A perfect choice for former V-bottom owners buying their first catamaran, the Luxury Cat was a breeze to drive.

A perfect choice for former V-bottom owners buying their first catamaran, the Luxury Cat was a breeze to drive.



Boatbuilders don't get much more hands-on than Larry Carpenter of
E-Ticket Performance Boats in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Though he employs about 15 people, Carpenter puts sweat equity into every boat the company builds, and it shows in the fine finished product.

To a large extent, that's why E-Ticket has developed a strong reputation for quality and performance. We've seen it before, and we saw it again in the 29-foot Luxury Cat with a pair of 625-horsepower Ilmor Marine engines the builder brought to us in Long Beach, Calif.

Yes, the Luxury Cat is a deck boat, and though that still leaves a lot of performance-minded folks scratching their heads, it displayed all the speed and handling attributes of a first-rate sport catamaran. The form above the rubrail might say utility, but the function says performance.

Performance

We've tested several catamarans and V-bottoms with Ilmor MV-10 625 engines, and we've been impressed with their performance every time. We've also evaluated the Luxury Cat before, and it too impressed us. So we were eager to see how the combination would work.

The answer? Flawlessly. The big V-10 engines with Teague Platinum XR drives and IMCO Marine lower units topped out at 106 mph. And that was on a somewhat conservative setup that included a 1.35:1 gear reduction for the drives and 30"-pitch Bravo One four-blade propellers.

Out of the hole, the Luxury Cat was a rocket. It came on plane in 3.9 seconds and reached 84 mph from a standing start in 20 seconds. The catamaran kicked hard in the midrange, running from 30 to 50 mph in 4.7 seconds, 40 to 60 mph in 6.5 seconds and 40 to 70 mph in 8.5 seconds.

A perfect choice for former V-bottom owners buying their first catamaran, the Luxury Cat was a breeze to drive.

"This boat turns exceptionally well—not just for a cat, for any boat," said Bob Teague, Powerboat's lead test driver. "It leans inside and carves really hard. I love the way it turns, and it has a wide stance so tracking is excellent."

Having never tested the Luxury Cat anywhere other than on the Colorado River in Arizona, we were curious to see how it would handle legitimately bumpy water. Frothy 1- to 2-foot chop turned out to be no problem, but as we pointed the boat toward a 3-foot roller we held our breath. We needn't have worried. The Luxury Cat flew level, much like a well-balanced offshore boat, and landed softly.

Workmanship

With great lines and sultry curves, the Luxury Cat boasted clean tooling that did justice to its fine lines. Like the tooling, the gelcoat work was clean and precise, and its shine was spectacular.

The boat was built with vinylester resin and fiberglass in what the builder called a "proprietary infusion process." Foam was used for coring.

Sleek LED navigation lights with billet bezels were installed on the boat's bow and stern. To preserve the cat's clean lines, the builder went with pushpin cleats/fender holders and lines. Additional hardware items included a billet swim platform, billet fuel fills and numerous stainless-steel grab handles.

Billet hinges and an electric screw jack raised the engine hatch. Adding a nice touch to the installation, E-Ticket color-matched the through-bolted L-angles to the engines that held fast to the stringers. An engine compartment light helped us check out the small details, none of which were left unattended by the builder.

The bilge was sanded to a smooth finish and coated in red gelcoat. Wires and cables were arranged in parallel runs and strongly supported with cushion clamps. Rather than clutter the somewhat snug engine compartment with batteries, the builder installed them under the corner cushions of the rear bench in the cockpit.

Interior

E-Ticket left the bow area of the Luxury Cat wide open all the way to the nonskid-surface nose, which had the E-Ticket logo in it. On each side of the bow was a super-comfy, contoured lounge. In terms of amenities, there wasn't much ahead of the cockpit.

The back of each lounge was supported by the forward sections of the driver and co-pilot consoles. A deep mini-cabin/head locker was provided in the co-pilot's console on the boat's port side. Smoked acrylic formed the top of the console, and it let in a surprising amount of natural light. Though the top of the driver's pod also was acrylic, the space inside was not accessible.

Pop-up windscreens were supplied for the observer and driver, who sat in richly padded bucket seats. Aft of those buckets was a U-shape lounge with stowage compartments under the bottom cushions. The cushions flipped forward on custom hinge-and-rail assemblies built in-house at E-Ticket. For stowing small items, the builder provided two-tier gunwale trays on the port side.

Red Livorsi Marine gauges in silver rims were arranged around the tilt steering wheel. The Livorsi throttles and shifters were installed in a cutout in the starboard gunwale.

Overall

It's impressive to see what West Coast builders have done to the traditional deck-boat form. Truth be told, deck boats west of the Mississippi have almost nothing to do with their production-built counterparts.

Both are spacious and offer lots of seating, and that's about it. But with the Luxury Cat, E-Ticket has raised the game on West Coast builders. With its excellent performance—in particular its stability at top speed, handling and rough-water ride—this well-built beauty has set a new standard.