The Addictor Speedoat

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The Addictor is a small fiberglass power boat designed by Richard Hoffman and produced between 1983 and 1996. The trailerable Addictor is equipped with a 40hp Tohatsu outboard motor. This relatively obscure planing speedboat is known for its ability to skate across rough water.

One of the remarkable things about the boating world is that if you have a garage, some basic tooling, and a decent grasp of naval architecture, you can essentially design and build a boat with little to no government interference.

It’s probably easier to start a boatbuilding company than a company that builds almost any other vehicle, and that’s a very good thing.

Why? Because most boat people in this day and age that actually start a company are (to put it mildly) batshit crazy. And they make seriously awesome boats. Here’s the story of the Addictor; perhaps the nuttiest power boat we’ve ever seen. God Bless America.

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Who is Richard Hoffman (The Aqua-Chad)?

Regarding what we mentioned earlier, Richard Hoffman is one such man. His creations have cemented him (at least in our minds) as an aqua-chad for the ages. In a nutshell, Richard Hoffman is exactly the kind of guy you want to have a few beers with.

There’s not a lot of information available about Hoffman. We know he lived in Dana Point, California. We know that he wore a captain’s hat and that his apparent adrenaline dependence led him to invent the original Mini Cooper of boats: The Addictor.

That is, if the Mini Cooper had a 383 stroker.

Addictor Speedboat Features

Yes, he actually called it the Addictor. What is the Addictor? Its a hilariously small (around 8x4 feet) one, two, or three-seat fiberglass speedboat. It looks like a Glastron tri-hull mixed with a carnival bumper car but handles better than the Mastercraft ProStar 190.

It features single-lever controls, a tiny windshield, and came from the factory with an obscene 40-HORSEPOWER outboard motor.

The end result? The Addictor spends more time out of the water than in the water—precisely what the designer intended. Does the Addictor plane? Yes—though we’d describe it more like an airplane than a planing powerboat.

addictor-mini-boat-on-a-trailer

See, Richard “Quack Quack” Hoffman was tired of backing off the throttle at 40 mph in his normal speedboat when the water got choppy. So he devised an ingenious solution:

Make a boat so tiny and ludicrously overpowered that it uses whitecaps as launch ramps.

It also happened to be ridiculously fun. And fun is what Mr. Hoffman is all about. Don’t believe me? Watch the video and see for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-hk-u5Sf0Xc