Active Cats Back In The Day
 

Active boats started out in the late 70s with a vee bottom, some racers in the Michigan area raced them with some success, but they never took off. By now wood and aluminum cats were racing with some success, but not without some problems. Buy 1980 Active built its first fiberglass cat. I don't think it was a Cougar design, this was it . Raced frist as Active and later as Butch Ryan's EXPRESS without much success.

Note in the background left of the third pic a Bertram named Wolverine. In 1981 appeared the cat.

1982 was a bad year for the Active cats.
In only 18 days two crashes: In Europe the black Hublot of the Italian rookie(in open class 1) Walter Ragazzi blasted against the Channel waters.
Next 11 september Rocky Aoki found the system to stop definitively in the offshore competitions after the bad injuries payed for the crash of Benihana,former Quam's Flap Jack. Quam was aboard with Rocky.
The suspect was that those cats suffered structural defects.

B T,, Good Eye ! That must have been Pete's Big Boat !!

I remember that pic of HUBLOT with the guy holding the radio antenna in his hand. This pic is from Searace is a great shot of Quam And Rocky winning his own race, The Benihana in 1982. For some reason there were many structural failures in the 37' cat compaired to the 33' active cats. That extra speed and 4' made the difference for the failures of the open class Active cats.

Info on "50" Warcry
 

I just had a coversation with Barry Garfinkle, previous owner of the 37' Active Cat Warcry...regarding it's lineage. Info was gathered during the repaint process as boat was endlessly sanded...

Original color was white/blue, subsequently painted white/gray/black. Names found on the boat were, Wolverine, Systems, Daddy Cool, Priority One (also Chrysler). Trailer title was originally from Michigan. Boat was purchased from detectives from Miami at the 1990 Worlds...then called Priority One. Barry sold the boat to a gentleman in St.Louis who had a place on Lake of the Ozarks,,,through Bob Morgan. It may very well be sitting in a field somewhere currently.

No doubt there were interim owners, and I'd enjoy discussing further details about the boat with any of them...offline. Drop me a PM...there was a paticular bit of "custom" glass work done below deck up towards the bow !!!!!!!!

Mike

The [Wolverine, Bud Light, A J Roberts] and Red Crain's Chrysler Laser raced at the same time 1983. I will talk to Red this week and find out what movie his boat was blown up in. Maybe someone salvaged his boat after that ??? But it would never have had the Wolverine name on it. And I had Pete's pleasure Wolverine Active cat in the 90's. In any case both cats were repaired many times, and not easy to fix, and to be safe.

I WAS ON THE PRIORITY ONE TEAM IN THE LATE 80'S. OWNED BY GREG BUCHANAN OF SARASOTA, HE WAS A SHERIFF IN MANATEE COUNTY TOO. TMAN BRETT ARCHER, CRAIG ARCHERS BROTHER. WE ALL WORKED AT CONNOR MARINE IN SARASOTA
MIKE STANCOMBE

At Sometime, Someone Thought It Was A Good Idea To Put Sand As Ballast In The Front, Till All The Bags Broke Open. Guess Who Had To Remove 200lbs Of Sand From The Front Bulkhead?
Me

racesdad.....great story !!! Did you happen to notice any custom graphics up in front of the boat when you were de-sand-bagging it? Something glassed into the bottom of the deck....I think stbd side?

How many seasons did you guys race her? Did it have the bustle (tunnel extension) on it w/Merc standoff boxes? Also, any idea who the previous owner was?

When the boat first showed up in Calif, the transom and tunnel bottom where blown out pretty well. The 1990 Worlds must have been hella rough !!!!

Great to hear from you.

Mike

we crashed it on the outside leg in key west. i was on the team for the 89 season. i dont remeber anything in there, wasnt in long. it was a little warm in there so i didnt look around to much. what was it? red crain, bob kaiser, i believe it was daddy cool too maybe? good old boat though
mike

Talked to Red Crain this week owner of the Chrysler Laser Active cat, and by many other names. As far as he rembered his cat was used for a movie, but did here rumors later that it did race again. He did see his old trailer in Key West, the boat that was on it was not his old cat. The one thing that his Active cat had different was a hatch on the deck of the tunnel for safety equipment. Red said the he had hoped the cat would never race again because of all the damage it had from all the years he raced it. The bottom of the tunnel was repaired many times, and sank once. One time with Bob Kaiser [before he was Mr Top Gun] driving at the North Port Race in Michigan they spun out and blew the tunnel out again. But this cat has had a colorful past, at one race Tom Gentry ask Red if he would race in Superboat class to compleat the field, to make it legal Tom gave him one of his spare turbo motor to run the race, the Referee was not happy but it was now a Superboat. Back then Red would do anything to make a race, and help pay the bills. It was known as Red's rent a cat, but Red said it never had the Wolverine name on it. Red started racing back in 1973 racing his Mom's Chris Craft XK 22' he was a caricature then and still today, a Good Friend.