Taking “some time off” from crab fishing in the Bering Sea this year, Travis Lofland—the former Time Bandit deckhand featured on the Discovery Channel’s popular “Deadliest Catch” television series—is teaming up with veteran offshore racer Peter Meyer this season in the Instigator Fountain V-bottom raceboat. With Lofland driving and Meyer throttling, the team plans to run the Superboat Extreme-class 40-footer, which is powered by twin 700-plus-hp naturally aspirated Scorpion Racing engines at Super Boat International events in Cocoa Beach, Fla., Sarasota, Fla., New York City and Key West, Fla.

Lofland and Meyer will team up in Instigator for the first time racing together at the SBI event in Cocoa Beach. Photo courtesy Instigator Offshore Racing.

“This will be my first time driving in a race,” said Lofland, who formerly throttled the Time Bandit Super V Light raceboat. “I’m used to throttling, but I did drive during testing in Time Bandit and every time I did I thought it made me a better throttleman.

“Peter has 30 years of racing experience so this is going to be fun,” he continued. “It’s going to be challenging jumping from the throttling side to the driving side, but I’m very confident with Peter.”

Read more: Travis Lofland Joining Peter Meyer In Instigator Cockpit

After seven or eight trips—they’re not exactly sure how many—to Desert Storm, Dan and Lisa Ellis had done most every legal thing there was to do at the annual Lake Havasu, Ariz.-based event. From the Thursday Street Party, where they had displayed their immaculate 2008 Cigarette 38’ Top Gun, to the Friday Poker Run and more recently the Saturday fun run to Pirate Cove, the couple from Ventura, Calif., thought they had covered it all.

And they were just fine with coming back year after to do it all again. That’s because Dan and Lisa Ellis flat out love high-performance powerboating. After buying their 38-footer from Miami-based Lip-Ship Performance in 2011, they left the boat in South Florida for a few months and made two trips to the Keys.

Read More: In The Heart of Desert Storm

(Above photo courtesy/copyright Jay Nichols/Naples Image.)

Work on restoring a 1986 Chaparral Villain, which began approximately six weeks ago and has been covered on speedonthewater.com (See Related Stories below) reached two major milestones late last week. The 23-footer’s engine rebuild/upgrade and deck restoration are now complete.

Looking good—the restored deck for the 23-footer is complete.

"I picked up the engine from White’s (White Performance & Machine) on Thursday,” said Chris Uzzolina, the owner of the boat, who lives in Charlotte, N.C. “The final numbers were 640 hp at 6,700 rpm and 571 foot-pounds of torque at 5,600 rpm.  We have kept the timing conservative to prolong the engine's life, as well as because marina fuel is not always the best. The deck is complete with new gelcoat and the hull is under reconstruction now.

“I am happy with the engine build, but I will only know for sure when it's in the boat and running,” he added.

Read more: 100-mph Chaparral Project Update: Engine and Deck Complete

This time of year, high-performance powerboat photographer Jay Nichols doesn’t spend much time kicking back at his home in the Naples, Fla., He spent last Friday and Saturday shooting the Tickfaw 200 go-fast boat event in Louisiana. A week before that he was in Arizona shooting Desert Storm. Next week he’ll be on a special assignment across his home state for the second issue of Speed On The Water magazine. A few days later he'll cross the state again to cover the Super Boat Boat International Cocoa Beach event.

Rolling—and rumbling—on the Tickfaw River. Photo courtesy/copyright Jay Nichols/Naples Image. (Click for expanded for view.)

Nichols never complains about all the time away from home—he knows that being crazy with work is a high-class problem, and he loves his job. On every shoot, he finds something he hasn’t seen before. On every assignment, he makes friends. Being an in-demand go-fast boat photographer is a good gig, and he knows it.

Among his stronger qualities as a photographer? Patience. Enough to wait for the right moment. I’ve worked with a lot of photographers and all the great ones have it. Which is one of the main reasons why there aren’t that many great ones.

Read more: Image of the Week: Rumble in the Swamp at the Tickfaw 200