Many years ago, the late founder of Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats, Mike Fiore, was quoted as saying, “I was basically made to do one thing, and that’s build high-performance boats.”

Fiore grew up in the business on Long Island, N.Y., where he learned to wire-up dash panels during his high school years at his father Paul’s company, Hustler Powerboats. He wasn’t a big guy, which meant he could comfortably fit behind the dash consoles. He worked his way up through the company, learning all facets of boatbuilding from his father.

As sons often do, Fiore wanted to do his own thing. He started Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats on Long Island in 1993, where he built the company’s first model, the 37 Stiletto. It was a single-step design and remains the biggest-selling model in the company’s history. Seventy of the boats have been produced, according to the company’s current general manager, Dan Kleitz, who has been with the company for 13 years.

The company moved to Bristol, R.I. in 1997. Outerlimits customer Harry Turner, who raced a 37 Stiletto in offshore competitions with Mike Fiore as throttleman, convinced Fiore to build Outerlimits boats at a facility he owned.

“We took over Carroll Marine in 2003 and started building everything with advanced composites and epoxy resins,” Kleitz recently told Trade Only Today. Outerlimits became the first go-fast boat manufacturer to post-cure its hulls and decks in a giant oven to get the maximum strength-to-weight ratio.

Outerlimits became known for its multi-stepped hulls and remain popular among the poker-run crowd. Its hulls coveted for their combination of speed and ride. In 2014, a 43-foot Outerlimits V-bottom powered by twin Mercury Racing 1,650-hp turbocharged engines ran a two-way average speed of 180.47 mph in a sanctioned kilo run, setting an American Power Boat Association world speed record.

Later that same year, in August, Fiore and Joel Begin were running a 46-foot Outerlimits catamaran at the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Missouri when the boat blew over backward. Fiore sustained significant injuries and died from complications following surgery a couple of days later.

Outerlimits customer Joe Sgro and current owner Brian McLaughlin, who once was business partners with Fiore, kept the company going, but the loss of the founder was profound. “We probably would have had more new models,” Kleitz says. “Mike was always thinking about the next new model. Sgro succumbed to injuries sustained in a crash at the Key West Poker Run in 2017. Fiore’s father, Paul, died from an undisclosed illness in 2019.

At age 20, Kleitz started working part-time for Outerlimits while he was attending college at nearby Roger Williams University. He helped clean boats and run errands for Fiore. Kleitz worked his way up through the company, learning the finer details of boat construction. He’s experienced many milestones, but one that stood out was the first time Fiore told him to go test a boat on his own. Kleitz recalls Fiore saying, “Go out and make sure it’s good and don’t run faster than 100.” Kleitz admits he ran 118 mph.

McLaughlin now owns the company that has built about 300 high-performance boats, primarily V-bottoms ranging from 29 to 50 feet. Outerlimits’ biggest year was 2005, when the company built 24 boats. This year, the company will produce about 10. Outerlimits operates out of a 100,000-square-foot facility in Bristol, R.I., with 23 employees.

When Fiore was still alive, he became friends with Steve Curtis, a multi-time offshore powerboat racing world champion and the son of Clive Curtis, who founded Cougar Marine in the United Kingdom. Cougar is credited with being one of the first builders of successful catamarans in offshore racing. Steve Curtis helped Outerlimits with catamaran designs and the company has recently taken order number 14 for its 37-foot cat powered by twin outboards.

After 30 years, the passion that clients have for owning a custom go-fast boat burns as strong as ever.

“It’s cool when someone’s involved in the process, and they trust us to build the boat of their dreams,” says Kleitz. “What we do, at the end of the day, it’s some pretty cool stuff that most people will never get to experience.”