I have been thinking this for a while so let me know what all of you think.

We went down to look at the Bottoms Up boat before we bought ours. I was told in a non direct way that it was a drug runners boat. It was equiped very well for a pleasure craft. K-planes, choppers, Hynautic steering. All the real good stuff. The trailer said top banana race team on it. Said team banana across the rear hatch. Now the sides have been repainted to show the current bottoms up theme.

Now here is the conspiracy theory. I have thought for a while now that it may have been the yellow team banana boat. And thanks to heatbuzz posting the pics of these "2?" different boats together I think I am right. There are to many similarities between these boats to not be.

So take a look at the photos and tell me what you think. Evan if you do think I'm Nuts!!

Thanks for the feedback. I am heading down to Fla tom'w so I will get together with my son and we'll see what we have that is worthwhile as far as decals and t-shirts for you guys.

Seeing those photos brought back some memories that I thought you might be interested in. Some of the photos you will notice that the windshields seemed to be wrapped in a terrible design of rubber and duct tape. This was due to a very quick ruling one year by APBA due to a severe accident involving a racer being killed on a windshield frame. We all had to add padding to prevent this. As you can see some of the designs were very crude.

The #47 boat was owned by Larry Pitts who was the grandfather of Mike Perette, my second at the boat company. Larry was in his mid sixties at the time and loved racing. He raced each year in the Gloucester and Plymouth races as he was from Massachusetts.

P-79 was the only OMC powered boat that raced as far as I know.

The first picture of top banana with the new deck shows how the windshields looked before the rule. Also you will see how little freeboard we had with full tanks and twin engines. One tank is where you all have your tank and the other was up front between the stringers in the cabin. Total fuel about 120 gallons. The hatch scoops were a gift from my buddy, Don Aronow....they are the same type you will see on the old 36 foot Cigarette race boats of that era. Facing backwards with holes drilled in the hatch itself let in plenty of air and kept the water out, most of the time.

In the 38 foot race boat, we used to burn 110 gallons of fuel per hour in race conditions. We carried over 520 gallons total.

In the background of these pictures you can see a 28 foot Cigarette. My mother in law asked for a ride in this guy's boat to watch the start of the race off government cut. The guy got so caught up in the moment, he tried to stay up with the fleet as we came out of the cut and went off a big wave and broke my mother in law's back. The boat hasd nothing but regular sit down seats. Many years of recovery until she finally got over that one.


Also in the background you can se the Benihana Bertram race boat waiting it's turn at the crane. One of the photos shows a crew member putting on AMALIE oil decals. This was Bill Wishnicks company. He was the driver of Boss O Nova and Broad Jumper. He was World Champion one year and a the first in the sport to use a throttle man, Bobby Moore.

The picture of the top banana at the St Pete race shows me in the center and Chuck Fogarty and Neil Coady in the boat before the race.
Chuck had just purchased the boat and raced in Newport Beach California the previous month, not doing very well. He said the boat was too short to compete against the others in the class. I asked if he would let me drive it in the St Pete race and he agreed. At that time I drove and throttled too.

In a race that was rough enough to have Joey Ippolitto turn over his 38 foot Scarab open boat, we came in third overall. Chuck now understood how the boat could be set up with the drive angles and tabs and had no complaints after that. He went on to several wins of his own.

In response to my thoughts to bottoms up being the same boat as the race boat pictured, I would say yes they are the same. However, I disagree with whoever told you about it being a drug boat. Drug boats of that era had big hatches on the deck and the boats themselves were as big as possible to hold as much as they could. A Cigarette 36 with a 10 foot beam was a favorite and they were usually equipped with Sabre Diesel engines to give them huge range.

Charlie Sr.

Ok..... is this a Cigarette Fire Fox or an original Banana in disguise? It has the same trailer that Air Dog has.





Rick

as for OMC powered Bananas racing ... both of mine were powered by a Johnson V8 outboard. also in 1993 we won the USoffshore world championship as well as the national , northeast and central titles.

by the way i have a question for Charlie Sr. do you remember Dunnington marine in wareham mass?

mrv8outboard

That is great work with that 24, congratulations. I am only speaking of the time that I owned the company and the race boats we built, that Breakaway was the only OMC powered racer.

Dunnington Marine, yes, I do remember them from the Cape area, They were around the Plymouth race during those days.

Heatbuzz
That photo is a Firefox. Aronow saw some of the stuff we were doing with outboards and he built his friend Doc Magoon a 24 with twin Merc outboards for zipping around Biscayne Bay. A few other people liked the deck design and the Firefox was put into production. Some wanted IO's so that is what you are looking at.

Charlie Sr.

Charlie Sr, why is it that you only made one Banana with twin I/O's? and how did your boats differ from the 2nd generation Banana's is it easy to tell them apart? Were the made at Port Edgewood also? I am looking for one know. I think I want an outboard but not sure. should i try to find an early model (one of yours) or does it matter? Thank you.




Rick

Rick:

My dad's on the road towing his motorcycles down to FL for the winter but I think I can answer your ques. -

He never made any more twin engine bananas because he was trying to build larger boats with twins - hence the development of his 38' race boat and 34' pleasure boat with Jean Claude Simon & Coyote.

Yes there are differences between the Port Edgewood banana's (Banana Boat Ltd.) and the originals (Banana Boat Co.). Looks like they changed the stringer layout a bit when I compare my boat and my dad's. Dad's boat seems more "solid" in rough water. When my dad made the boats, he made them exactly as Don Aronow taught him - never changed anything. Another little bit of banana trivia is that my dad had all of the glass work done in Bristol RI at a co. called CE Ryder. CE Ryder is no longer there but guess what co. is in the same location today - Outerlimits!

In my opinion, the early boats were made better in terms of glasswork quality. Seems like Port Edgewood did not have consistent quality glasswork - some boats were built better than others. If I were you I'd try to get my hands on one of the first 25. (the HIN should read something like BCV000251080 for hull #25 built in Oct. of 1980, for example. When Port Edgewood built them, they dropped the month built from the HIN). My boat is an '88 and that seems to be built quite well too with the exception of thin gelcoat here and there - especially on the deck. Really the only complaint I've heard is from that guy on here - docoke - who said he had a delamination problem on his 1990 banana boat so maybe try to get your hands on a pre-1990 one - after all, molds do wear out over time - especially if they aren't cared for properly. I personally saw the glasswork being done in '90 at a gas station in Smithfield RI when I went to buy a parts car for our race car - very strange???

Good luck with your search and keep us posted. By the way, Kurt (Biggus) bought that hull and deck from his friend...wonder if he's going to make a twin engine "Hells Banana II"??? That thing will be sick - hope I can make it up there to see it run...

Charlie Jr.

Thanks Charlie, the oldest one I have seen is an 81. It was pretty rough I have a lot of pics of it. Chris can tell you all about when you hook up with him. Ask him about Knucklehead. Chris said when he went down to Portedgewood this past summer he saw the molds and that there was still a hull left in there just waiting to be popped out. The one that your father has is that the red I/O, and does he use it much?

Found this.