If Tres Martin and Brad Schoenwald could clone themselves, now might be a good time. The knowledgeable instructors behind Tres Martin's Performance Boat School have a busy couple of months ahead, including confirmed classes in Clear Lake, Texas (April 3-4), Lake of the Ozarks, Mo. (April 9-10), Lake Cumberland, Ky. (April 30-May 1), and Grand Rapids, Mich. (May 14-15). And let's not forget about a couple of trips to Lake Havasu City, Ariz., before and during the Desert Storm Poker Run (April 9-10 and April 23-25).

Tres Martin's Performance Boat School provides on-water instruction as well as classroom knowledge."I have a class in Miami coming up this weekend and I just did a couple of sessions in Fort Lauderdale," Schoenwald said in an interview on Wednesday afternoon. "Boats seem to be selling—new and used—so there are a lot of people picking up some good deals and then coming to school. We have to be very fluid with our schedule because when someone buys a boat and wants to take the course we need to be able to respond in a timely manner and coordinate arrangements with everyone involved."

Schoenwald said the schedule is a bit busier than normal, but that courses, which vary from Performance Boating for Beginners to the Ultimate Performance Boat Course, are held year round. Keeping their schedule fluid allows them to be updating it only weeks in advance if necessary.

Read more: Full Schedule for Tres Martin's Performance Boat School

Introduced at the 2012 Miami International Boat Show in February, the new Mercury Racing 565 engine has not been “recalled,” according to Fred Kiekhaefer, the president of the Fond du Lac, Wis., company. Unconfirmed reports of the recall began when Formula Boats and Nor-Tech Hi-Performance Boats sent the 565-hp, digital throttle and shift engines installed in their “demo” boats back to Mercury Racing, after the Miami event.

Read more: Mercury Racing 565 Not ‘Recalled’

Marine Technology Inc. is hard at work on its patented design SV42 center console, the company’s first V-bottom model. In the final stages of tooling the 42-footer, MTI owner Randy Scism expressed his excitement for the boat, which he expects to perform better than anything on the market.

Tooling is nearly complete for the anticipated MTI 42SV.Scism and company plan to have the first SV42 on the water this summer. The test boat will be outfitted with triple Mercury Verado 300s to begin with and then quad Verado 300s. Power options will range from twin, triple, quad and even five outboard engines to inboard variations if a customer wants to go that route with a pair of Mercury Racing HP525EFI engines or even turbocharged 1100s. Scism believes the most popular package will be triple 300-hp engines.

Scism also said he’s had a great deal of interest in the seven- and eight-seat cockpits, the latter of which was on display in the striking Phantom model in the company’s Miami International Boat Show booth in February. Inspired by owner Ken Armstrong’s Rolls Royce Phantom, Scism said Armstrong not only wanted the extremely plush interior feel of his Rolls Royce, but he also wanted eight seats so he could take more people with him on poker runs.

Read more: MTI Update: SV42 Going Smooth; 8-Seater Well-Received

Speed Racer in flight. Photo courtesy/copyright Tim Sharkeyl

I am not the world’s best high-performance powerboat driver. Fact is, I’m not even close. I am just competent behind the wheel. So I embrace that honest self-assessment and combine it with caution, which probably makes me better than average. But that’s it.

That I describe myself as just “better than average” when it comes driving go-fast boats might surprise or even shock you. After all, I wrote for Powerboat magazine for 17 years and rode in hundreds of boats with the likes of Bob Teague, Steve David and John Tomlinson.

But that’s akin to riding shotgun in a sports car with the likes of Matt Kenseth—enlightening, educational and sometimes scary as hell, yet far from hands-on experience and instruction. I learned everything I could and grabbed seat-time whenever I had the chance. But that’s it.

Last month during the Miami Boat Show Poker Run, I was reminded not just of my experience and ability as a driver but that the learning process never stops. I was driving the well-known 44-foot-long MTI catamaran Speed Racer—the fourth time I’ve had the privilege—with the boat’s owner Bob Christie on the throttles back to Coconut Grove from Islamorada in the Florida Keys. In the cockpit behind us were Bob’s wife, Madeline, and my good friends Joe Nasso and Dr. Gabe Jasper.

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