Skater Powerboats Completes First Hull Mold for New 26-Foot Catamaran

Michael Hledin was sitting across from Skater 368 owner Brandon Burgess at lunch inside the Naples Hyatt House last Saturday when he let it out: "The mold is done and we are laying up the first hull right now — laying coring and laminating as we speak." The 35-year-old son of Skater Powerboats founder Peter Hledin had come to Southwest Florida with national sales manager Tony Cutsuries to support the sixth annual Invitational Skater Fun Run, organized by Chris LaMorte and Ron Muller. The news he was carrying made the trip feel like a victory lap.

The first hull for the new 26-foot Skater catamaran is expected to be completed within a month or two. The project is notably the first new model in which founder Peter Hledin has been integrally involved, and it began in 2024 with the elder Hledin drawing the initial design on a drafting table at the Douglas, Mich., shop.

"We started from scratch with this one," Michael said. "My dad drew the model on drafting table and we were off to the races building a wooden plug."

From there, Michael took his father's drawings into CAD software, created final designs with all the requisite specifications, and then built the hull plug the old-school way: by hand, with wood. He also built a deck plug and handled much of the mold construction himself. The work represents a steep learning curve he has been climbing deliberately. He worked at Skater during college in three-month stints doing sanding and grinding, but this time the tenure has been long enough to take genuine ownership of a build from concept to layup.

The design originated as a single-outboard, canopied Cat 300 offshore racing platform. The International Hot Rod Association's recent move of the Cat 300 class from Spec to Bracket changed the competitive landscape, but Michael is not worried about the boat finding buyers. "It probably should have two 300R outboard engines on it," he said, then laughed. "But if someone wants to race one in Cat 300, we'd be happy to build it. That would be fantastic."

Early production boats will be open-cockpit, flat-deck pleasure cats. A deck mold does not yet exist for the 26-footer, so the first couple of decks will be built by hand until Skater constructs one. "The first couple will be open-cockpit, flat-deck pleasure boats, but we will eventually build a deck mold," Michael confirmed.

It is worth noting this is the first Skater catamaran Peter Hledin has collaborated on since he was a teenager in Canada building boats with his brothers Alex and Rich — a detail that gives the whole project a particular weight inside the Skater community. The Douglas, Mich., brand has never been short on pedigree, and the 26-footer arriving with the founder's direct fingerprints on it means the first hull coming out of that mold will be closely watched.