What's this boat
 

Anyone know !

Judging from the cars the pic was taken in the
States but I've never seen anything like that.

Ben,

The picture was taken at Lake X in the late 70's or early 80's.

I also have a picture after the race!

Pete

Is it a Molinari?? I recall a couple of wild looking cat´s from the late 70´s early 80´s. Black Tornado will probably know for sure - Marco?

I believe this is a Jim Cauldwell (sp?), Bill Elswick wood cat cir. 1980 at Lake X. Not sure the history but I think it went down in pieces testing in Lauderdale. Not sure it ever made it to the race course.

AC

Yep it was Bill Elswick, not sure of the builder

This is what it looked like after a race

:eek:

Ouch!

Nigel: This was a cat for Billy Elswick built by Galdwell, had a huge tunnel in it, big wood boat supposed for rough water. They crashed it big time testing off Laud. Caldwell was almost killed in the accident, Billy was OK. Remember the Molinari cat that showed up for the Venice worlds when I ran the Cigarette Halter Black Cat for Aronow. There should be some pix of that boat around somewhere, another huge wood boat. 7xchamp

Never sight a thing of that kind.
It remembers me the first Cougar.
However you are right Nigel it remembers some the Molinari of Niccolai for Venice 1979. A fiasco.
I think that Richie spoke about this pic.

Thanks for the info gents. Marco what material was the Martini cat built from? Wood or alloy?

On wood.
For several years the hull ,totally empty, was laying in an anonimous shipyard near La Spezia,twenty years ago.
Then it's disappeared. Maybe scrapped for some fireplaces on wintertime.....:mad:

Marco refresh my memory - did it simply not perform well? If it went as well as it looked it would have been quick. What was the problem?

Nigel,Niccolai tested the boat in the early morning before the race. Only few miles before to came back in the Marina del Cavallino and jump in the old mono Picchiotti 38'.
Perhaps with more time in order to try the boat it could become competitive, but if you watches the narrow design of the tunnel and the height of the sides maybe that cat little was adapted for a flat sea like was to Venice in 1979.
Cat with narrow tunnels and high sides were the 1980's Shadows and Jaguars but they were more short and surely more lights. However theirs performances were not excellent.
In 1990's the Skaters with a little less narrow tunnel and little less high sides cames to a better compromise between performance and speed.
Today the best cats like the Victory/Tencara in Europe or MTI in USA came back near to the Cougar cats design of the eighties finding the best performance in the materials and the dimensions.