Offshoreonly.com - 188th Street 1978

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.....