Cougar Boats

[BROWNIE]

7,500 - 8000# all up, dry.

[fobes]

Brownie: just wanted to find out out about them I like the looks of them and understand that they are good performers, can you elaborate, thanks, Cougarman: that is a mean machine you've got, what is the power and how does she run? I have aleays thought the Cougar V's were mean looking. Do any of you guys remember an old issue og Boating magazine where they tested a 46' against an Apache cat, I would love to get a copy of that, keep those pics coming, thanks: Matt

[cougarman]

I haven't run it yet, still accumalating parts.


If you Get a hold of Kaama on the board here.
He has some great stories from a 38 Cougar.
Seems like 90+ great ride etc.


What size are you looking into?

Cougarman

[MrCIG]

Georges,
Dynasoar is a 38 Bertram not a Cougar. Still owned by a Chicago resident.

[KAAMA]

I agree with MR.CIG on "Dynasoar" ---it was a 38' Bertram. I think the guy's name is Mike Freeman or something. I remember back in the '80's he brought that thing over to Saugatuck a few times for to watch the races. If I remember correctly he would run over here in that thing with a couple of his friends with these two black Cigarettes, "THE BEAST" and "SMOKIN" and I think Marc from BAM Marine would come over from Chicago with those guys too with his red Cigarette "BAM". They usually shook the place up pretty well with those boats---it was kind of a rarity---you just didn't see those kind of offshore boats much on Michigan's west side until the races were going on. They'd have them things parked right out in front of that motel that was right on the water with their boats parked horrizontally along the motel river frontage there---it was always an impressive sight. These things had A LOT of brute muscle in them for power back in those days. I remember them having 540 cubic inch engines in them with tunnel rams. Smokin' made about 600hp out of his engines and The Beast was about 640hp or so which was extremely impressive at the time----around 1984 or so. I will never forget those boats.

[Lee]

KAAMA, The Beast is still around.

I took this picture of Michael's Bertram last Feb. in FL. It's easy to mistake it for a Cougar because Cougar used Bertrams up turned strakes. Like all of Michael's stuff it's very nice.

JD

[pb]

Lee, Also I believe I have seen it for sale.

Paul

[cougarman]

This was posted by Kaama back in an Apache Thread.

Pete, that Cougar "SAVAGE" was very fast. I rode in that boat several times with Jimmy, but we never saw you "Allez Vite" while I was in the boat. However, I was in the boat at one time when he had just installed a new set of 588" 915hp blower engines in it. It was when supercharged engines for marine applications were virtually unheard of and more of a fantasy. Most of the other boaters I knew who (in turn)knew many other boaters knew of nobody at that time with supercharged engines in there boats and we knew a lot of boaters from Chicago. Jimmy was the probably one of the very first(if not THEE first) on Lake Michigan to have blowers. I remeber when other performance boaters looked into his bilge and saw those blower engines sitting in there they could hardly believe their eyes! Anyway, one day about 30 boats were running up to Saugatuck from St.Joe. Myself and a couple of other guys were riding with Jimmy in his Cougar and it was rougher than sh*t out there. "WAR HAWK" (41' Apache owned by Carl Warren) pulled up to "SAVAGE" and they got it on...I was so scared I thought I was going drop an intestine right there. I have never been in water that rough and going that fast before then and I have been in a lot of boats and in some rough stuff, but not like that day...especially seeing the waves we were coming up to and flying over! I honestly thought Carl's Apache was going to beat us because of the size of the waves that day even with Jimmy's supercharged hi-zoot engines...but he didn't! WAR HAWK could NOT keep up..not even close as I recall. I was very impressed with the Cougar. One day we were in Jimmy's boat along with about 10 other boats. We had just left Saugatuck and were heading north to Holland. Larry Hollenbeck with his 41 Sonic and Bob Harris with his 32' Active Thunder "RUNNIN' HOT" were with us as well...it was a beautiful day and the lake was as flat as glass. Larry and Bob had the two fastest boats there and challenged Jimmy just about 2 miles before we got to the Holland pier heads. Jimmy smoked them...no problem. Just as we finished them off a yellow 32'Active Cat "SHOWDOWN" was coming out of the Holland pier heads and quickly joined in the sprint...probably thinking he was going to suprise everyone. He jumed Jimmy and came about on our starboard side as were just slowing down from running the other boats. So Jimmy put the trottles down and off again we went and I thought for sure that because of the flat water that that cat was going to eat us alive...NOPE! Jimmy got him by about 5MPH and he even backed off the throttles and let the guy pull up alongside of him again just to make sure it was fair and no doubts and we pulled him again...I even got it on video. I later talked to the guy with the cat and he said his boat runs about 93-95mph and that was about right because "SAVAGE" was running at about 97-99MPH. The guy was very impressed with the speed of the Jimmy's Cougar and he was only running a pair of 550hp or so naturally aspirated engines in that cat so it was very impressive for what it had. I didn't much like the Cougar for the way it looked but was impressed with the way it rode and handled in the rough stuff. That 41'Apache you had was one of the nicest looking Apaches that I had ever seen...and I'd still take an Apache over a Cougar ANY DAY!

Cougarman

[Lee]

Originally posted by cashbrain
Looked alot like this

Did it look like this?