After purchasing an MTI 340X catamaran a few years ago, Shawn Moe and his wife Sieglinde Moe bought an MTI 42V center console with quad 400Rs, and put about 280 hours on it in a year and a half. Eventually, they started thinking about buying another catamaran. Fast-forward to this week’s Lake of the Ozarks shootout, and MTI‘s Randy Scism has just handed Shawn the keys to his new rocketship—a brand-new 390X powered by twin Mercury Racing 450R outboards. And he’s overjoyed.
“It’s so much fun!” he exclaims. “Everything about the MTI—the ride, the handling, the fit and finish. But the boat is just part of the experience. Every boat brand talks about being part of the family, but nobody does it like Randy Scism and his team. And it extends into their service department, and their fun runs—we’ve literally been staying at Randy’s house all week. They’ve truly taken us in like family.”
Shawn and Sieglinde’s lives revolve around powerboating: “It’s not a hobby—it’s more of a passion,” he says. Both of the Moes are 34 years old and live in Las Vegas; every year, they travel as far as Key West, Miami, the Bahamas and New York to attend poker runs. And once Covid-19 is just a bad memory, they’ll be back to participating in all of their favorite events. For now, they’re at LOTO and massively enjoying it.
The Moes opted for the new eight-seat configuration of the 390X, which features the standard driver and passenger seats, two additional “jump seats,” and the four individually molded seats in the rear. “My wife and I have a 2½-year-old daughter, Saylor,” he tells Speedboat. “We’ve been out here at LOTO all week, and Saylor will not get out of the passenger seat. She’s my throttle person now—she’s kicked my wife to jump seat.” Among the many cool things about the boat is something MTI’s top interior designer, Carlos, Lafarga, made for Saylor: her own custom built-in fabric handles inside of the seat, which she holds onto adorably. Another awesome touch Lafarga added to the interior is some intricate cross-pattern baseball stitching in the seats.
So now that he’s had a few days to run the 390X, what’s the ride like?
“The performance and handling is amazing,” he says. “Like every other MTI, there’s no getting on plane. It just goes from idle to 2,000 rpm and you’re on plane in 2.6 seconds. At speed, it just feels like it’s on rails. It goes through the rough water like it’s not even there. It’s a blast, because you don’t feel any wind in the four front seats,” Moe adds.
He also raved to Speedboat about the paint job—the creation of Missouri’s Prodigy Paint & Design. “They painted the boat in just three and a half weeks,” Moe says. “I have to give them huge kudos—the paint is just remarkable, and they just did phenomenal work.”
This is the Moes’ first 450R-powered craft, and Shawn is enthusiastic about what these engines bring to the table, to say the least. “Honestly, what the 450s brought back to the sport for me is fun, reliability, low cost on fuel, low cost on maintenance—all of those things. As these outboards keep evolving, there’s no substitution for them. Yes, there’s always going to be that guy who wants a big-powered stern-drive boat. But as you can see, the sport is just leaning heavily toward the 450, because you don’t have the stress of the major maintenance. I’d spend 30 grand in service—and that’s if nothing breaks! If I have a problem with my 450s, I go to Performance Boat Center and it’s fixed in an hour.”
Shawn Moe is a division manager for Las Vegas Paving, a large, heavy civil contractor. “I’ve been with them for 12 years, and will probably retire there,” he says.
Check out this photo gallery of the Moes’ MTI 390X by Tom Leigh: