Our History
The history of the man behind the company
Steve Stepp started boat racing in 1962 with a 14’ Norris Craft. It was powered with a 100 hp Mercury engine. He progressed to Allison Craft boats racing single and twin engines. He set 4 world records and won many races during his racing career in OPC. At the same time, he owned a retail boat and motorcycle dealership in southern Ohio where he sold Allison, Bullett and Ranger bass boats. He continued racing throughout the OPC circuit until 1976 when he sold his business and moved to south Florida.
After a year of retirement, he saw an opportunity to get back to his roots and decided to build himself an offshore powerboat and start racing in APBA. His first boat, a 30’ that he called Velocity was designed and built by him in a small warehouse in Pompano Beach Florida. That was in 1978 and the beginning of the company known world wide as “Velocity Powerboats”. That was the first year that he showed his boat at the Miami International Boat Show. With a totally new hull design that incorporated a pad bottom and Stepp transom, it was quite the conversation piece of the show. Velocity Powerboats went on to set 10 world offshore speed records, win 8 world offshore championships and 7 national offshore championships and many offshore races.
Steve is among the top 5 hull designers in the world due to his accomplishments in racing and performance boats.
In 1981, Steve took his “radical” designed boat to Lake X, Mercury’s secret testing center lake in central Florida and was the first offshore boat in the world to break the 100 MPH mark. The boat had twin 475 HP engines and #2 Speedmaster drives. These were stock engines. This was the standard power package that was sold to the public in those early years.
Over the years, he went on to add more models to the line adding a 22’, 24’, 26’, 28’, 32’, 35’, 39’ and a 41’ boats, all with his hull designs and his lamination schedules that included lighter and stronger materials. In 2013 Steve sold the company and retired again. Realizing that 6 days of golf was not going to cut it, he got bitten by the fishing bug. And as they say, the rest is history!
He developed friendships with two superstar fishing guides who got him interested in shallow water fishing. Peter Deeks is a guide on the east coast of Florida and has done many TV shows with Bill Dance. Bobby Vaughn of Islamorada Florida is a guide in the Florida Keys and has done many shows with Roland Martin.
After researching and studying all the shallow water boats, Steve knew there was a better hull design to be had. In 2017 Steve started building his first flats, or shallow water boat. He incorporated all the knowledge he had about materials and design from his previous company and has put all of this into his new boat, the 18’ HydraStepp® flats boat.
- The ride quality is superior due to the 14° deadrise and pad bottom design. It floats in 8” of water with a 115 HP engine.
- It is superior in gas mileage due to the ultra efficient hull design.
- It runs 10-15 miles an hour faster than any other flats boat on the market with the same horsepower and similar loads.
- There is room for 4 people to fish comfortably with massive storage areas in the aft and forward sections of the boat.
- With the “Double Stepp” transom, it gets on plane in 2 seconds and requires less depth of water.
- The ride quality is superior due to the 14° deadrise and pad bottom design. It floats in 8” of water with a 115 HP engine.
- It is superior in gas mileage due to the ultra efficient hull design.
- It runs 10-15 miles an hour faster than any other flats boat on the market with the same horsepower and similar loads.
- There is room for 4 people to fish comfortably with massive storage areas in the aft and forward sections of the boat.
- With the “Double Stepp” transom, it gets on plane in 2 seconds and requires less depth of water.
The construction is a special process that has been developed over 35 years of building offshore race boats. He has a tremendous insight into the latest fiberglass and resin products. Over the years many of the manufacturers of fiberglass and resin have turned to Steve to test their new products based on his extensive knowledge and ability to build a boat that could accurately test the products. Mercury Marine bought many of the test boats for their centers from Steve for over 30 years. They were quoted as saying numerous times that they bought Velocitys because “when they sent their throttle jockeys out to run the engine tests, they knew that they would come safely back home.” That’s quite a bold statement knowing Mercury Marine and could have gotten boats for free from the many boat companies they owned at the time.
Steve uses only the best materials on the market to make a very strong, yet light-weight boat. When you combine that with a superior hull design the results are the absolute best flats boat.
This boat is designed to:
- Float in very shallow water because of the 8’ beam, this adds to the stability
- The absolute best ride quality because of the 14° deadrise and the pad bottom
- Driest riding boat because of the concave chines that run the full length of the boat, this was designed to control the flow of water downward
- Fuel mileage is 10 miles per gallon at 30 MPH with a 115 HP because of the efficiency of the hull
- Because the hull is so efficient, it has much faster speed, therefore even better gas mileage
- The original test boat plug with a Mercury 115 HP engine ran over 60 MPH with 2 people, a trolling motor and 18 gallons of gas.
WHY SPEED IS IMPORTANT
- YOU CAN FISH LONGER BEFORE GOING HOME
- YOUR WIFE SAID TO BE HOME ON TIME
- RAIN STORM IS COMING IN
- WIFE CALLED, HER WATER JUST BROKE...
- NEED TO GET TO ANOTHER FISHING SPOT
- FOT TO GET BACK TO THE WEIGH-IN
- I LIKE SPEED
- I WANT TO OUTRUN MY FRIEND
- THE FASTER THE BOAT CAN GO, THE BETTER THE FUEL MILAGE
- I LIKE SPEED
CONTACT US FOR MORE INFO
Feel free to contact us by calling (407) 718-6695 or fill out form if you have any questions about our services, price, etc.
