On one hand, Nemschoff was disappointed by the performance of his Super Cat powerboat at the inaugural Offshore Grand Prix of Milwaukee – the Tommy Bahama vessel took sixth out of eight boats in the class.

But at the same time, he had nothing but good things to say about the first-time powerboating event, which took place off Veterans Park.

“I think this event was phenomenal, and I’m not the only one who thought so,” said Nemschoff.

“I heard a lot of people saying the same thing. This Milwaukee site ranks right up there with the upper echelon sites, and we’ve been all over.”

Nemschoff, his son Paul (the boat’s driver) and the rest of the Tommy Bahama crew went into this race with designs on winning it. But Mark Nemschoff said the boat didn’t perform.

“There’s not much to say about us,” he said.

“We had an off day. We tested well in Sheboygan last week, but we came here and had some problems. We ran consistently but slow. It was some sort of mechanical problem but we don’t know what it was. We were down in terms of horsepower.”

Nemschoff’s voice was noticeably more upbeat, however, when he talked about the first American Power Boat Association event in the state.

He said there was an estimated crowd of 15,000 on Saturday, and even more on Sunday.

Nemschoff added that hundreds of people from Sheboygan made the trip down to Milwaukee to check out the big boats that went faster than 100mph on the tight course.

“The shoreline was absolutely packed,” he said.