Skater At 50—Where Credit Is Due
Without a plain-spoken, Canada-born craftsman named Peter Hledin, there would be no Skater Powerboats. His genius and talent are limitless, his impact massive. It is safe to say the high-performance catamaran world wouldn’t be where it is now without the Douglas, Mich., company he created 50 years ago.
Skater Powerboats founder Peter Hledin had designed and built some of the world’s most outrageous high-performance catamarans. Photos by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
Hledin won’t like reading it, but he is among the most influential figures—on par with Reggie Fountain, Jr., Don Aronow and Carl Kiekhaefer—in high-performance marine industry history.
No one was more deserving of a weekly article series celebrating his accomplishments during Skater’s Golden Anniversary year. That was a no-brainer. There was more than enough material. Still, it did require speedonthewater.com co-publisher Jason Johnson and me to tap the brains of certifiable Skater fanatics for information.
But first, we needed ready access to “the book,” which is the key to knowledge in the Skater kingdom. The book has handwritten details and notes on every Skater catamaran ever built. And the book, which naturally lives at Skater headquarters, is controlled by Skater’s national sales manager, Tony Cutsuries.
Captured here with his wife, Quinn, Chris LaMorte was an essential resource of the Skater At 50 article series.
Unfortunately for Cutsuries, who joined the company in 2010, he has a mobile phone and we have his number. For the past 52 weeks, we’ve kept him busy pulling information and fact-checking details such as model years, past owners and so much more—all of which is contained in the book.
The Skater At 50 series wouldn’t have happened without him.
Peter Hledin—high-performance catamaran designer, builder and high-performance marine industry icon.
Nor would it have been possible minus Skater-owners/experts Ron Szolack, Chris LaMorte, Ron Muller, Danny DeSantis, Dale Rayzor, Ryan Beckley, Erik Breckenfelder, Shane Mahieu, Rich Luhrs, Paul Rose and Pete Boden. (Yeah, that Pete Boden, the guy knows a ton about Skaters.) The same goes for Skater vendors Mike D’Anniballe of Sterling Performance Engines, Chris Mills of Boat Customs, painter Steve Schulte and interior man Craig Ellis of Appearance Products.
During the Scrapyard Media shooting of the “In The Lead with Peter Hledin” video at Skater headquarters a few years ago, Hledin and Cutsuries sat down with the author (right) for a long interview.
These folks don’t just have a wealth of information and instant recall of the most obscure details imaginable, they love to share it. In fact, once you get them sharing they won’t stop. So all apologies for the many lost calls during interviews this year. It happens a lot—especially on deadline or right before lunch—when the signal drops.
It’s been a privilege to celebrate the Skater brand and the man who created it. We hope you enjoyed the series and maybe learned a few things. Lord knows we did.
One more thing? Thank you, Mr. Hledin.
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