When I first cranked up my marine-magazine career eons ago, most of the big magazines dispatched editors every year to the Chicago International Boat Show. And toward the end of the festivities in 1989, in a crowded aisle of the McCormick Convention Center, a wild-haired guy approached me, got within ear-whispering distance and said, “Hey Bill, you wanna see something unusual?”
What ensued was an event that had nothing to do with the show itself. I was soon shown a newly hatched power cat—an outboard-energized 30-something with a cabin—that was stashed at a ramshackle dock, a lengthy cab ride away. A trio of true believers wanted me to drive the boat, look her over, and tell them if she was marketable.
At the time, a vessel like the Prout Panther 64 was unimaginable. And Ray Leger’s twin-hulled sea chompers, while popular in the Wild West, were neither well-known nor pervasive east of the Mississippi.
