Re: 36 Cigarettes racing back in the days
 

Mondadori maybe drove the Mister Charly in a Adriatic race in 1973.
I haven't picture about it.
Mister Charly was the former second American Moppie of Peter Rittmaster,chairman of the Bertram at that time, in 1969.It was a Bertram 31'. Then was bought by the rookie Ronny Bonelli in 1970 and renamed Mister Charlie(Carlo,Charlie in english,was the father of Ronni,that presented the "toy" to him Ronny).
About the Cigarette 34' prototypeTornado (mostarda) I have a lot of pics. Alex Balestrieri,son of the Champ,and owner of the Tornado's website have a lot of pics from my archive but he haven't time to dedicate at the site. I will send him a e mail in the next days to speak about this problem.
I have some pics of Mister Charly and I will post here togheter those of Tornado the next time(I still haven't internet at home).

Marco

Re: 36 Cigarettes racing back in the days
 

Thank you for your reply Marco. I was aware, via John Crouse's book about Ronnie Bonelli's Mister Charlie being a 31' Bertram. What surprided me was that the excellent database of race results compiled by Graham Stevens and John Crouse mentioned Mondadori's boat being a 36' Cigarette, one which seems to have had only one race outing.

Phil.

Re: 36 Cigarettes racing back in the days
 

Hi Nigel: Actually that was special gear case lube. Kiekhaefer would only use an oil produced, ( believe it or not ) from sperm whale`s. The smell used to be horrible, I`m sure some of the older guys who worked on the Aeromarine stuff will remember, they may have not known the origin but they surely new the smell. We also were only allowed to use a certain motor oil it was called Wolfs Head oil 40 wt only. Pure pennsylvania oil. We used to also mix 2 cycle oil to the Av gas to give extra lubrication, as the Av gas burned very dry, so dry that it would dry out the various seals in the injectors and cause them to stick and loose power. Again these were all the little tricks we used to win. Kiek. insisted everyone running his equip. do the same, however I`m sure due to translation, some teams did not observe these rules. I know the Jack Stuteville and Bobby Moore observed the rule and followed it. Hope all is well for you, That picture is great as are all of them. Also the records on boat mad are really cool, I spent about an hour looking at them, saw some races I won that I forgot, and some races I thought I won and didn`t, My record still stands at over 60 Carreer wins, I want to see now total miles I have raced in my carreer. Should be interesting. I received a call yesterday inviting me to a luncheon in Ft. Laud. Feb. 25 for Ray Bullman, I`m excited to go. all the best
7XCHAMP

Re: 36 Cigarettes racing back in the days
 

Mustard Boat Balestreri: What Mickeyfin says pretty much sums it up: I`m not sure who orchestrated that boat, weather it was Don trying to sell vincenzo something or Jack and Vincenzo asking for something special. It was a 34` blocked off from a 36` it was supposed to be a light weight sprint type boat, However it was very heavy, CG was way off and the boat was slower than the latest light weight 36`s Jack hated the boat, and only ran it a few times. I was always a little intimidated by it as I was led to believe it was super fast, in calm water. They used to show up with both boats, we did the same sometimes, and would pick the rough water boat or the lighter calmer water boat, inevitabley we would pick the wrong one. Many times we would station the backup boats for a return race for Italian and European points only. We would race from Italy to now Croati with UIM best boat for World points on Sat. Then race same course back on sunday with backup boat for other points. We ran the equivalent of the APBA circuit plus the UIM circuit, we were pretty busy, when the Americans complained they had to run 8 races per year, we were running 12 to 14 in a single season in Europe, getting back to the fact of true world/European/Italian champions. The US1 in america was the same to italians winning there Italian and European Championships, only the americans never knew about these races, therefore thought that they were the creme de la creme, best in the world, and never gave much credence to the Europeans. All for now. 7XCHAMP

Re: 36 Cigarettes racing back in the days
 

Hi Richie,

Thanks for your answer and glad to have you back on the thread. You guys certainly earned your paychecks in those days.
This brings me back to a question I asked just before Christmas. Did you prefer the "old style" World Championship, reaping points all over the world or the 1977 onwards system of a World Final grouping all the continental champions?
Phil.

Re: 36 Cigarettes racing back in the days
 

Searace is the offshore "Bible" but....there is a lot of mistakes about the names,lenght and type of the boats.
Only compare some sources like the excellent results database of Graham,Searace,the Italian L'Avventura dell'Offshore(the only offshore bible in the world before the apparition of Searace) or the contemporary magazines and newspaper you can discover the true.
Mondadori drove him 36' Nicopao in the route from Italy to Yugoslavia and the day after it seem that he drove the old Bertram 31'. The first race was for the World Championship (cancelled after long discussions because the Yugoslavian organizators have missed to inscript the race to the UIM)and the other one was only for Italian title.
In one of that Adriatic races in 1973,Powers drove the red Dry Martini(former Fino) and he won.

Marco

Re: 36 Cigarettes racing back in the days
 

Mondadori´s beautiful Nicapao!

Re: 36 Cigarettes racing back in the days
 

Did this picture upload correctly? i.e. is it broken up for anyone trying to view it? If so I will try and reload via the edit button. Somebody please let me know (it may just be a problem at my end).

Re: 36 Cigarettes racing back in the days
 

Hi Nigel,

Picture was fine when I viewed it. A really good shot actually.
It will be useful for the model project, thanks.

Phil.

Re: 36 Cigarettes racing back in the days
 

Hi Phil: First I think this thread is one of the best on OSO with you Marco, Nigel and Graham`s info. And it is a pleasure to be able to add my memoirs. FYI it was Bob Nodskog who basically stopped the UIM circuit as we knew it. His reason is that only a select few could afford the circuit, with multiple boats etc. also at the time I think he was president of APBA so essentially pulled the plug and discontinued the UIM series of races for the USA, and went to the three race format at Key West, and to be qualified to run in the race you had to have run a certain amount of races and finished no worse than third, so it was the beginning of the end. True world Champions should run against not only the competitiors from around the world, but they must run the various oceans and courses, as do the Current offshore guys in Europe. As Tom Gentry said the UIM is the ultimate sanctioning body for the world and all others including APBA fall under them. When we set the Kilo records, they were official recognized UIM classes run in saltwater, and still stand as retired class records. Tom never created a class as did many of the americans and then tryed to get UIM to accept. Bottom line is UIM rules. My best championship was probably with Bonomi when we backed up the 1973 with the 1974 championship. Every Championship I won I cherrish more and more every day, I did something very few people in the world have done and got paid for it. Four UIM`s class one`s in a row. Three world Superboats. One USA1 superboat cat. One OPC world championship, and the various South American, European, and Italian championships, All sweet and lots of hard work and determination. Problem today in the sport is you could conceivably be a world champion two or three times a year just in America, kind of takes away the true pride and integrity of a world champion. World Champions should be just that, Champions of the World, not the USA. I`ve said my piece for now, thanks 7XCHAMP