Originally Posted by T2x (Post 140228)

1959 Ray Hunt designs Bertram 31 "moppie" First V step hull (Step refers to longitudinal strakes) Boat immediately wins Miami Nassau race by a huge margin and establishes deep vees as the rough water planing design of choice, combining strength and performance.

1962 Don Aronow creates Formula 233 (copies Bertram with sexier lines) Hailed as a "break through". This makes offshore racing available to more people.

1964 Don Aronow creates Donzi (copies Formula with sexier lines)Hailed as a "break through".

1965 Paul Allison creates the "pad bottom" , first change in Ray Hunt's design that actually meant anything.

1966 Don Aronow creates Magnum (copies Donzi with sexier.etc, Throws a Schultz tunnel hull in for some obscure reason)

1969 Don Aronow creates Cigarette (copies Magnum without the Schultz Hydrokat)

1970 Don Aronow hires John Crouse as PR guy and is immediately Canonized as the second coming of Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein with a little Paul Bunyan thrown in for good measure.

1976 George Linder creates Challenger 21 arguably the greatest Vee bottom ever.

1981 Don Aronow creates The Squadron ( just a copy of Cigarette)

1981 Reggie Fountain aftermarkets Excaliburs, calls them Executioners and becomes the inventor of the Vee bottom....takes out pages of advertizing, and people actually believe him.

1981 Shadow puts a step on the revamped Challenger 21 and creates the world's first production stepped V bottom...admitting that the idea came from 1930's era runabouts and Sea plane floats.... Design is immediately discarded because there is no speed increase and the boat turns dangerously.

1982 Don Aronow creates the Apache 41 (Never gets a good night's sleep again).

1986 Don Aronow creates the "Blue Thunder" and a few years later is found dead of a gun shot wound. Early rumors that irate Blue Thunder owners killed him are squashed when Ben Kramer is implicated(irate Company owner).

1987. Hustler buys old Signature molds and creates new old Signatures.

1988 Fountain Powerboats creates the world's first ugly hook nosed bow and calls it an original "design change"..... and people believe him.

1993 Reggie Fountain invents the "stepped Vee"...again.......claims it's much faster .... and people believe him.

19931/2 Every other Vee bottom manufacturer invents the stepped Vee bottom ...again...
all of them are no faster than older models, but turn worse.

1996 Now that steps are considered State-of -the-Art, manufacturers turn to styling and graphics to jack up prices. Except Reggie who just charges a lot anyway...and people believe him.

1997 Mike Allweiss invents Factory class racing (or maybe it was Gene Whipp), believing that the public wants to watch 37 year old technology with sea plane bottom modifications flailing around in semi hysterical bedlam. This is considered "The Next Great Motorsport". Jersey Speed Skiff racers immediately protest, citing that they have had an exclusive on bizarre racing with antique designs for years.

1998 Manufacturers rise to the challenge and reduce weights in "competition" models to the point where they are useless in both rough and calm water.

1998 Pleasure boaters adopt all of this crap and put it to use in Poker Runs.....

2001. 38' Whiz bang barrel rolls in Atlantic City injuring passenger. Boat has Vee bottom with Steps. Other people report similar mishaps all over the U. S. (World?).

2001 Ray Hunt spins in his grave.

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Originally Posted by T2x (Post 1003589)

For the record I am not John Crouse....... He is much nicer than me....
His knowledge is second to none for the period 1958-1988, after which he basically pulled away from the sport. There is some debate over whether I have any base of knowledge at all........ but, I win an occasional debate or two...... ;) I have been fortunate enough to participate in many forms of boat racing, from Stock Outboard to OPC to Offshore over most of my life.
I've raced boats, built boats, sold boats, announced races and Poker Runs on TV for 20 years and wrote a few articles on the sport to boot..... I have a fairly good memory for details and was in "right place/right time" more often than not.


My relationship with John is quite interesting......... He was doing paid publicity for my boat companies while he was writing his history. He signed my copy to "One of the guys who made offshore history"..............and left me out of the book.

I am apparently vaguely forgettable.

T2x........

Originally Posted by T2x (Post 3579072)

And another squadron of "grasshoppers" arrives 10 years later and decides they know better....again.

Sigh!

T2x

Originally Posted by T2x (Post 2710102)

I just realised something.....

I started THIS POST before Scott Shogren got involved with high performance boat sales!

Time flies when you're having fun......:D

T2x

Originally Posted by golfmaxgolf (Post 3656386)

ttt