Mo., company. That boat was powered by Mercury Racing 1075SCi engines.

Big Bad Wolf was the original property of Buffalo Bills player Mario Williams.

Haynesworth wasn’t the only NFL defensive star to own an MTI. In 2013, Buffalo Bills defensive tackle Mario Williams took delivery of Big Bad Wolf, a 446 catamaran. Powered by Mercury Racing 1350 engines, the boat debuted at the Texas Outlaw Challenge.

More recently, there was Pass Blocker, at 52-foot MTI canopied catamaran featured earlier this year in “MTI At 25.” Originally owned by Brad Benson, a former offensive lineman for the New York Giants team that beat the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXI in 1986, the 2014 model-year boat was powered by Mercury Racing 1650 engines.

That didn’t just must make it the most powerful MTI build ever owned by an NFL player. With a top speed of 185 mph, Pass Blocker was the fastest piston engine-powered poker-run boat in MTI history.