Fans of offshore racing will recognize the name Scott Grants, who started racing in the 1990s with his throttleman, Edwin Scheer, the former owner of Motion Powerboats. Together, the pair raced a triple-engine outboard Motion in Super Cat Light class. After Scheer sold Motion, the racers dropped out of the offshore scene to grow their respective businesses. In recent years, Scheer has come roaring back as the throttleman of Hank's Saloon Racing in 450 Factory Stock class, with Grants occasionally taking the wheel.

The two racers have remained friends through the decades, and shortly after the 450 class launched, started talking about the idea of building their own boat to enter into competition. Now, after a whirlwind three years of planning, developing and consulting, Grants and Scheer are getting close to unveiling the fruits of their labor: a 40-foot catamaran with a beam of 10'8" that will be known as Platinum Powerboats. What began as a one-off built for one team to race has blossomed into a full-blown company—with both canopied race and open-cockpit pleasure versions available for ordering.

Platinum's first customer was Jeff Azevado of Fort Lauderdale, FL, who purchased a pleasure version; it is currently being painted by Kentucky-based Stephen Miles Designs, and is scheduled to be delivered in about four weeks. "It's going to be absolutely mind-blowing," Grants says. "It's on a crazy CTS tilt trailer, and will have every conceivable option." Among those options is a faux carbon effect that Stephen Miles is incorporating into the paint process that he calls a "half-scale carbon" design.

"We did our normal carbon pattern, but we did it a half the scale that we normally do," Miles tells Speedboat. "It's really cool looking, almost looks realistic. Every single rectangle is airbrushed, basically to look like carbon fiber. It's very detailed—twice the amount of rectangles, but it's actually probably three times the amount of work."

The first full canopied race version was ordered by Rob Lockyer (who has also ordered the pleasure version of the hull). Lockyer is the throttleman of Cortez Cove/Fountain Racing in Super Vee class and Team 25 in Vee Extreme class with driver Kirk Britto, as well as the pilot of the Outerlimits SV52 Good Boy Vodka with Alex Pratt, which they race in the UK."When I found out that Scott and Edwin were actually going the full distance—doing real design and efficiency testing, and spending the money to actually do some engineering on their project—I was really interested to follow it," Lockyer tells Speedboat. "I liked the design, I liked the concept, and I want to support them and be a part of it."

Meanwhile, the second purchaser of the race Platinum is driver Anthony Smith Sr., who races HP Mafia in Super Cat class with his throttleman son, Anthony Smith Jr. The Smiths are also slated to join the 500R Factory Stock class after their race Platinum is completed toward the end of the year. "It's a beautiful boat," Smith tells Speedboat. "They're doing it the way I would do it, because we like messing around with hydrology and aerodynamics, and that's what they're doing."

The creation of the Platinum has been a remarkable odyssey. When Grants and Scheer were ready to make their offshore racing comeback, they began searching for a boat to compete in together. Ultimately, though, they realized that what they really wanted was to create something from scratch—a hull that satisfied all of their personal requirements and specifications.

"To be honest, we had many ideas that we wanted to implement," Grants says. "So one day, we were talking and I said, 'You know what? We should just build a boat.' Obviously, Edwin had the manufacturing background with Motion, and I was his marketing and sales manager. So we started to look seriously at designing a boat ourselves, then building a plug, building a mold, and taking it on the race course. That was the starting point."

The pair agreed not to copy what anybody else was building, opting to create a completely different boat than anyone else has built, he says, "So we took all of the ideas that we had, looked at our limitations, and decided on a 40' hull, the longest a Factory Stock boat could be. We decided on a tunnel that was exactly 72 inches, with a minimum deck height of 44 inches. Our goal was not to reinvent the wheel, but we ended up reimagining the wheel."

Years of R&D followed, including rigorous planning and testing. As the Platinum drew closer to completion, Grants was careful to keep a lid on the specifics. "There were a lot of industry professionals on board from the very beginning—people from Mercury and some chemical manufacturers who knew what we were doing," Grants explains. "But very few people really knew what was happening. We purposely didn't advertise it—we wanted to display the finished boat and show the science behind it."

As soon as the word was out, reaction from those in the speedboat industry was enthusiastic. "It has absolutely exploded," Grants says. "People have been blown away with the technology and the quality."

Platinum Powerboats has taken orders for a total 11 boats, and is currently working on selling hull #12. "It's been cool for us, because we got off to a very quick start. We've been very blessed."

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