fobes

Anyone know anything about the Maggies Cougar or George Morales, any pics...thanks: Matt

Edward R. Cozzi

Wow! The boat that beat Al Copeland from Miami to New York. George Morales was one of the coolest guys I'd ever met.
Legend around here has it that he and his crew already had the patches sewn on their suits that they had won the race BEFORE the race had started!
I don't know if any of this is absolutely true, but I heard that George went away to "College" for a while and later was killed in a car accident many years ago.
Never heard anything specific about the boat except that it carried much more fuel than George told everybody!

fobes

Edward: when did you meet Morales? I read the same thing about the patches on the jumpsuits, I especially want to get some pics of the deep vee Cougar that he ran also called Maggies...thanks: Matt

bobkatz

I think I remember seeing it sitting across the street from Ft. Apache in the mid 80's. Huge Cougar I Think.
For some reason I didn't think the powers to be that put on the Miami to NY race let him race because of his "Import Business" and he just happened to be at the start of the race and the first one to the finish line making him an "Unofficial winner". If anyone heard a different story enlighten us. The 80's were certainly an interesting time for offshore racing.
Willie F., Sal M., Ben K., Tom G., Lavins, Al C. etc.

Edward R. Cozzi

He was a friend of Howard Quam who moved me from Chicago to Ft. Lauderdale during the summer of 1979 to replace Keith Hazell in the Open class boat "FlapJack".
I met George Morales in the early 1980s.
I have not seen either of those boats in years.
The 46' Cougar v-bottom "Popeyes" is at Castaline Marine in Hollywood, Florida.

Popeyes

He did have the patches on beforehand. I was on the Popeyes crew. He had some sort of VooDoo S antarea priest put chicken blood on his boat. Wierd chit. Al had ours blessed by a Cathilic priest. I guess his Wompum worked better that time. I have pics of the boat out of John Crouses "SeaRace" book. I will get LyAnn to help me scan and post later. Pat Taylor the oil man from N.O. had the first fiberglass version.

Popeyes

Catholic Sorry I need to use spelcheck

Popeyes

Here they are the first one is his cat, the second an artist rendering by George Bartell and the last is a photo taken while racing. All courtesy of John Crouse

Popeyes

Duh

Edward R. Cozzi

Stan Ware. I remember seeing your name on the boat!
Thanks for the photos; they brought back some memories.
Ed Cozzi