Did the 35 foot race boats have the same beam as the production boats?
Race Chevs of that period,were they all running mechanical injection?
or did some run carbies?

Yes, the hull dimensions are exactly the same, the decks are slightly different, especially for the Mistress. Back in the mid 70's/early 80's most race boats were running 496ci with mechanical fuel injection, carbs were not used by the serious contenders.

When Don made the new narrow beam 35 footer he downsized the beam from the 36 footer to 8 feet. But he didn't want to put a lot of money in the design until it was proven. Sooooo, he just laid up a deck using the old 36 foot deck mold and the workers would lay it on the new 8 foot beam hull. Then they would go around and cut the extra width off and just glass the hull and deck together.

He did the same thing when Jerry Jacoby talked Don into blocking the 8 foot wide 39 foot mold down to 37.6 feet. The first boat was called AJAC HAWK. They used a 36 foot wide deck and cut the extra width off. This boat was the first of all models later to be called the TOP GUN from Cigarette. Bob Saccenti was the throttleman on that boat and the first race it showed up, was Mar del Plata in Argentina in December of 1978. It surprised all of us, it was built in secret

Phil, Excuse me, not serious contenders?

When I built my 38 foot Top Banana, Don advised me that since I was the new kid in the Open class, I should not expect to get the A engines from Mercury. So I used an engine builder from Long Island called McBetts. He built two 496 cu in engines using twin 1050 CFM carbs on each engine. We led from start to finish. Look on You tube ...put in Bushmills1979 in the search engine.

Also Conspiracy ran carbs too in their 35 foot race boat.

Hello Charlie,

I think you have mistaken me with some else, my name is Christian not Phil. Ok, maybe I was being generalistic and as you point out, there was the odd boat running carbs and winning races……………very impressive win for you and great footage by the way!!

However, I do think it’s fair to say that the "A engines" from Mercury/Kiekhaefer were mechanical fuel injection 496’s or initially 482’s, at that point in time. Isn't this you in your boat with mechanical fuel injection from back in the day?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]511995[/ATTACH]

I read a post by Richie Powers the other day where he was talking about his time with Carlo Bonomi in the Martini team………wow, that sounded totally incredible “30 engines/drives at various states of build around the globe”………boats in all four corners of the world………..where have those days gone???? It makes me feel very sad looking at how well Formula 1 has done and how badly offshore racing has done in comparison.

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/c...t-today-3.html

The one thing I don’t understand is that you say “When Don made the new narrow beam 35 footer he downsized the beam from the 36 footer to 8 feet. But he didn’t want to put a lot of money in the design until it was proven.”……….I totally get that and I knew the 35’ was a cut down version of the 36’ but I had always thought the underwater section of the 35’ was exactly the same as the 36’, which hangs true with what you are saying here. However, just the other day, I read the following post, which is incredibly interesting, where Brownie says that “The 36' chine was drawn with a #43 Kand E ships curve, and the 35' chine is straight for the first 12'.”

So, my question is, did the design of the underwater section of the 35’ Cig change over time? i.e. did Don simply cut the topsides down from the 36’ for the initial first few boats (as I had always thought) and then when the 35’ started selling, he suffered the cost of redesigning the underwater section and modifying the chine, as per Brownie’s comments??

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/g...at-design.html

We did run 482 CID carb motors in the Conspiracy at first, then switched to the 496 injected engines. Boat was fast with both. Our problem was we kept blowing drives - three times while leading.

Charlie I think Phil is Ratman he owned the miclite scarab,. the one Joe broke in St Pete.
This person is Ratman72.......

Christian....sorry I thought you were Ratman from South America.

Whatever Brownie says I agree with, cause it was his shop they were right across the street from so he would know.

Yes, I tried fuel injection. That was my boat while it was still in the test stage. No hatches and no race bolster yet. Don gave me a pair of Cigarette race hatches to put on the boat and the race bolster was higher on the crew to hold us in.

Just came back from Key West, I was down there with Bob Saccenti and his new Warpath. Met quite a few Brits, hopefully I can make the trip to Cowes next year if they race Warpath again, maybe we can have a chat over there.

Mike somewhere in the HORBA files is a really good movie of your dad testing the boat back in the day and the engines are shown quite clearly with carbs. If I ever run across it again, I will see about making a copy for you.

Thanks Steve, I finally figured that out. Ratman is in Columbia now and this guy is from England, so if nothing else I can keep them straight by the geographical location.