Hi Richie,
always precise and definitive in your explanations.
Thanks Richie because I believe that also this time we can say to also have given definitive on this boat.
A thing Dan Arena still concerns. Who was exactly he? In the world of the offshore it seems me that this of Gentry was the only boat.

1978.This 40ft boat raced at Bushmills and Cedar Point.

Quote from Bushmills race as follows -

Part of the stern of it`s Sea-flex constructed hull,delaminated prior to showing some real speed,and passed several front runners.This performance had to sting the stern drive set just a bit,since the Arena-Craft hull uses twin surfacing props attached to conventional propshafts,and a pair of outboard mounted rudders ala unlimited hydro style.

Was this the beginings of the arneson drive.It`s the only other Arena boat I have come across.

Dan Arena was from the unlimited hydroplane racing days, I believe he was a driver and semi famous. He was also a local Calif. guy. Back in those days it was kind of East Coast against West Coast. The west Coast had it`s own crowd as did the East Coast. I think the West Coast people were more do it yourself Hot Rod guys, meaning that they could build better motors, better rigging etc. Like I said when Gentry used to show up at the races he always had something different, and Like I said his motors were scary strong sounding at the dock, but were too much for the times, he always had problems and encountered many DNF`s. East Coast guys were Mercruiser or Aeromarine guys, the few that tryed getting more power, also experienced DNF`s. Many great things came from Calif. and Offshore, One most notable was the Patterson exhaust headers the first ever. All other header systems were copies. Pattersons exhaust were works of art, most were all polished Stainless steel and were beautiful, sounded incredible, and gave life to the motors by adding extra HP and better breathing. Calif. was also responsible for a lot of the bling in the boats, polishing and anodizing chrome etc. They have the flash mentallity which I love, and copied in many circumstances. Almost evry car in Calif. has custom wheels and is always detailed to the max.. I think in Offshore those rival days ended when we stopped racing out there as APBA/UIM national races back in the early/mid 1980`s a real shame, we used to have some great times and great races, and made some great friendships. That was then.

WOW - what a great read - wish I could add something to it -l all I can say is I love my 35 Cafe and PROUD of its history!

To answer your specific question, yes, this was the first Arneson drive setup used by Howard. His other company was Pool Sweep... and he just modified the corporate name for his latest invention....Sea Sweep.

As we all know he later moved to a Larry Smith Scarab (West Coast again, as Richie has pointed out correctly) and then to the cats.

Now that say me this I have remembered to have seen once time that Sea Sweep somewhere in the net.
From the site-tribute to Howard Arneson himself here it is here;

http://www.howardarneson.com/articles/article10.asp

Here is a stern shot, not Howard Arneson in the photo but this is the Arena Craft boat that was built to house the early ideas, not the first.

The other photo is of the boat with Dan Arena on the left and Steve Patrich on the right (the man who machined all Howard's ideas)

Howard's first outdrive was mating a Volvo Upper to a Mercury Speedmaster Lower back in 1971. Then after blowing those he went to the straight shaft and rudder setup which was later adopted by Buzzi and others.

Who is Dan Arena? He is credited with being one of the first men to break the 100 mph barrier in boats way back when. He raced the Unlimited's back in the early days. They built their own boats back then and Dan was making boats under the "Arena" name. He also says he is one of (of course he would say the first) ones to use fiberglass to build a boat.

This boat was cold molded and in the first race the side of the boat delaminated prompting the helicopters to zoom down on the bow of the boat to divert their attention to the damage and slow down.

This boat in the mid 70's went over 100, not bad for those days. After this, Howard purchased the Scarab for a race boat.

Wow those drives look they've just come onto the market! Talk about ahead of it's time. All those trimax drives were clearly derived/inspired by this drive.

Shhh... This was 1973-74' way before Buzzi was FABIO BUZZI

The old phrase, been there done that.

Before `Black Tornado` runs riot on this thread,the Arena boat was 1978,and the Italians beat the yanks to it this time ,with Levi surface drive arrangements on `Dart` in 1971 and `Arcidiavolo` shortly after,so by the time `Sea Sweep `appeared it was `old hat`.