h2oboater

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.

Black Tornado

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

Black Tornado

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.

h2oboater

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

ygrowup

That proud ol' gal was bought at our place by Pete in '74...48' Pacemaker. How many one-owner, freshwater-only battlewagons do you come across like that? We resold it for his family (who keep all their boats in gorgeous shape) and she's still in our harbor on Lake St. Clair.

I recall seeing her in the background in a bunch of H20's Detroit race pictures circa 1980

h2oboater

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.

mikiedreb

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

h2oboater

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.

racesdad

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

racesdad

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