In 2000, when Alan Butler decided to build what was then the largest boat in the twin-outboard-powered Stock category in offshore racing, he unknowingly started the trend toward today’s safer, fully enclosed boats that currently compete in the class.
He and throttleman Gary Ballough decided that they wanted to be safer, so they built the first canopied boat in the class. They also looked at what they would need to be able to run faster lap times — not top speed — in the rough waters of the Key West course. Given the fact that the boat was the biggest and most technologically advanced in the class at the time, the name was a natural. “I said we were on the cutting edge, so that’s how the boat got named,” Ballough recalls. The team went on to win numerous world and national championships in the American Power Boat Association and Superboat International versions of the Stock class.
