Raiden Emerges—Waves And Wheels Nails Skater 50SS Conversion

Similar to what the team at Waves and Wheels did last summer after it finished the radical conversion of the Scalp Hunter Apache Powerboats V-bottom for longtime client Todd Crossley, Justin Wagner, the founder of the Osage Beach, Mo.-based marine audio, upholstery and fabrication shop, got together with his go-to video producer Andy Sievers to document one of the company’s coolest project boats to date.

Dubbed Raiden after his favorite Mortal Combat character, Justin Wagner called his 50-foot Skater catamaran “absolutely incredible.” Photos by Andy Sievers

And based on the excitement in Wagner’s voice about his new-to-him 2004-built 50-foot Skater Powerboats catamaran in the video launched on the Speedonthewater.com YouTube channel today (and inserted below), it’s quite clear what Wagner thinks about Raiden, the Mortal Kombat-inspired 50SS he purchased earlier this year—not long after Boat Customs repainted it, extended the bustle and overhauled the cockpit to include a wraparound windshield—and recently completed a full interior conversion and re-rig with twin 1,900-hp engines from Carson Brummett.

“I’ll tell you what, this boat had me on a high that I’ve not had in powerboating in a while, if ever,” Wagner said after wrapping up the boat just in time for the late-August Lake of the Ozarks Shootout and Super Cat Fest, which is easily the biggest week of the year for Waves and Wheels and the lake community. “This boat is absolutely incredible. It performs amazing with the E1900 engines from Carson Brummett and it’s surprisingly nimble for a 50-foot cat.

“We added DriveSync race edition—it’s the first time I’ve used it in one of my boats—and wow is that a cool feature,” he continued, referring to Marine Design Corporation’s drive synchronization system. “It’s pretty amazing to have the trim presets at your disposal. I can be cruising on the lake, hit my ‘tuck setting,’ give it some throttle and it’s off and rolling. And when I say rolling, I mean rolling. The boat runs like a 36-foot Skater but it takes on the Lake of the Ozarks water way easier at 50 feet long and 12 feet wide.”

As you’ll see if you watch the video in which Wagner walks viewers through the interior features of the 50-footer, he called Raiden the demo boat of his dreams. As the owner of Bluave Marine Audio, Wagner of course loaded up the boat with Bluave products. Along with four MSE10 subwoofers paired with two Bluave 1000.1 amplifiers, the seven-seat cockpit—there are four bucket seats in the rear separated by steps covered by Raiden silhouettes and three seats up front with the driver in the center—includes two pairs of M9.0 speakers, two pairs of M7.0 speakers and two pairs of M2.0 tweeters all running on two 800.4 amps. The speakers, as expected, have LEDs to complement the hidden edge lighting the Waves and Wheels team installed on the side panels and in the engine compartments.

The electronics used across the dash, which Waves and Wheels redid to match the plush custom upholstery throughout and give it a little more angle to see the displays from the center seat, included two 16-inch Garmin displays ahead of the two front seat passengers and twin 7-inch displays on each side of the steering wheel.

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Check out the slideshow above for more images of Raiden.

“The center driving position makes this boat super fun to drive,” Wagner said. “We put a lot of thought into the consoles between the driver and passengers. I’m not a fan of seeing cans and cups in cupholders in a boat like this so we designed the consoles to drop down with the cupholders kind of hidden below. That also allowed us to install the important gauges that we need to run with the E1900s just ahead of the consoles and below the displays where you can see them but they’re not the first thing you see lined up along the dash.

“Raiden has pretty much every feature we offer here at Waves and Wheels,” Wagner said. “I know I say this every time, but my team is so talented. They knocked it out of the park with this project. We’re very proud of this boat. Everything came together perfectly.”