Black Tornado

In 1967 Bill Sirois drove a Mona Lou #90 Bertram 31' and a Sternwinder #90 Bertram 31' of the Carl Kiekhaefer's team.
Were the same boat or two 31'?
Anyone know something about?
Brownie? Richie? You were there....

BROWNIE

The red Mona Lou became Billy Wishnick's "Boss o' Nova". Don't know what happened to the yellow one......

Top Banana

Mel told me that the yellow one is still alive and at work.

He recently repowered it for the local sheriff's office ...they use it as a rescue boat up there....it works very well solving the skim ice problem.

Black Tornado

Mona...confusion.
It seem that there were three Bertram 31' Mona Lou;
A white-yellow #90 in 1967
A red #70 that became "Boss O Nova"
A second(?) white-yellow #70 in 1969's Bahamas 500.

I think that the first one became Sternwinder of Sirois,then became Yellow Tornado for Balestrieri-Pruett in 1968.

Apart the others two Mona Lou, II and III, Maritime 32' tin boats.

Black Tornado

It would be fantastic to see some actual pics!

Tim B-C

Marco,
I think there was a tin Mona came to Cowes as early as maybe 1965?????
Wasn't Merrick iinvolved? about that time..
I think Billy still has all his race boats down on the farm, he's given up his N Y appartment and moved back to Utah .
Not sure if he staill has his musuem of cars/bikes and boats !!

Black Tornado

Perhaps you mistakes with Momma Maritime other Maritime in aluminum that Merrik Lewis drove in those years in Europe.

BROWNIE

i drove the 32' Maritime 'Big Broad Jumper' with Billy, till he got the hang of it. It was FABULOUS in rough water. Wynne had it before us. It was rigged in Daytona by Sam Sarra and Bobby Sherbert.

Tim B-C

Yes that is true but thought that a Mona came, maybe at some other time.............

Old age plays tricks you know.........you'll learn one day

7xchamp

Marco: I was at Lake X when we built the boats. All Kiek. Merc. boats were in yellow color so Carl could easily spot them while flying the race, we also wore bright yellow jump suits. I`ll give you the info. I have. There were four 31`s that I was involved in. Original for Sirois was outdrive twin 427 then 482 boat Yellow and white. Next was a yellow and white 31` triple small block`s originally built for Johnny Backus, and later driven by Sirois. Another yellow and white 31` was a four engine outboard driven by John Steinbach. and last was the red 31` outdrive boat designated to Odell Lewis. He was supposed to run the boat in St. Pete race, but Carl disbanned the factory racing team so all boats were then designated to Merc, racing customers, or customers who wanted to race Merc. It is my belief that is the race and the boat in which Bobby Moore invented the famous throttleman position, as he was the co-driver for Wishnick, they won the race. There were several other 31`s but were inboard models and not Merc factory boats, I remember we converted one at Lake X from Hollman Moody Fords to Mercruiser inboards, I think it was for either Bob Rodman or Peter Rittmaster. Hope this helps. We were always changing boat numbers and crews as Carl K. wanted, and who was his favorite for that day.
7XCHAMP