Gene, what boat is this shot taken of? Is this the 40' Cig of Doc Magoon?

Jeff, my understanding was that Crower made the early systems with Lucas. I don't know if Jim Kinsler worked for Crower but he ended up buying the tooling and a load of bits from Crower and it is now all branded as Kinsler. I think the Kiekhaefer units were basically just Crower/Lucas units......with of course the infamous red stacks!!

What SB said, Absolutely a cool thread with some very special contributors. Thanks for the history lesson guys. It's very much appreciated.

??? Maybe Charles Gill's 'I Like It Too? (ex Aeromarine III)

Thanks for triggering my memory--Jeff--

The first units Richie built used the Crower manifold----and the right angle drive---and used a Gilmer belt to drive the high pressure pump---and an electric high pressure pump to be used for starting and low speed operation---the belt drive was troublesome---but they did perform!!! Mr. K. was soon making his own manifolds (pictured) and then the gear drive 'accessory' section that could drive the high pressure pump, alternator, water pump,distributor/or/metering unit---all without belts.

Mercury Marine soon came out with a similar unit using the Crower manifold--but used the Hilborn constant flow system---just like the one used on my airplane!!

Looks a little different to me, the engine hatches look like the boxes on a 35 or a 40.......pretty hard to tell though but those motors sure look pretty!

Here's Aero III as Realite Charger.

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Sounds good to me. There were also McKay and Duggan.

7xChamp...........Tell us a story!!!!


Jeff

The right one, the bright one, that's Martini..............this'll put a smile on your face!!

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Where did you find that rod??? From an early '482'----1967 or 68----?


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It's from the original Champion Makers out of Dry Martini 35 Cig. They were probably in the boat when this photo was taken which you gave me..................imagine that!

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Mike Bontoft has both the original motors with Kiekhaefer injector systems and Kiekhaefer headers.........sadly they're in kit form at the moment.........hopefully one day they'll go back together.........can't imagine the headers are usable though.

What's with the BMW 3 series, is that yours?

???BMW-3??? Not mine---my current rides are kept in this hangar---ask Mike if he remembers a late night departure from the Lake--no runway lights--a deer on the runway??

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Serious toy, nice Merc as well!

Yeh, Mike's told me that story....sounds pretty hairy. Mike couldn't remember exactly which boat it was that you'd gone to LakeX to work on......was it Preston Henns Anhauser Busch Bertram 38?

Gene, I reckon this shot you posred is of Bill Elswick's Performer 36 called Thunder........what do you think?

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Pretty sure it was Howard Quam's----I did race with Preston in that 38'---did test it at the Lake----and have a good story how that boat met it's end---

........come on, you can't leave us hanging.......

But that is a 40'!!?? I agree the hatches are a match---could be??

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Preston had renamed the 'Natural Light'---called it 'Swapshop'----sold it to a young Whittington---

Preston and I were watching from my plane when he STUFFED it----nearly broke the nose off----

Bad day for 38' Bertrams----Smiley Johns was killed that day--riding with Howard--very sad day---

Nah, that's a 36 not a 40.......there's no step on the topsides. From what I can make out, Don Aronow had created the 35 from cutting down the top sides of the 36 and using the same deck. He then sold the old 36 moulds to Bill Elswick, who called it a Performer 36. The first one out the mould was Thunder, it raced at Cowes in 77, don't know what came if it after that. Elswick then changed the top sides of the mould, so that it looked like a 40 Cig.....all very confusing but I'm pretty sure this is correct. Two more race boats were then built, Night Moves and a black one called JPS which sank in Argentina and Elswick/crew were drifting in a raft for weeks before being picked up by a Russian freighter. I think Performer got sold off but I can't really make out what happened to the 36 moulds??????? Anyone know?????? Elswick also had the Jean Claud Simon 32 Cary/Cobra moulds which he used for the Performer 32.

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Agreed, very sad! I've seen the pictures of the Flapjack 38 when it delaminated, I won't post it in the interests of good taste and respect, since I assume this relates to the same incident of the fatality, right?

There's a picture of the Bertram after the event you discribed hanging on the wall at the Swap Shop.
Bill Elswick donated his prize money to Smiley's family after the race.

Jeff

Bob Sheer was throttling the JPS Performer or Cig. Anybody have pictures?
He suspected they wouldn't make it. He strapped the life raft to engine hatches before the race.
They had to give up their Rolexes to the freighter crew. Needless to say the old lady in the galley served up Borscht and rice for every meal. Mmmmmmmmmm.

H20, ask him how many hours in the life raft and how many days on the freighter.
Also, ask him how many seconds between throttle blips on those big seas.

This was the same race that Billy Martin mixed up his patented "Rocket Fuel".

Jeff

I also have a picture of the delaminated Flapjack. That was at Pt. Pleasant, an earlier race. I always thought that was the first Kevlar race boat---

Sammy is just an email away. Should I ask him?

Jeff

Sure---Sammy knows---

Pretty sure your right there. There are several grades of Kevlar available, K29, K49, K100, K129, etc........K49 was used for the layup (probably the only one available back then), which is why the Bertram was called 49'er.

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I feel like Brownie now.......if he read this he would say......Spread some of that on my lawn, it is pure Poppycock!!!!!

Think about it.....if Don cut the sides down on the 36 to make the 35....... how did the crease get in the side? Then how did he pull in a 9 foot plus beam down to 8 feet.

He did use the 36 wide deck on the 35's and cut the walkways off them. Depending on the day and the worker, some of those 35's had decks that were put on straight and some others did not. Don said the crooked ones had more character!

I thought that was why the crease was put in the side........by pulling in the topsides to take the flair out the bow and go from 9' to 7' 6"............ I thought that everything below the crease was basically the same, including the misalignment on the spray rails, although I have read that the rocker was modified as some point as well???

Yeh, the deck on Martini is skewed a little up front.

Can you shed any more light on the Performer story?

Jeff just talked to Bob he said they spent about 18 hours in the raft & 9 days on the freighter, & it seemed like eternity between throttle blips. Mark

Here is a story were side exhaust would have been nice. At the Stroh's Ceder Point race Bob & Davey Gillmore were racing Diamond Don's newly acquired REALLY RIDICULOUS Bertram. The night before the race while backing up the Bertram Davey hydraulic one of the engines. Bob was elected to pull the plugs & flush the engine out. Bob was not happy as his buddy Dave left him in the bilge and went to the local tavern. Bob said if the Bertram had side exhaust this would not have happened. They raced the next day only to have the PVC plumbing that was used in some the rigging to break & fill the bilge up.:picard1:

. The plug maker told Don that was the last time he was going to do one of those creases. If you look at some period Glastrons, they had the crease a few years before it ever showed up in Miami..

Performer......I knew Bill and some of the other guys, but back then things moved so fast, you could not be sure who had which mold or who was making the XXX brand of boat now as compared to last week.

Hi Charlie---wasn't that Nicky??? He was sure prolific back then---

Charlie, I've always wondered, what is the engine in your avatar and what boat is it in?

Gene,

You're right. Nick Chapman. I thought the pattern was already built and then narrowed up later.
Shake down Bob and get some answers out of him.
Do you remember who raced with Preston when he had the 27 Magnum?

Jeff

That was one of the two engines in my 38 foot Top Banana.

They were built by Stan Irwin of Custom Engine in Miami. Stan was the same guy who built the engines for Magoon when he did the Miami to New York record run.

The Miami to NY deal was that Stan would build the engines and if the motors broke down, it would be him who got the credit......However, if the boat broke the record, Stan would still get paid in full, but the story line would be the motors were built by Mercury Racing. Doc broke the record and did the run in 22 hours plus.

When I built my first offshore boat, a 24 foot banana, Don Aronow rigged it for me at Magnum...he owned both Cigarette and Magnum at the same time for a while. He said he had special engines for me as he wanted me to run in the Modified class not Production. Modified allowed engines to be tuned and changed for more power.

So the next thing I know, I meet Stan Irwin at his shop and he delivers two 350 cu in motors that are developing 400 HP each. That man could build some motors for sure. Video of my old boat running is on You tube ....search for Bushmills1979.

Gene good to hear from you, we missed you at OFF. They had some Switzer wings there, you would have felt right at home. Reminded me of some crazy guy at the Outboard World Championship back in 69 in UU23, that boat was flying.

Yes, Mr. Chapman was the best in plugs and mold work.

You would also have some knowledge of that Miami to NY run with Stan Irwin engines that I just wrote about.

Hi Charlie----thanks for the great story about Stan. He built engines--large and small. Stan Irwin was my hero, my mentor, my boss, my co-driver, my best friend or years---


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Ask Mike about this rod? The early KAM engines were using Carillos---back in 68--69 Wayne Meyer was building race 482s at the boathouse using these BIG HEAVY rods. Maybe from Vincenzo's 28' Magnum??

Wayne had a bright young mechanic working for him named Keith ---


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From last year's build

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The second set should be here tomorrow. Ya, I said second set. Found them online in the mid west about a year ago (part #'s make life easy). Been working on the guy ever since and he gave them up last week and according to tracking they should be here tomorrow. Did I mention I picked up a 427 tall block last week also? Building a clone 482 (really a 496 because boring the cylinders) to match the last one so I can dump both in the Nova.

Also from what I understand the Nova 24 was made from a 7 meter Donzi hull and a Cary deck. The 7 meter not being long enough and the Cary deck being to big there was some saws involved.

Charlie---sorry I missed that. I have been trying to get Doc to go to the reunion. Maybe next year I can shame him to come in his new fractional??
The Switzer brothers were about 30 years ahead of the time-----the boats DID fly----


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