Spectre Yachts for Sale

Spectre is a name with three owners and one designer. Jay Pilini, a Florida boatbuilder who had already founded Motion Powerboats in the 1980s, started Spectre in the mid to late 1990s and built 30, 32 and 36 foot high performance catamarans that are still wanted today, often for conversion to four stroke outboards. He sold the company in 2006 and had nothing to do with any Spectre built afterwards. The tooling then went its own way: it was owned by Gary Smith of Tucson, leased to Arrow Powerboats of Fort Pierce, Florida, and repossessed from Arrow's shop under a court order in March 2013 over unpaid lease fees. Chris Ivey later held it, and Screaming Eagle Boats of Bellefontaine, Ohio bought it and renamed itself Spectre Powerboats in 2018, building the same 30, 32 and 36 from Pilini's molds. That company moved to DeLand, Florida in December 2021. The company behind the name collapsed after a series of undelivered orders and legal proceedings, so there is no factory, no warranty and no parts support behind a Spectre today. Pilini himself died on Christmas Eve 2025, aged 64.

What that means for a buyer is simple enough. There is no factory to call and no warranty to inherit, whatever a listing says, so a Spectre is priced and surveyed as an orphan. Work out first which Spectre you are looking at: an original Pilini boat from before 2006, one of the boats built by the intermediate owners of the molds, or one of the Ohio and Florida boats from 2018 onward. They share a hull shape and little else, and the market treats the Pilini boats as the real ones. These are fast, light catamarans that were often raced or run hard, so a competent survey means the tunnel and sponson laminates, any core damage, stringers and bulkhead tabbing, the transom and engine brackets, the rigging and steering, and a very careful look at repair history. Engine hours and the cost of the specific power package will dominate the price. Buy one because you want that hull, and plan on doing your own support.