I didn't start coming to st Clair till 98/99. Don't remember it.

Y'all have some of the coolest history on that lake. I wish Ontario had that... h2oboater, you have some ridiculously cool old rigs! And while the old Pegasus boat may have been a pig, it looked freakin cool

J I think that is close to when it closed down. Time flys so I am not sure when it finally closed.

We are adding to the history now Gary. Wish I would've seen that Phantom out some more though :)

Ratman!!! Thank You for sharing the pre-season winter pics. I have a feeling it's gonna be a long winter here, what a way to start it with these awesome pics. Do you have any history on these boat? Galactica, M57 red starfire or the boat that is on the beach. Thanks again, by the way great helicopter pic, that was a way high tech cool copter back then.:Score-101010:

Great Photo's thanks for sharing


Jon

Hello Jon. How are you ?. How is your Cougar coming along ?


G.

Sorry ratman for hijacking your thread.

Was that Race Rock that was on Int'l. Drive/ I-4?

YUP ! :ernaehrung004: One more place that was very cool that is no longer with us. :eek:

yeah but we still have your atic of offshore and my barn and a lot of stories that are all true, i tell the kids them and they think "how were still alive after all that"

You guys are a bunch of teasers! When ya gonna share some pics and stories with the locals??? :party-smiley-004:

your honor (mark) seems its time to hold court!!!

Start here.. http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/c...-back-day.html
Then go here. :party-smiley-004: http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/m...r-magnums.html

Sorry for the hijacking.

Sadly haven't touched it for a year and a half.
Started traveling for work allot and was only home about 2 days a week.

To many other things to focus on once your home for such a short period,...........anyways looking to get back into it this winter.

It's shaping up nicely and I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

Just more time and money is all :drink:



How is yours?


Jon

That was the first year that I ever went down that street I was a sophomore in high school and was going to school in Marathon FL while on vacation for the winter with my snowbird parents.....I was like but dad what do you mean we cant have one just think how cool you would be!!!!!

Mag Cig CTC Fairy and G&G.........
 

Hi all, it's nice to see the thread has had such a positive response! I find it very sad to think that such a great sport is in such decline and its interesting to follow the threads on OSO or Boatmad to see the synergies and conversations taking place on both sides of the pond.

I live in Poole in the UK and back in the 70's/80's there was a big following and some awesome racing? My Dad was well into it and so we all followed and loved the sport too. He owned Balestrieri/Pruett/Aronow Magnum 28' that sunk in the '68 CTC. His brother, my uncle, has also had some pretty cool boats and now owns/races the Dollar Marine Special 41' Apache - class boat!

The annual pilgrimage was (and still is) to Cowes on the Isle of White every August Bank holiday to see the Cowes Torquay Cowes. I will have undying memories of the excitement of going to Fairy Marine's yard at Hamble Point to see what boats were racing that year. Some of my favourite boats were American Eagle 35' Cig, Kaama 36' Cig, Matrini Racing 36' Cig, Satisfaction 38' Scarab, Beep Beep 38' Cobra/Coyote, Eraf 36' Cig, Bounty Hunter 35' Cig and 39' Bubble deck, the latter I was particularly fond of due to seeing it built in the factory, Limit Up 35' Cig, Peter Stuyvesant 38' Bertram, all the CUV's...........the list goes on and on. Then of course there were the predecessors and the real iconic boats that I was just too young to really remember, The Cigarette, KAM's, Black Tornado, Lady Nara, etc........

Groves and Guteridge was the place to be at on the Island and wow, what an atmosphere seeing and hearing all those beautiful machines. The CTC still runs but its not even close to how it used to be. There are only a handful of boats and the start of the race is not even close Cowes, the whole thing seems to teeter on the edge of collapse with no one of authority seemingly caring! The start of the CTC was the most amazing thing ever - no more. If you don’t have a pit pass, you cant get close to the boats. No festival atmosphere/beer tent or effort ashore. The truth is there are many people way too passionate about that race to let it stop but it seems like an ever increasing struggle to make it happen and the fear is that one day "the others" will have finally ground us down and it wont happen at all! Two years ago they ran the 50th anniversary of the race and there was a bit more razzmatazz, which was fantastic to see but this year was a bit flat. About four years ago the P1's raced there which was a really good atmosphere but it wasn’t the CTC! Don’t get me wrong, it would be great to have that atmosphere and style of racing than none at all but why cant we do it for the big Class 1's like back in the day?

One of the most increasable things I ever saw was Tom Gentry in his 35' Cig being late for the start of the Needles Trophy race in Poole, '76. We were on my Grandfathers cruiser leaving the Haven and American Eagle came through the inner harbour flat out and Tom Gentry took the boat off the wash of ours - WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! What a noise and what a sight - not dissimilar to the attached! Then one week later the same thing happened at the start of the CTC. I was later told that that was in fact a tactic and all planned. It wasn’t that the Gentry team were late for the start, it was that they wanted to start both races well after everyone else and win hands down. They had the works KAM motors and the latest cutting edge 35' Cig, so it was a fairly sound plan, except there was a navigational error and they came third (I think)........lots of egg on face and a very upset Carl Kiekhaefer. 'I like it Too' (former KAM III) won the race, owned by Charles Gill and prepped by Jimmy Brooker, what a cool boat, possibly my favourite of them all? As Marco will agree 36' Cigs are simply the best! It was an older boat and had the odds stacked against it but such is the CTC.

Similarly Marcus Hendricks won this years race in Cinzano, a CUV nearly 30 years old and beat a formidable field comprising some very modern machinery.

Regarding the boats at Magnum in my photos, I'm afraid I don’t know anything of the history. The beautiful Starfire (you’re a lucky guy if that is your boat MDonziM) was being launched as we arrived. From the photo it seems to have Merc TRS drives and my old man (Kalaazar) reckons the powerplant was Italian BPM Volcano motors that used down-draft Weber carbs. I'd love to be able to tell you all more about those boats but I simply don’t know any more. The only boat I do know more about is the 39' bubble deck, Bounty Hunter but that’s another story. As far as the stretched Bell Jet Ranger is concerned - I'm lead to believe it belonged to Mr. Aronow himself and yes, mighty fine cutting edge technology at the time but what else would you expect for such a man?

Best regards to all.....

http://june4.2011day1Thanks Ratman - Great history, if that starfire had bpm volcano's its probably one hull before mine. Mine is #388 and had 440hp high perf 454's/trs's and 5 gas tanks from the factory. I have spoken with both Giovanni and his mother and no one remembers building a striped starfire with 5 tanks.

starfire
 

Cool - any pics? I cant imagine there were too many Starfires like yours, so it's possible my Dad is wrong and it is your boat????

The back pic shows 330 stickers on the TRSs...if that's any clue??

Daddy Cool being worked on Ft Meyers Fl.
 

Tell Ian,that when he visits the states in November we can visit Daddy cool over at Bob Oetringer place. Bud

Bobs
 

Thank Bud, Ian was already booked to go and see Bob to check out the other 39' Bubble deck. I hadn't appreciated Bob has Daddy Cool there as well. Knowing what else is there, he has some serious hardware under wraps!

Ian's off to see Wil at Phantom in Sarasota first, then maybe down to take in a day of the worlds - leaves me seriously jelous!

English Weather
 

I know you just can't get enough of your beautiful ENGLISH weather.See you some day. Bud

Great shots...Thanks

LS

Hey Ratman,

Wrong, What do you mean I`am never wrong, I`am just slightly misguided at times !!

Kalaazar

Hey Aaron - I think the 330 is a standard trs decal but not sure. I have pics from 1979 from magnum of 2 what I believe to be different striped starfires with very slight hardware differences like one has 2 compasses, no radio, different color chicken bars etc. The boat in post #1 here lookes perfectly identical except missing the foward 2 gas fill caps. The tanks are small enough that they could have been added after the boat was complete but that seems strange. Also, mine was supposedly laidup in December 1978 and sold in May of 1979, but who knows... Pics I got from Magnum are from the spring of 79' right around when mine was delivered but again, there are small differences in the pictures.

- Marshall

I tried to post here but I am a computer knucklehead so I emailed some to you if you want to post them.

Thanks
 

Sounds like you've really done your homework on the history of your boat - great to hear.

I'll look forward to receiving the photos.

Reinforcing my knucklehead status I checked my sent email and missed a letter in your address, you should have them now.

After looking at the Magnum build sheet again (thanks Bud) the 27' sport # 389 built for the American Heart Assoc. is pictured in the first post which also might imply that my boat # 388 was just completed and launched for the first time or so at the time the pictures were taken.

Makes sense...pretty cool.

78 or 79?
 

Here’s Marshalls pics of his Starfire – some from Magnum and one just before he restored the boat. I think you’ll agree, it looks great!

From reading this thread and the fact that the hull numbers are sequential for two of the photographed boats, it probably makes more sense that my photos were taken in April ’79 and not April ’78 as I had thought. If this is the case, that means that Cigarette built (to race spec) the 39’ bubble deck, Bounty Hunter, in about 3 months, which I guess is just about feasible and poses another question in my mind. The ’79 CTC was the first time the bubble deck had been seen in the UK but we had assumed it had raced in the US before coming to the UK. The start was delayed by 24 hrs due to bad weather and to kill time we went exploring around the local yards. We found BH in a shed on the Hamble (I think) and it appeared to be being re-engined. One of the exhaust cut outs from the transom was on the floor, which I kept as a memento. I guess what may have actually have been happening was not that the engines were being re-fitted but instead, the engines were being installed for the very first time, on the basis the boat was completed in a hurry and the engines were never fitted in the US, so it could be shipped to the UK in time to compete in the CTC? I guess we will never know………………..

It does however seem fairly probable then that the photos at the beginning of the thread are as Marshall had suspected; of his Starfire!?

Starfire
 

Looks great

Bh
 

The following pictures of Bounty Hunter;

Being built at Cigarette.
Having engines installed at a yard on the Hamble ’79.
Start of the 1979 CTC.