Owned by Stephen Moniz of Bermuda, the newest Super Stock-class Nuff Said raceboat was slated to debut this weekend at the Clearwater Nationals in Southwest Florida. That was the plan, and Grant’s Signature Racing of Bradenton had the eye-popping 32-foot Doug Wright Powerboats catamaran rigged and prepped for the Race World Offshore-produced event, reports Matt Trulio from Speed on the water.
Hurricane Helene erased those plans. The organizers canceled the Clearwater races yesterday thanks to the coming Category 2 storm.
Still, Grant Bruggemann and his crew had the Doug Harrell-painted catamaran powered by Mercury Racing 300R outboard engines ready to go. Yesterday they ran the cat for the first time and then turned it over to throttleman Andy Stoneham and driver Luis Martins, who, like team owner Stephen Moniz, are from Bermuda.
The 32-footer arrived at Grant’s Signature Racing as a painted hull in July. The first order of business for the crew was to weigh the boat so Bruggemann and the team could “see what we were working with.” Per American Power Boat Association guidelines, each Super Stock raceboat can weigh no less than 4,900 pounds when it comes out of the water. So weighing every Super Stock cat before they rig it is crucial standard operating procedure for Grant’s Signature Racing.
So, too, is wrapping the boat in protective foam to avoid scratching its paintwork, in this case vibrant pink and a tribute from team-owner Moniz to those he has lost—including his parents—to cancer.
“Everything we need is there when the boat arrives,” Bruggemann explained. “The seats had already been fitted to Andy and Luis—they came from Bermuda for a fitment session. We installed the seats on different brackets because Martins and Stoneham are not the same height. We installed the throttles in the right position for Stoneham and the helm/steering wheel the right distance from Martins.”
Flanked by a pair of four-inch GMI digital speed read-outs and two monitors for the cat’s AIM telemetry systems, a 16-inch Garmin unit was mounted at the center of the dash.
“It’s important for both the driver and co-pilot to have a clear line of sight to all the instruments,” Bruggemann said. “Our goal in raceboat dash setup always is to keep it functional, minimal and tasteful.”
No holes were drilled for the requisite wiring and cable-routing in the cockpit. Instead, the crew used carbon-fiber clips epoxied in place to support all wires and cables. The boat employs a Bluetooth communication system for the driver, throttleman and crew. For redundancy, the cockpit crew also has a hard-wire push-to-talk system.
With the Clearwater event scrubbed, the team plans to race the boat the for the first time at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix next month. The race isn’t part of the now-completed 2024 Super Stock-class national championship points-chase, so competition on the racecourse will be minimal. Neither the team’s driver or throttleman has extensive offshore racing experience—and zero Super Stock experience in the current short-course, big-fleet form of the fiercely competitive class. The St. Pete event will provide good experience in a low-stress environment for the team before it moves on to the Race World Offshore Key West World Championships in early November.
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