Wish they had a V-class.. The Allison's, Rolls-Royce Griffin engines. Those turbines are loud and whiny, high-pitched. But those V12's.. you could feel them in your chest, and they just about rattled your teeth in your mouth. Thunder boats !!
I was at the Gold Cup that year..The Miss Eagle Electric was the fastest boat on the Detroit River that day..There were a lot of holes from the Whittier turn into the backstretch, and The Colonel drove into one while chasing Sterrett..The Eagle went airborne, and cartwheeled 2 or 3 times..The Colonel died later that night from his injuries...Warner Gardner's son was on the pit crew, it must have been gutwrenching to see his dad lose the boat that way..The next day, they pulled what was left of the Eagle Electric from the river and brought it ashore near Sinbad's...Pretty tough to watch..
Not mentioned was most of these boats also ran in the Diamond Cup held on Lake Coeur d’Alene Idaho which ran 1958-68 (though not in 67). In 1962 Mira Slovak almost died in the Excide wreck. Col. Warner Gardner jumped from his still moving hydro and held Slovak’s head above water, saving his life. Both men were very popular in CdA and there is a beautiful monument to Gardner with an F-86 flying out of a hydroplane rooster tail.
I remember this boat in San Diego. It was exciting. The twin supercharged hemi’s put out pretty good power and it was much lighter. I don’t think it was much faster than the limited hydro’s.
I had one of those nice boat to run, try using one of the new four cylinder motors that are out there. Right now I have one of the Areomarine boats that clocks around 70 mph. The Dumas Marine boats are nice .
As a kid in the late 60's I would go over to the eagle / pay n pak boat shop on saturday's in Spokane and sweep it out and do odd jobs. It was fun hangin out with the guys and even went dirt bike riding with Tommy Fults a couple of times what a great guy. It was about the time that they stripped the beautiful metal flake off the boat and went with all white. They did it to save weight. It was like a 3 or 4 hundred pound savings. Great memories.
Problem was with the auto engines is they were too small even 2 of them would only equal 800 to 900 cubic inch displacement about 1/2 the 1650 cu in Merlins 1710 Cu In Allisons or the rare 2250 cu in RR Griffons. and they run the auto engines much faster, but the problem was reliability of the 2 engines holding up to the stress of hi rpms.
I don't recall this Pay n Pack dual hemi boat, but I do recall a Miss Chrysler dual hemi unlimited hydroplane from back in the day. The boat had potential in that it looked competitive speed-wise with the big airplane engine boats, but it was plagued with reliability issues. Apparently hooking the engines up inline and synching them together proved too difficult. At least that's what my aging brain recalls. Anyone who knows more about this, please chime in.
Well, I am on the internet; so I did my own research and found an article about the Miss Chrysler Crew by hydroplane historian Fred Farley. It was a more successful boat than I realized. It used a conventional hull design (for the 1960’s), unlike the cap over design of the Pay n Pack boat that came later. I’m not sure about the etiquette of posting links here; so, I’ll leave you to google the boat’s name for more info.
I can Vividly remember the sounds of those V 12's when I was in grade school (late 60' - early 70's)... It was THE BEST TIME OF YEAR... Seafair, and the hydros where here.
If Black wasn’t the best hemi guy who was? Still miss Bernie and Miss Budweiser. Big billboard on I-4 in Lakeland proudly proclaimed it was the home of Bernie Little and world champion Miss Budweiser. Miss it every time I go through. Turbine boats go fast But I miss the thunder of the old boats
I was out on my uncles sailboat during a set of races oh were those very loud boats but it was fun watching them run. I had a seat up on the mast so I could see the action, the MISS BUDWISER boat was screaming along around 180 and running flat smooth and fast and the OH BOY OBERTO cut the BUDWISER boat short the MISS BUD. went across the front of the Overton and both went airborne, and flipped the Circus Circus boat won that race and still threw a prop. That was back in the late 70s at the long Beach marine stadium.
Do you know of Ed Pink? Drag Racing environment I realize this but if those two had ever bumped 'heads', so to speak with Lucero designing hulls as he was in the Pay n Pak camp for the decades of the 70's and early 80's-better competition than what had been in reality.
This was in the good years of racing now im not sure. The tubins have takin a way of hydro racing no more loud boats. I havent watched any racing after Kiro gove up having the race any moor for stupid Base Baii. One race day in SEA i was stuck to the race all day
Likewise. Planned my whole day around the KIRO Seafair broadcast. The first year they stopped showing it, the first thing on was an infomercial. Of course. Money is WAY more important than local tradition or something actually entertaining to watch.
Announcers sounded so cool back then. Their speaking cadence still had a touch of Trans-Atlantic to it. I remember being fascinated by that in the original Love Bug movie as a kid.
Unfortunely this isn't much of a Sport anymore...too expensive...but back in the day (50's & 60's) "Real" Men would build their own engines and tweak their hulls out to get the most speed thy could out of them. My Father raced a 48cu inch (Y Class) back in the 60's when I was just a kid. I believe they used a 44cu inch engine at first ( a Crosley engine ) then there was the 91's which were still real small but faster...there used to be all kinds of classes, 145's, 225's, 260's (which were real fast) the 280's , which was a stock class (and my Dad raced in it from 1956 until about 1966, then he sold the boat and just drove for somebody else every now and then. There was also a 7 liter class in the late 60's & early 70's that was real fast too...( I think it was an H class )....fond memories.
"Then we went to Pasco and won all three heats there..." No you didn't, Dave! You were standing in Kennewick when you won those heats! Everybody in the whole damn sport does this and it drives me absolutely insane. When you come from Kennewick, you dont have much to be proud of. Please just give us this.
