Skater Boats Top Speed: How Quick Can These Watercraft Cruise?

Have you ever imagined the wind whipping through your hair (or around your head, depending on your style) while gliding across the water's surface in one of the world's fastest speed boats? If so, the 388 from Skater Powerboats should be on your shortlist for consideration. While the Skater 388 isn't the fastest motorboat ever built, Freedom One Racing's customized Skater 388, "America One," reached a top speed of 210 mph at the 2025 Desert Storm Shootout in April before catching a wind gust and flipping on Lake Havasu.

The 388 is the top-selling model in the Skater Powerboats lineup, designed to operate both offshore and in inland waters. With a length of 38 feet and standard width measuring 11 feet, the 4,400-pound 388 catamaran features a flat deck and wraparound windshield. As a fully custom boat, the Skater 388 is available with two of the basic boat engine types, inboard and outboard. The America One Skater 388 uses two 522-cubic-inch blown-alcohol Hemi engines with over 4,000 horsepower each to achieve its 200-plus mph top speed in under three-quarters of a mile.

The Skater 388 Inboard Basic Boat provides seating for up to six people with two bucket seats and a three- or four-person bench seat. Other seating arrangements are available, including individual bucket seats for all aboard and an option to increase passenger seating to seven in the 388's widened configuration, which increases the boat's width by 10 inches.

Skater also makes the 438, a larger version of the company's popular 388 model with an improved hull design. It's available in two versions, race or pleasure; measures 42 feet, 11 inches long with a 12-foot width; and weighs in at 12,000 pounds fully loaded.

With a choice of inboard or outboard engines, Skater says, "The 438 will run at very high speeds with 1350 MerCruiser engines and fully loaded with both passengers and 600 gallons of fuel." Skater credits the 438's improved catamaran-hull design with the increased performance while fully loaded, saying that traditionally "a fully loaded cat or V suffers a performance loss under these conditions."

The fastest recorded Skater 438, the "Dirty Duck," belongs to Slug Hefner. On the final day of the 2024 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout the Dirty Duck broke the 200-mph barrier with a 202-mph run following a 199-mph pass the previous day. The Dirty Duck is powered by a pair of nitrous-infused, turbocharged Carson Brummett 557-cubic-inch inboard engines.