George Linder was born over 3000 years ago in Mesopotamia. Ultimately he discovered that he lacked the gene that ages normal people, so he led an odd life requiring changes in identity every generation or so as his many wives and children aged and withered away before his eyes.

At one point he was Marcus Antonius (Marc Antony) in ancient Rome, but that's another story, and was really complicated by Cleopatra and her insatiable desires.

He designed various boats over the years ranging from a well known Ark, to the Nina and the Pinta (sadly another builder "popped" those designs and created the Santa Maria, which got most of the press). George has been bedeviled over the years by his inability to keep his enthusiasm regarding his latest concepts to himself, and has been cherry picked by some of the great marine designers in history. For instance, George was 2/3rds completed with the first "Ironclad" design when he had a little too much to drink at a party in Virginia during the civil war and only weeks later his designs appeared as the Monitor and the Merrimac, before he was able to get his product to market. George is tremendously talented and I once asked him if it bothered him to hear some of his greatest ideas suddenly come out of the mouths of other less accomplished designers. His response was a slight shrug of his shoulders and the strong belief that he is simply the greatest ventriloquist that the world has ever seen.

Ultimately he settled on Long Island and took the George Linder identity during World War II. (This identity allegedly grew up in Hempstead, and has a lovely wife and 3 children). He amused himself as an engineer for Grumman Aircraft before resigning to start a camera company which eventually became an IPO. One day during the 1960's he met a young boat racer, who shall remain nameless, but was enormously good looking, talented, and intelligent. That began a friendship that continues to this day. The young man introduced him to racing and as a result George bought his first OPC race boat, a single engine 17' Glastron, with a 100 hp merc on the back. Shortly afterward, driven by a desire to step into the highest levels of marathon competition he purchased a skateboard and put two 110 Hp motors on the back (see below).

This choice was so amusing to his friend that George endures good natured ribbing to this day...and endures ...and endures....and endures.

George sheepishly learned his lesson and quickly started a collaboration with a small wood boat company on Long Island named Eltro. Two craftsman, John Ives and Bob D'argagnon, who were trained by Marcel Raveau built large yet amazingly fast "non constant vee bottoms in his old shop after Raveau relocated to Florida. These boats (see below at the annual World Outboard Championship 6 hour race at Havasu) brought a measure of success to George...and his trusty buddy..... The last boat that George campaigned for Eltro was a 23' Offshore Hull with triple factory racing Evinrudes on the transom... He subsequently took a clean piece of paper and drafted a variation on the non constant Eltro vee bottom, which accentuated the good features (speed and handling) and eliminated the bad (a very deep fore foot...and clunky styling). To this he added a modified pad and the final product was arguably the finest handling and most aesthetically pleasing vee bottom design in history... The Challenger 21 (see final picture below).

(if you look r-e-e-e-el close you can figure out where the name "Challenger" came from ...when George fixates on a name...he fixates on a name...and , of course the racing number 99 alludes to the lifetimes he has lived.)

(To be continued)

Part deux.........

Meanwhile........

George's trusty friend and side kick after running very successfully in multi engined vees and cats in 60's OPC venues, embarked on a controversial (he kept insisting that Reggie was too short to see out of the cockpit) career as a tunnel boat racer ( see below) and eventually was banished by Mercury's Gary Garbrecht to their Canadian Factory team as a result of his tendencies toward delinquency and , let's face it, his big mouth. The North of the border experience was good for him as he learned to say "eh?" with great conviction and aplomb, and also adopted the Canadian mindset that boat racing in its purest form is , in fact, a contact sport.....

This experience, while painful at times, (see below) led to strong ties with a magical place called Oshkosh, Wi. in the summer and (the home of the holy grail) Lake X in the winter.

It also put the young fellow into part ownership and general managership of a boat company in NJ....... called Image.

(to be continued)

Act 3

As George tends to oversleep......sometimes with ruinous consequences (he missed the entire Renaissance)... Challenger Corp. endured some financial turbulence and production of the boats transferred to......Image Boat company. Naturally George wanted to scale up the fantastic 21 footer...and dutifully crafted...a 28 foot vee bottom as a follow up. (interestingly enough, had this boat been completed, you probably never would have heard of George. ) His young friend who shall remain nameless..... had another idea and the two combined George's natural talent for hydrodynamics with good 'ol tunnel boat logic and set-up concepts to create the Shadow Cat..... (see below).

This hull was wildly successful and put George at the forefront of performance designers World Wide. (Fabio Buzzi even knows him....but not when he's entertaining the glitterati). Following some unpleasantness with Image Boat co. , the trusty sidekick, left...which simultaneously released George from his obligations therein...and he quickly re-incarnated the hull as the "Chris Cat"...... complete with World class PR...(and I think a brass band was involved).

After triumphant premiers on Broadway, London, Rome and Bridgeport (It's little known fact that Robert Preston used George's persona during this period as the role model for his Academy Award winning portrayal of "The Music Man".), George returned home and re-joined his pal at the newly created Conquest Marine, a little something he, who shall remain nameless cooked up in his spare time. Using the incredible Craftsmanship of one Ken Adams...your basic genius with anything involving wood....... the pair cooked up some really neat stuff (see below).



(to be continued)

All was going very well until the death of a gifted, talented and charismatic young man in one of the boats created by George and his buddy (see below).

After the death of Marc Lavin, only one more hull was contracted out of the Conquest shop and it served as one of the key prototypes for all of the safety standards in use today.
(See below)....... and the longtime friend backed away from creating performance boats..... He later had a wacky career as a video commentator covering Offshore racing...and shall remain nameless.

(to be continued)

George followed up his exploits with various designs in both the performance and luxury yacht arenas.

Today George resides peacefully in Brentwood, Long Island where he also distributes aircraft safety canopies, maintains the Lavin Foundation standards, and generally gives away ideas he should be paid for.....(he never learns).

He also is tinkering with a special strain of orgasmic sheep which he plans to market to members of Al Qaida...and representatives of the Democratic National Committee.

Finally, George can be booked for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs featuring either his band "The Purple Knights", or his amazing interpretation of old Edgar Bergen material with his loveable dummy , "Twister".

Note: The author wishes to point out that certain parts of this story have been fictionalized to make a somewhat mundane guy seem a little less boring... However, the pieces about Marc Antony .....as well as the orgasmic sheep....are true.......

Hope this gives you a glimpse into the special guy who is my best friend......... George Linder (AKA Ramses the First, AKA Attila the Hun, AKA Rembrandt, etc, etc, ad infinitum)

With appropriate humility.

T2x

Just as I wanted it!
Thanks T2X or Homer I should call you considering that you write the deeds of a myth as Achilles?!
Now I stamp it to me and I read it all with calm.
Damn mosquitos allowing...

I agree, even if I have no earthly idea what the h*ll you are tallking about.

there must be some conquest cats in japan,any body nows were????

T2x you said that you built an identical copy of the 35ft Jesse James, did it ever race? Under what name? Any pictures you can share...

Great thread on great designers, builders and people, that have a lot of history when the sport was at its peak....Lets keep in going and find out as much info as we can on these great boats that were built..

Thanks Rich, George and Kenny!!!
Scott

It raced under the name "Recovery" and was Stu Hayim's second race boat, after his Chris Cat. Stu would later go on to many World and National championships with various Skaters along with his throttleman, crew chief, Joe Imprescia.

The Recovery Conquest, which was built right after JJ, only raced in one or two races when Stu decided that an Open Class boat was too much for him to manage at race sites. Later he acquired a bigger crew and budget. The boat also suffered from not having competitive power in comparison to the Factory Mercruisers in Jesse James. I think it wound up in Japan a few years before the JJ hull.

Stu believed it had "differences" from the original JJ...because he couldn't get it to run as well. For the record the two hulls were identical....... and if both had the same set up and power...... should have cruised side by side.

The design was so dominant in 1986 that I was about to close a deal for 7 of them to one buyer when the accident occurred. I called off the talks immediately afterward.

T2x