Steve would you know of the boat i'm am talking about?

jr mike

The cat is our old Cougar cat purchased from Betty Cook. I drove that for a couple of seasons with my dad at the throttles we managed to poke holes in it just about every race.

Each time it would begin to fill with seawater I would tell him over the intercom that the water was rising but he never slowed down until it was up to our waists. He then inflated the raft in one of the sponsons which I always disagreed with since we never could be sure if the raft would be enough to keep the boat afloat? In fresh water like at Lake Ponchatrain I wasn't really too concerned about losing our only raft but at Key West in the 1981 worlds he inflated the raft and while we waited for help sharks began to circle the boat as it began to sink.

I was a little more worried about the sharks then , but figured their would still be enough boat left to grab hold when it went down and not be swimming with the sharks when we noticed that three other race boats still in the race were coming straight for us and since we were up to the decks in water the other boats couldn't see us! So my dad and I had a quick discussion about whether we should jump in the water with the sharks to avoid getting run over by the other racers or take our chances and hope the other racers saw us in time?

The flares were under water so we waved our helmets and vests and luckily the other guys saw us in time. But I never let him inflate the raft again after that to save the boat. LOL

I have tons of old pictures of the cat and other racers including some of Charlie McCarthy but after scanning them the file was too large and I don't know how to compress them to post on this sight. I have literally thousands of old photo's and memorablia someone just needs to walk me through the process and I will post them.

We traded that wooden cat into Active Marine in Michigan for a new fiberglass cat in 1983 does anyone know how it got to the East Coast???

If it's for sale I would love to buy it and restore it?

Got a call tonite about the 28' Pantera -"Black Sunday" was in Catano,Puerto Rico in a boat yard. This boat was all black with Triple O/B's. They gave me a number to call, if anybody is interested. 787-810-5469, Ask for Moncho Alvarado. Boat ran in the 80's 90's. Maybe ask Pepe or Joe about it's history!

Possible picture from 1981 worlds in Key West.

Another picture from Key West in 1981. Note we left Betty's Kaama insignia on the deck we couldn't figure out how to get it off.

This is how it looked when Betty owned it. Note the cockpits are much farther forward. We moved them farther back to get more lift and speed. Which helped us sink it faster.

Les if you send me your pictures I will shrink them down and send them back to you.

[email protected]

Jon

Jon ,
My wife scans them then emails them to me and then I can attach them. I have no idea why that works but I am working on a easier method.

The 38 Bertram picture is June 2 1979 Keith Hazell and my dad winning the guy Lombardo race I think? After the 1979 season it was sold to an English racer. This Bertram fully rigged and race ready left bobby Moore's shop for 75K. My dad and keith raced all year and earned enough prize money to actually break even for the season. My dad was offered 125K for the boat after the season and sold it for the profit and because he felt like he needed a cat to be competitive in 1980 so he bought Betty's cat.

Times have changed in 1979 first place in the open class paid 25K. This was before the superboat class and when there was enough prize money to make the sport reasonable.

Bobby Moore could build you a race boat out the door for 75K in those days.