iliveonanisland

who owns it now?

larslindroth

Doc Bobby Magoon was the first owner of this 1969 Cary 32, and then it got passed to racer Mike Matheson. For the 1972 season, Larry Smith couldn't stay away from boat racing any longer.

He had for years in the '60s raced with his pals Peter Rothschild and Chuck Daigh in Peter's Formula 233 'Thunderballs'. Larry was running his restaurant/lounge, The Windjammer, out of

the Marina Del Rey Hotel, and Larry's classy place was The 'watering hole' for the boating party crowd. He ran the boat in 1972 and 1973 as the 444 Sea Tune Marine Special/ Windjammer.

For the 1974 season, he named the boat Scarab in honor of his late pal Lance Reventlow, and Lance Scarab racing cars. Lance had passed away in a plane crash in the summer of 1972.

Larry's racing buddy Pete Rothschild had campaigned a twin inboard Cary 32, 'Thunderballs II', with a combined 1,000 hp for the 1970 season, so Larry knew what the Cary 32 could do.

He won a couple of races with it and in the meantime, he was developing his first Team Scarab race boat model, the 9 Meter.

larslindroth

larslindroth

Photo courtesy of the Nordskog Family.

larslindroth

Australian Kevin Wyld in his Team Scarab 9 Meter Kevlar49 boat racing in Class II. World Champion in 1977.






Color photos courtesy of the Nordskog Family.

larslindroth

Unique decked Team Scarab 9 Meter Kevlar49 boat, Sea Claw 42, with triple Evinrude power. Father and son, racers John and Al Stoker, of Stoker mod-vp boat brand fame, rigged and crewed.

Forgot the owner's name. Very quick boat that's still around SoCal. Won more than 10 races during the 1981 season.

phughes69

What does a 9 meter LS share in common with a Wellcraft Scarab 300? Is it the same running surface?

F-2 Speedy

iTrader: (6)

THUNDERBALLS II............lol

larslindroth

Larry Smith founded Team Scarab in 1974 and started producing his 9 Meter in 1975. The hulls have a length of 29'6" and beam is 8'0". Larry made quite

a few of these raceboats in 1975 and cut the licensing deal with Wellcraft in 1975. He sent the tooling over to them and they started making their Scarab 300

in the beginning of 1976. Wellcraft paid Larry royalties and the 300's hull was identical to Larry's 9 Meter. The design is pretty much a constant 24-degree

deadrise hull and slightly reverse sheer. Wellcraft produced this hull all the way until 2001 as their then 302 Scarab Sport center console. The evolving use

of exotic materials and construction techniques in Larry's boats is imho what makes his boats so fascinating. The ever chase to accomplish better performing

lighter and stiffer hulls is what made his company so unique. Now he was spoiled in the sense that his West Coast customers were almost all beyond imagination

wealthy and didn't care much about cost. Just materials like Kevlar49, Nomex, vinylester resins, epoxies, and eventually vacuum-bagged balsa-cored

boats were not for the regular racing guys. These boats were simply scary expensive. Few offshore racing fans realize how extremely well off Paul and Betty Cook

were for example. Their company Raychem Corp. was a very profitable Fortune 500 company, as a matter of fact it still lives on as Johnson Controls, Medtronic,

and TE Connectivity. Total annual revenue $70 Billion Dollars. Mr. Paul M. Cook passed away last year.


Photo courtesy of H.O.R.B.A.

larslindroth