Hledins Building New 26-Foot Single-Engine Skater Pleasure Cat
The first new model from Skater Powerboats in several years, a 26-foot, single-outboard pleasure catamaran is in the plug-building stage. And Michael Hledin, the 35-year-son of the Douglas, Mich., company founder Peter Hledin, is doing the work.
It is the first Skater catamaran the senior Hledin has collaborated on since he was a teen in native Canada building boats with his brothers.
Peter Hledin and his son, Michael, are collaborating a new 26-foot pleasure catamaran. Photos by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
Hledin got the bug to build a new cat—the first 26-footer in his current line of catamarans from 28 to 55 feet long—during the 2024 Race World Offshore Key West World Championships.
“Pete and I were working around Key West and he says, ‘I think I am going to design a new catamaran,” Tony Cutsuries, Skater’s national sales manager, recalled. “I said, “What is it?’ Pete said, ‘I’m not going to tell you.’” And I was like, ‘Really?’”
Cutsuries paused and laughed.
The master and his pupil.
“I asked him a day later and he still wouldn’t tell,” he said, then laughed. “But by the end of the trip, he told me was going to build 26. When I asked him, he said he just kind of felt like it.”
Once his drawings were complete, Hledin turned them over to his son, who imported them into his CAD software program. From there, he created final designs with all of the requisite specifications. Then he started working on hull-plug the old-school way, meaning by hand with wood.
“It’s going well,” he said. “I worked here during college sanding and grinding doing whatever I was asked, but that was only three months at a time. Now, I’ve been here awhile and I’ve had time to learn a little more.”
The younger Hledin also is building a deck-plug for the cat. He’ll also handle much of mold construction from each plug.
When it comes to checking his work, Michael Hledin has direct access to the ultimate resource.
Of course, his father is watching his work. “Pete told me the other day that Mike is doing a really good job,” said Cutsuries with a touch of awe in his voice, as he knows Hledin isn’t casual with compliments, even when it comes to his son.
The 26-footer does not yet have a buyer. Cutsuries declined to offer an estimate completion date for the first one.
“We’ll know more once we get closer,” he said.
Related stories
Featured Boat: 2022 Skater 28 Catamaran
Upstate Powerboat Resurrects Late-1990s Skater 28 Catamaran
Sneak Peek—A Fire-Breathing Skater 438
Modern History Goes On The Block—M CON Lists Skater Super Cat
Szolack Building First Widened Skater 368 Cat—With Kasse Power
Skater At 50—Celebrating Skater Powerboats’ 50th Anniversary Weekly
The post Hledins Building New 26-Foot Single-Engine Skater Pleasure Cat appeared first on Speed on the Water.
Source: https://www.speedonthewater.com/hledins-building-new-26-foot-single-engine-skater-pleasure-cat/
